<< Back 7/24/02 The inviting prospect of a short campaign SMN Despite all the partisan bickering, the 10 court cases and the aggravating wait, we now have a primary election date of Sept. 10, one that is set in stone. General elections will follow on Nov. 5. The decision last week by the U.S. Justice Department to OK our state’s new legislative districts means we will have a primary in about 48 days, skip the runoff primary, and then hold an election 45 days later. That abbreviated campaign season will be refreshing after what it took to get here. Rehashing the history of the redistricting debacle would be painful. Suffice it to say that Democrats in control of the General Assembly did what the party in control always does during redistricting — they drew districts that benefitted themselves. The Republicans did what the minority party always does — they challenged the plan. What made this particular redistricting a problem, though, is that Democrats stacked the deck in their favor (an acceptable political tactic) without doing a good job of creating districts with some semblance of county or geographic unity (that is a problem). When Republicans challenged the districts, they didn’t bother to argue that Democrats were being partisan; no, they went to the state Constitution and argued for compact, reasonable districts. It was a good argument, and it carried its weight through the courts. The truth, though, is that the districts the Republican judge in Johnston County developed are not a whole lot better. We’ve talked to dozens of Haywood residents who have never been to Mitchell or Yancey counties, and yet they will now share a Senate district with those mountain residents. The House district that Rep. Marge Carpenter of Waynesville resides in will now also contain Yancey County. No, it is safe to say that the former districts — those used for the last 10 years in the far west — made a lot more sense. Perhaps the legislature should have just tweaked what was already on the books. In many ways, the Democrats still got a lot of what they wanted. A quick look at the party makeup of the districts in the far west reveals that Democrats have the edge in every district except one. What this redistricting plan did legitimize was the emerging influence of the independent voter. Unaffiliated voter registration is at least 14 percent in each of the new districts, and in House District 119 it’s 18 percent. Republicans have courted and won many of these voters in recent elections. The bottom line, though, is that the winning candidates will be those who appeal to these people. The independent voter, often, is far better informed of the issues than those who rely on party-line voting. Finally, though, let’s just rejoice for a short campaign season, one with too little time for candidates to really make us sick of hearing empty promises, too little time to totally obfuscate the issues. Yes, the petty, partisan redistricting war got old, but the other shoe has now dropped: there is so little time that we will all be challenged to pay close attention to the real issues. We’ve been on hold now for months, which means that 2002 may go down as the shortest campaign cycle in the state. Let us count our blessings for that.