AAC Blog

The Independent

By Bob Geary

I just watched a TV re-run of yesterday's U.S. Senate debate at the N.C. Bar Association meeting in Wilmington. In true, objective news reporting style, the N&O's headline — "Burr, Marshall rip Washington" — gave no indication whatsoever that one candidate might've dominated or that the other could've stayed home for all he said. (Oops. Did I just give my punchline away?) The newspaper's article, too, quite judiciously avoided any conclusions as to the Burr-Marshall outcome, and in fact gave more than equal time to the observations of the third candidate on stage, Libertarian Mike Beitler, who maintained — incorrectly — that the choice of Burr or Marshall was no choice at all.

So who won? Elaine Marshall did, convincingly, and I have to believe that even Richard Burr's staffers told him afterward that he can't get through an entire Senate campaign saying absolutely nothing about every issue.