35—percentage of state General Fund budget allocated to public education in 2009-2010 (Ibid)

789 million—total amount in dollars cut from public education  this year by the 2009-2010 budget passed by the General Assembly (N.C. General Assembly 2009 session, Senate Bill 202)

225 million—amount in dollars of budget cuts in grades 4-12 made by the General Assembly in the current year's budget (Charlotte Observer, March 14, 2010)

3,000—number of teaching positions eliminated in public schools this year by 2009-2010 budget (News & Observer, March 14, 2010)

1.6 billion—amount in dollars of cuts to health and human services this year made by 2009-2010 budget (N.C. General Assembly 2009 session, Senate Bill 202)

155 million—amount in dollars of cuts to mental health, developmental disabilities, and substance abuse services this year made by 2009-2010 budget (Ibid)

999 million—amount in dollars to be cut from next year's continuation budget of public education if revenues grow as projected (Ibid)

1.4 billion—amount in dollars to be cut from next year's continuation budget of health and human services if revenues grow as projected (Ibid)

170 million—amount in dollars to be cut from next year's continuation budget of mental health, developmental disabilities, and substance abuse services if revenues grow as projected (Ibid)

1 billion—amount revenues are expected to be short of projections at the end of 2009-2010 fiscal year (Charlotte Observer, March 14, 2010)

1 billion-amount in dollars of revenue raised by 2009-2010 temporary tax cuts that will expire in 2011-2012(N.C. Budget and Tax Center, Volume 15, Number 8)

1.4 billion —amount in dollars of federal stimulus funds used to balance the budget in 2009-2010 that will no longer be available in 2011-2012 (Ibid)

2.4 billion-total in dollars of money from temporary tax cut and federal stimulus money that will not be available for 2011-2012 budget (Ibid)

Conventional political wisdom in Raleigh these days is that this will be a huge Republican year at the polls, that the GOP may take control of the General Assembly and defeat some Democrats in the Congressional delegation.

Pundits can't talk enough about the Tea Party rallies and the public anger that is supposedly going to sweep Democrats out of office. The scandals surrounding former Governor Mike Easley and his associates are touted as an important factor that will help the Republican wave some conservatives say will be larger than the 1994 landslide.

Maybe, but here are some recent polling results that you may not have heard that seem to say otherwise.

Voters in North Carolina say if they were going to polls today, they would be voting Democratic in both legislative and Congressional races, and more people have a favorable impression of Barack Obama and Beverly Perdue than an unfavorable impression.

Voters say reducing health care costs is the issue that concerns them most after the economy and they believe the Democratic Party is better than the GOP at creating jobs, holding down health care costs, and fighting government corruption.

The findings were not leaked from a private poll conducted by a hopeful Democratic consultant. They are from the latest survey by the Pope Civitas Institute, founded by Republican consultant Jack Hawke, a former chair of the State Republican Party and the campaign manager for last year's Republican candidate for governor.

Civitas always issues press releases about selected finding before the entire poll is published that often frame the debate and dominate the headlines about public opinion. None of the findings that favor Democrats are ever publicized. But much to Civitas' chagrin, they are clearly there.

Out rallying the Tea Party

There's was more evidence in Raleigh this week that the Tea Party phenomenon may have peaked. The Tea Partiers called for a demonstration against health care reform outside the Raleigh office of Congressman Bobby Etheridge Thursday and about 40 people showed up with the usual signs about socialism and warnings that health care reform would mean the end of Western Civilization as we know it.

A counter demonstration across the street drew 300 people who support President Obama's reform proposals and Rep. Etheridge's vote for the bill that passed the House. The tide and the polls and the rallies appear to be turning.

Low turnout only a problem sometimes

The folks on Right Wing Avenue are also struggling to explain why voters in two counties recently approved raising local taxes to address budget problems. Taxes are always evil remember, government is always too big.

One of the folks in Lockerville dismisses the votes for a hike in the sales tax in Hertford County and Randolph County because of low voter turnout, less than ten percent of registered voters showing up at the polls.

Apparently low voter turnout means we shouldn't take the result of an election seriously. It's not what the voters really think.

Unless of course, it's the Wake County School Board elections, where turnout in November was roughly the same as it was in Hertford County last week.

Reform Blue Cross style

Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Brad Wilson recently summed up his position on health care reform in an appearance in Western North Carolina. Wilson said that the only role of government in reform should be to subsidize lower-income people in order to help them pay for private insurance.

In other words, government should only concern itself with making sure that Blue Cross gets more customers and makes more money. Don't fret about cost controls or budget concerns, and there's no need for any new regulations to make people can find coverage. Just pay us more and we'll do the rest.

You have to give Wilson one thing—he has a simple message. Profit, profit, profit.

From the fringe

George Leef with the Pope Center to Dismantle for Higher Education weighs in From the Fringe this week with a gem about the college professors that he roundly despises.

"Teachers and professors often devote time to regaling captive students with their views on what's wrong with the world, overwhelmingly to create the impression that we need more coercion by government."

Wonder where all the faculty members hold those pro-coercion secret meetings to plan their brainwashing strategy?

Two of Leef's colleagues at the Pope Center to Dismantle recently pleased their mentor in an essay about the UNC system that Leef hates so deeply. It includes this conclusion about proposals to raise tuition.

"The economic downturn is no time for politicians and bureaucrats to be picking the pockets of students and taxpayers to pay for their profligate ways."

There are plenty of arguments against raising tuition, but making more investments in the university that educates our population is not one of them.

Children in North Carolina public schools were hit more than 1,400 times last year as a form of discipline according to report presented to lawmakers this week by Action for Children. That doesn't appear to trouble state education leaders, who don't even collect the statistics.

The State Board of Education hasn't weighed in on the issue at all, despite compelling evidence that corporal punishment negatively affects students' psychological and educational development and shapes their view of violence.

Thirty states ban the practice. North Carolina law allows local school districts to decide if adults can strike children to teach them a lesson. Sixty-nine of the state's 115 districts have banned corporal punishment, 46 still allow it.

The report finds that 90 percent of the hitting last year came in just ten districts, with Burke County topping the list, and that it doesn't appear to be helping students behave better. There's no correlation for example between corporal punishment and suspensions.

Schools where children are spanked don't seem to do any better keeping kids in school. Many have higher than average dropout rates.

Most disturbingly of all, the study finds that there is no exemption from the policy in state or federal law for students with disabilities, however severe. There are no numbers about how many times children with disabilities were struck last year, but it is almost certainly happening.

A 2006 report by the U.S. Department of Education found that students with disabilities in North Carolina were hit 290 times in 2006 and a national report last year by Human Rights Watch and the ACLU found that students with disabilities were hit twice as often students in the general population.

Action for Children and other advocates have proposed a ban on corporal punishment for the last several years, but state lawmakers have refused, usually after debates that are as disturbing as this week's report.

In one House floor debate a few years ago, Rep. Ronnie Sutton told his colleagues that when he was growing up, he was "beaten like a rented mule once or twice a week at school." Of course, he didn't mention that mules can't be beaten. They are protected by state animal cruelty laws.

In recent years, officials with the North Carolina Association of Educators, the UNC School of Social Work and the North Carolina PTA have all spoken out for a corporal punishment ban. They have cited the culture created by corporal punishment administered by authority figures, the bad example it provides for kids, and the research that shows it is not an effective way to discipline children.

All that has yet to convince the majority of lawmakers, many of whom often point to what they claims is the deterrence value of corporal punishment. The State School Boards Association always fights the ban, supporting the right of local school districts to decide if it is ok to hit children.

Groups on the religious right are also outspoken opponents and say that spanking is an effective form of discipline.  

It's hard to be optimistic that those attitudes have changed much as the reaction of lawmakers this week to the Action for Children report was mixed at best. One lawmaker worried that even the partial step of banning corporal punishment for students with disabilities would mean some children would escape punishment.

Rep. Curtis Blackwood suggested that the report's authors deliberately used words to arouse emotions to build support for a ban.

But no specific words are needed. In a civilized world, news of children at school being struck by adults would prompt outrage, not heads nodding in approval.

UNC President Erskine Bowles has proposed tying enrollment and funding increases for each university campus to retention and graduation goals. The community college system has also launched initiatives to improve the graduation rate.

The issue is receiving more attention than ever as the state budget problems continue. Governor Beverly Perdue recently predicted that lawmakers will face a billion dollar shortfall when they return for the General Assembly that begins in May.

The anti-government forces have had a field day with the issue. One right-wing think tank has absurdly suggested that North Carolina doesn't get much for its investment in the university system. Another has called for tuition increases of as much as 40 percent at UNC schools to reduce what they describe as the inappropriate public subsidy of a college education.

The anti-government crowd sees the struggles of the community colleges as a way to renew their call to dismantle K-12 public education, citing the number of community college students who need remediation or developmental classes in their first year.

All that was clearly on the minds of the university and community college leaders who appeared before a legislative committee Tuesday to discuss retention and graduation rates. UNC Vice-President Alan Mabe told lawmakers he was not there to explain away the university's numbers, but to look at other ways to "characterize what they do."

Mabe and Community Colleges President Scott Ralls both talked about ways to improve graduation rates but they also put the numbers in perspective. North Carolina's experience is not unique. The four-year graduation rate at UNC schools is 35.2 percent, well above the national average of 26.7 percent at four-year public universities. UNC's six-year graduation rate is 58.8 percent, also about ten points better than the national average.

The numbers are too low and they are also misleading. Mabe gave several examples of why. One is that students who took six years to graduate were enrolled an average of 8.4 semesters, just over four years of class time. Some left school during the six years for health reasons, others left to work to save money to return.

There are similar problems with the statistics about community college graduation and retention rates, though they are also above the national average. Ralls pointed that many North Carolina students leave community college before graduation for a 4-year institution. In states like Florida, they leave only after graduating, but the difference in not reflected in the statistics comparing the states.

There are plenty more examples of how the numbers about graduation and retention don't tell the whole story, but several things are clear after hearing Ralls and Mabe talk about graduation rates and their efforts to improve them.

The problems in North Carolina are faced by states across the country and in many ways our state is doing a better job addressing them. And there's still plenty more to do, particularly when students first get to campus and that will require more funding for programs and services that help students before they begin to struggle.

But none of this should weaken the support that lawmakers provide for higher education. That's just what the anti-government think tanks are hoping.

It's worth remembering that North Carolina's founders believed a free higher education was not a subsidy, but an essential service to provide to the people of the state.  It's not free for students any more, but lawmakers are still obligated to keep it as affordable as they can, while working hard to make sure state funding is used as wisely as possible. That includes working to improve graduation rates and help students graduate sooner.

Ralls listed the top five reasons students withdraw from community college. Three of them involve economic problems, lack of money, pressure from having to work full-time, and having to care for dependents, often parents. Mabe cited similar issues as reasons students leave UNC.

That ought to leave lawmakers with at least two lessons about higher education. They need to pair more support for initiatives to improve graduation rates with their calls to improve them. And if they really want more North Carolina students to succeed in higher education, they need to do more to help their families so the students can afford to go to college and can afford to stay there.

Sixteen states have already approved a version of the proposal that includes coverage of evidence -based behavioral therapy that helps children adjust to mainstream environments, helping the children and their families and saving money in the long run by reducing the need for institutional care.

A recent CDC study found that roughly one in 110 children have some form of autism.

Komives told lawmakers that Blue Cross policies already covers many medical treatments including speech and occupational therapy, though those treatments have annual limits, forcing parents to pay for visits on their own.

She also questioned the effectiveness of expanded behavior therapies despite the significant evidence that shows they work, including a 2001 U.S. Surgeon General's report.

Fleming told the committee that the proposal before them would be the most generous in the country if it was approved, a claim quickly contradicted by Lori Unumb, an attorney with the national group Autism Speaks, who pointed out that several states have no cap on the coverage.

Fleming tried again, claiming that states have only passed mandates in the last year or two, not enough time to assess their costs or effectiveness. That was not true either. Unumb told lawmakers that several states had passed mandates as early as 2001.

Fleming's last argument was that requiring more comprehensive coverage for autism could raise premiums as much as 2.84 percent. But that claim came after lawmakers had already heard actuary Marc Lambright present a report that estimated the proposals would increase premium costs .4 percent.

When asked about the discrepancy, Lambright pointed to his methodology and similar research done in states that have already passed the mandate like Minnesota, where premiums have increased 83 cents per month per policyholder to provide the expanded coverage for autism.

The lobbyist for the North Carolina Chamber testified against the proposal, arguing that now is the worst time to increase the costs of insurance coverage and remarkably, that the lack of consensus about its cost should give lawmakers pause.

By that logic, nothing would ever pass if a special interest merely showed up to oppose it, creating the dreaded lack of consensus.

There is something very close to a consensus that the behavioral therapy works and would help families struggling to care for their autistic children while not increasing insurance costs significantly.

The consensus problem is with the rhetoric of Blue Cross.

Not long after Fleming and Komives were telling lawmakers that providing broader coverage for autism would raise premiums, Blue Cross spokesman Lew Borman was defending recent pay raises for the company's top executives, saying that "less than a third of a cent of the premium dollar goes to executive compensation, which means that executive pay has a nominal impact on premiums."

Helping children with autism and their families would cost four-tenths of a cent of the premium dollar and that's too expensive, but executive compensation that includes a $4.08 million salary for CEO Bob Greczyn costs three-tenths of a premium dollar and it's called nominal and doesn't really matter.

At least we know where the company's priorities are.

47—percentage of people who say they "oppose the health care reform proposals presently being discussed" (Ibid)

37— percentage of those who oppose health care reform proposals presently being discussed because they "favor health care reform overall but think the current proposals don't go far enough to reform health care" (Ibid)

58—total percentage of people who favor health reform proposals presently being discussed or support reform but think the current proposals don't go far enough (Ibid)

30—total percentage of people who oppose health care reform proposals presently being discussed or oppose reform but support current proposals because they will keep health reform from happening (Ibid)

57—percentage of people who think that the Republicans are deliberately avoiding compromise in order to obstruct the bill in any form (Ibid)

36—think that Republicans in Congress are working hard to try to find a compromise with the Democrats on the health care bill (Ibid)

67—percentage of people who say they are not confident in pharmaceutical companies to recommend the right thing for reforming the U.S. health care system. (Gallup Poll. March 2-3, 2010)

71—percentage of people who say they are not confident in health insurance companies to recommend the right thing for reforming the U.S. health care system. (Gallup Poll. March 2-3, 2010)

19—-percentage of people who say that Congress should stop working on health care reform this year (Kaiser Family Foundation Tracking Poll, February 23, 2010)

76—percentage of people who say it is extremely or very important to reform the way health insurance works (Ibid)

68—percentage of people who say it is extremely or very important to provide financial help for lower and middle income people as part of health reform law (Ibid)

58—percentage of people who say they will be angry or disappointed if Congress decides to stop work on health care reform and does not pass a law this year (Ibid)

38— percentage of people who say they will be happy or relieved if Congress decides to stop work on health care reform and does not pass a law this year (Ibid)

Wake County School Board Chair Ron Margiotta says that he was "out of line" when he referred to parents expressing their views at Tuesday's public hearing as animals coming out of their cages.

Margiotta tells the News & Observer that the remarks were made "in the heat of the moment." and says "if I offended anyone, it was not intended."

If he offended anyone? Referring to people who came to a school board meeting to express their views as "animals coming out of their cages" doesn't leave much room for interpretation.

What else could he have intended?

It makes Margiotta's view of his constituents disturbingly clear.

Anti-immigrant zealotry update

The anti-immigrant forces in North Carolina are lashing out in desperation as talk of comprehensive immigration reform increases in Washington.

Beaufort County Commission and anti-immigrant zealot Hood Richardson continues to rant about state government websites presenting information in Spanish.

Oh, the horror.

Richardson has again convinced his fellow commissioners to send a letter to Governor Beverly Perdue requesting that all Spanish-language content be removed from state sites.

This is the third time the board has sent the pathetic request. The Washington Daily News reports that Perdue responded to the last one with a letter saying:

"Health and safety information is essential to everyone, and the ability to understand and comply with instructions, in turn, benefits our communities. Crisis situations require immediate and collective cooperation, and therefore universal access to emergency messages facilitates help for all."

That wasn't good enough for Richardson of course, who said that Perdue "failed to understand the issue of illegal immigration confronting the state and its counties."

Perdue understands fine and she no doubt also realizes that Richardson seems willing to jeopardize people's lives as part of his ridiculous and offensive crusade.

More absurdity from Gheen

Speaking of ridiculous and offensive, the latest missive from Bill Gheen and Americans for Legal Immigration (ALIPAC) breathlessly warns people that the recent theft of railroad spikes in Henderson County by two undocumented immigrants is part of national terrorist plot by "illegal aliens" that will cause mass causalities.

Gheen cites a story in the Asheville Citizen Times about the incident, but leaves out a few things the paper also reported, like the fact that the theft of the spikes is a relatively common crime that has been committed at least 25 times this year in the 22 states served by Norfolk Southern Railroad.

The paper also quotes a company spokesman saying that the missing spikes "were along a rarely used section of track and didn't appear a threat to train safety."

So the national terrorist threat is really just a fairly common crime committed by citizens and undocumented workers that poses no real threat to anybody's safety. Foiled again Mr. Gheen.

Americans for the Prosperous -and the misleading

The folks at Americans for the Prosperous are touting a recent poll they published showing Democratic state Rep. Jimmy Love trailing possible Republican opponents in his bid for reelection.

That might be a surprising development until you read the questions that AFP used in the polls. The Sanford Herald reports that people were asked if they were less likely to support Love if they knew he "voted to raise taxes by $1 billion," "voted to slash the sentences of rapists and murderers," "voted to allow habitual drunk drivers to get their (driver's) licenses back," and "voted to force taxpayers to fund political campaigns."

Americans for the Prosperous Director Dallas Woodhouse denied that the survey was a push poll because it didn't advocate for a specific candidate. Woodhouse said, "I wouldn't (stand behind the results) if I didn't think it had some semblance of accuracy. It doesn't do us any good to have polls that aren't accurate."

Really? It doesn't do you any good to make up ridiculous and misleading questions to outrage voters and get the results you want and the offensive claims you make published in the local paper?

Please. It is a pathetic push poll that the mainstream media ought to ignore.

It ought to prompt a lot more than that.

A report by SBI analyst Duane Deaver used at the 1993 murder trial said that human blood was found on Taylor's truck, a claim that prosecutors stressed repeatedly in making their case to jurors.

The investigation by the commission revealed that only the preliminary test found that the substance on Taylor's truck was blood and that further testing by the SBI lab indicated that it was not human blood at all, a fact left out of Deaver's report at the trial.

Attorney General Roy Cooper says he has ordered a review of the lab, but that's not good enough for defense lawyers and Christine Mumma, the Director of the N.C. Center for Actual Innocence, who has called for an independent investigation to see if other cases have been affected by similarly misleading reports.

An independent review seems the least the state should do after sending an innocent man to prison based on a finding that the SBI knew was wrong when he was convicted. That there is any dispute about an outside investigation is impossible to comprehend and reflects an even greater problem with the criminal justice system—the seeming inability of many prosecutors and investigators to admit they made a mistake.

Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby said during the commission's hearings that it was his job to defend the conviction and argued that there was no new evidence pointing to Taylor's innocence. After the commission's three-judge panel ruled that Taylor had been wrongly convicted, Willoughby told Taylor that he was sorry and that he wished he'd had all the testimony about his innocence in 1991 that the commission heard.

That provided another head scratching moment. Hearing all the testimony now didn't stop Willoughby from defending the wrong decision made 17 years ago that sent Taylor to prison.

That is a pattern that has become familiar in cases of wrongful convictions. The most famous example is the wrongful conviction that sent a Wilkes County man to death row in 1993 based on testimony from an eyewitness that memos later revealed the prosecution knew could not have been telling the truth.

SBI Director Robin Pendergraft is still defending Deaver actions during Greg Taylor's trial, pointing out that he violated no polices of the SBI.

But Deaver' report said that blood was found on Greg Taylor's truck even after he had conducted tests that showed it was not blood. Apparently SBI policy is more important than preventing the conviction of the wrong person for murder.

Pendergraft predictably opposes an outside investigation of the crime lab. That would apparently violate policy too.

It is probably a good to remind the director and the prosecutorial community that their job is to pursue justice on our behalf. That not only means convicting the guilty, it means protecting the innocent.

Margiotta either doesn't understand the implications of the vote he had just cast, which is highly unlikely, or he would rather continue to mislead the public about the consequences of the disastrous decision.

More high-poverty, resegregated schools are coming in Wake County. Gang of Five member John Tedesco, who has devised a still unseen rich zone, poor zone plan to replace the current policy, readily admits it. His proposal would create schools with high concentrations of poverty, which unfortunately means that they would also be overwhelmingly African-American.

That is simply a fact that Margiotta refuses to acknowledge and that much of the media coverage of the issue presents as only the view of the critics of the Gang of Five.

The decision comes in the face of overwhelming evidence that the resegregation will make learning more difficult for poor and minority students, evidence cited by many speakers at the public hearing that was part of Tuesday's meeting.

Tedesco says the resegregation will be addressed with more funding for high poverty schools, an approach that has failed miserably in systems where it has been tried, and there's no extra money in Wake County anyway.

The vote for resegregation came only a few hours after Tedesco and his fellow board members heard the details of the proposed school budget for next year that includes $20 million in budget cuts and layoffs of 83 people.

And that does not take into account the $15 million the new board voted to waste by abandoning a proposed site for a new high school in Northern Wake County or the money the new board voted to spend to hire an additional attorney, one with close ties to the Republican Party.

But a sharp disconnect between the reality and the pandering rhetoric of the Gang of Five is nothing new. Debra Goldman read a prepared statement at the meeting detailing all the pain that she said the current assignment policy causes for parents who can't send their kids to the nearest school.

But when the Wake Education Partnership recently released a report detailing the chaos and segregation that would result from assigning every student to the closest school, Goldman called the report preposterous.

Last Wednesday, Goldman declined to approve a resolution ending the current assignment policy and directed the board and staff to gather data for a working session to discuss the possible changes. Two days later she co-authored the resolution that the Gang of Five approved Tuesday night and said the board needed to make a determination "once and for all" about the direction to head.

The research and thoughtful debate about that direction that seemed important to her on Wednesday was no longer important Friday or Tuesday when ideology took over.

There's no other way to interpret the Gang of Five's contradicting claims and refusal to thoughtfully consider the ramifications of their decisions as they rush them through the board with little or no public notice or debate.

As if to pound that point home to doubters, after voting to end the diversity policy and resegregate the schools, the Gang of Five voted to hire the right-wing, pro-voucher Civitas Institute to provide board trainings.

Civitas is not only funded by conservative ideologue Art Pope, its board is chaired by pro-voucher and private school operator Robert Luddy, who was the largest single individual contributor to the campaigns of the four Gang of Fivers elected last fall.

The battle against undoing decades of progress in Wake County schools is not over. Supporters of diversity will not go away, as NAACP President William Barber made clear at Tuesday's meeting, leading the crowd of parents in an impromptu rally after the vote for resegregated schools.

Tedesco says it will take several months to develop a new assignment plan, giving the 94.5 percent of Wake County parents who said in a survey that they were satisfied with their child's school time to insist that the board make its decisions based on evidence and data about what's best for Wake County students.

But it's an uphill battle. The members of Gang of Five made it clear again Tuesday night that they will let nothing stand in the way of their rigid right-wing resegregationist march, regardless of what it does to our students or our community.

But it's more than a little premature to start ordering the champagne. There are small, but growing signs that the predicted Republican wave may have already crested and that voters have just as many doubts about GOP candidates as they do about Democrats.

The reelection effort of Republican Senator Richard Burr might be the best example. You would think Burr would be well ahead in his race. He has fought against virtually every proposal from President Obama and Congressional Democrats that we are told are unpopular with the American people.

He spoke out loudly against health care reform last summer when the tea party craze was at its peak. He has more than $4 million in the bank and can seemingly raise unlimited funds from the pharmaceutical industry when he needs to. And he is an incumbent whose six years in the high profile office have given him far more name recognition than any of his possible Democratic opponents.

Then remember that this is an off-year election, when the party not in power in the White House traditionally gains seats. Everything seems to be lining up in Burr's favor—except public opinion.

The latest Elon University Poll finds that 51 percent of the state wants someone else to hold Burr's seat. Only 24 percent would like to see him reelected. A Public Policy Polling survey found that only 35 percent of the electorate approved of the job Burr is doing in Washington.

Those are not numbers that sound like the predictor of big Republican wins in November and Burr is at the top of the Republican ticket in North Carolina.

Fetzer and many pundits continue to miscast the public anger as narrowly focused on Democratic incumbents in Raleigh and Washington. But people are mad at most politicians and don't think either party is helping their families very much, though it's worth noting that President Obama is significantly more popular in North Carolina than Burr and Republicans in Congress overall.

If Republicans in North Carolina have an edge eight months before the general election, it is largely based on the fact that more Democrats are currently in power in the state. It's not some sweeping public endorsement of Republican ideas that accounts for it, it is the ongoing public anxiety about the economy.

If people begin to believe that the economy is turning around, especially if their own economic situation begins to improve, much of the Republican momentum will evaporate and this could be a typical off year election when the party out of power gains some seats, but not enough to take over in Raleigh or Washington.

That would also require people to have faith that Democrats are willing to stand up to the special interests on Wall Street whose greedy behavior precipitated the economic collapse Sputtering Congressional efforts to crack down on the worst Wall Street abuses haven't helped.

But turning to Republicans doesn't have much appeal either at this point, as they seem more likely to apologize for the financial industry that funds their campaigns than to confront it.

Voters are definitely angry and anxious. But they are looking for more than just a full slate of candidates and a promise not to agree with whatever the other party proposes. Don't count on that Republican landslide just yet.