Debate Analysis from Inside the Circus Tent

I've waited a couple of days to put my post debate analysis up on the blog site primarily to get a sense of what the political types had to say - not a lot at this point in time although Laura Leslie did her usual excellent job in summarizing the proceedings. Now I am running for office so my comments here won't be quite as thorough as they would be if I was a member of the press and free to ruffle any and all feathers. But here goes.

Based on our internal polling we smoked the opposition. OK, I understand that it's a real internal poll - family, campaign workers and friends - but the consensus was that we clearly showed the viewing public that I would be the best governor. I thought Fred - and who the heck is looking at his hair coloring - seems to me to be hitting the wall somewhat after a three year marathon of BBQ's, meet and greets, and other quasi campaign activities. Now that's not to say that Fred won't give his little extra effort down the home stretch, but I don't think he's having much fun.

Bill on the other hand seems a bit disoriented since the departure of the Fetzer-
Stephens consulting team. Who is prepping Bill? I'm not sure but I don't believe that web cams in the Legislature (scary what you might see) and lots of way off statistics (thank you, Laura) are going to get it.

Then the famous missing Mayor who's riding high (if 18% can be called riding high) in the most recent inaccurate poll will, I guess, tell us he's running for Mayor again, or I mean Congress, no, I guess he'll run for governor. And I see he's worried about gangs, an issue we all should worry about, but will he come into the WRAL-TV neighborhood this week where a "gang of three" will be waiting to initiate him? Regardless, welcome Pat.

And finally, kudos to Laura for noticing my Carolina Blue tie. Interesting fact that no one has picked up on in the media. I'm the only candidate with a degree (two in my case) from any state supported public university. Richard and Bev are all worried about tuition but neither ever graced a campus of our state university system. And finally, it's obvious the only way to get a headline out of these debates is to get in to the Randy Parton fight. So here's fair warning, I'm going to be weighing in and in fact have talked at length about it with Ben Niolett at the N&O. The fun is just beginning.