The meet in Murphy: Shuler and Mumpower agree to forum

Republican congressional candidate Carl Mumpower will finally get to go toe to toe in public with incumbent Democratic Rep. Heath Shuler, though the event is not exactly what Mumpower envisioned when he began challenging Shuler unsuccessfully to debate him several weeks ago. Mumpower is calling for at least eight debates between the two candidates. Instead […]

Campaign calendar

Thursday, Sept. 18: Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce Candidate Forum, featuring candidates for chairmanship of the Buncombe Board of Commissioners, plus candidates for county commission and state legislative positions. Candidates will address their top-priority issues, and there will be Q&A time available. For more information, contact Jeff Joyce at 258-6122. The forum takes place at […]

Campaign calendar

A note on North Carolina’s youth vote: About one-fourth of the state’s citizens ages 18 to 25 are still not registered to vote, according to a recent report by the nonprofit campaign-reform group Democracy North Carolina. And although Bob Hall, the group’s executive director, stresses that 90,000 more young people are registered now than in […]

And in this corner…

Buncombe County Board of Commissioners Chair Nathan Ramsey and Vice Chair David Gantt, who’s challenging Ramsey for the chairman’s seat, kept the tone mostly civil during an Aug. 27 lunchtime forum, but the two exchanged barbs about each other’s records on the Parkside controversy, zoning and taxes. The contenders: Buncombe County Board of Commissioners Chair […]

Campaign calendar

Local campaigning for the November elections is heating up, so Campaign Calendar will appear regularly from now until Xpress’ last edition before Nov. 4. We will spotlight campaign events that are open to the public, and we invite all candidates to send their campaign news for inclusion here. Please give us a brief description of […]

Mumpower to Shuler: Quit hiding from me

While Democratic Congressman Heath Shuler persistently pestered former eight-term Congressman Charles Taylor to debate him two years ago to no avail (two planned debates between the candidates fell through over details), his opponent this time around, Republican Carl Mumpower, claims the freshman incumbent has conveniently lost his desire to go mano a mano in public. […]

Painting by the numbers

It’s all over but the yard signs—those leftover bits of red, white and blue that still speckle the landscape in the wake of North Carolina’s May 6 primary. After crisscrossing the state, tailed by the national media and closely scrutinized by hometown crowds, the presidential candidates and their entourages have moved on. And though the […]

Fall of the gambling lords

The federal corruption trial of former Buncombe County Sheriff Bobby Medford continued this week with the prosecution bringing out an array of confessed illegal-gambling operators, who testified that they’d bribed Medford or his deputies—including former reserve Capt. Guy Penland, who’s also on trial—in return for protection and favors. Scene of a crime?: The parking lot […]