Madison Taylor

Labor Day is the traditional starting point for the fall political campaign season that will crash this year with a major election on Nov. 6 in which voters can select choices for the Alamance County Board of Commissioners, Register of Deeds, Alamance-Burlington Board of Education, N.C. General Assembly, Congress (three districts here now), judges, governor, lieutenant governor and a whole passel of state chiefs for public instruction, labor, etc. There will also be a bond referendum for a new building at Alamance Community College and a quarter-cent sales tax vote to pay for the bonds.

Remember that last part. It’s a two for one deal in many ways. Don’t buy one without checking yes or now to both.

And just in case someone hasn’t heard, there’s also a presidential race to consider if there are any true undecideds left. Those guys, however, don’t wait for Labor Day to begin bombarding voters with ads and appearances. There really should be a law.

Anyway, the local election front has been exceptionally quiet up to now. That should change.

Our coverage, for example, is ramping up. Candidates for state and national offices are starting to make the rounds. We’ll get to as many of those as we can. Last week, the conservative Obama’s Failing Agenda bus tour rolled across the state, including a stop in Burlington. That wasn’t a high priority. It’s opinion page kind of stuff. But candidates are another story.

At the moment, we are sending out questionnaires to hopefuls for local offices. We plan to publish those in the Times-News beginning in early October.  A “Voter Guide” will be produced as a special section featuring candidate bios, sample ballots and other election facts.

Also in October we will be holding our annual candidate forums. The site, as usual, will be the Paramount Theater on Front Street in Burlington. There will be two sessions. One on Oct. 1 and the other on Oct. 15. Thanks, by the way, to the Alamance County Board of Commissioners for moving its Oct. 15 meeting so our forum could be scheduled. The Paramount was almost completely booked for the month when we started discussing the forums with manager Dave Wright in late July.

The Oct. 1 forum will feature the candidates for Register of Deeds and Board of Education. On Oct. 15, the forum will include candidates for Board of Commisioners and General Assembly. The moderator will be radio host Byron Tucker of WPCM. Both sessions start at 7 p.m.

And bring questions. Two years ago we took written questions from the audience. We plan to do it again this year.

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