I believe that the Superintendent of Public Instruction race is important because leadership is important, regardless of the meager power vested in the position.
Apparently, few agree. A Factiva search produced 23 hits for newspaper articles that mentioned both candidates (between May 6 and October 30).
Of those, only three articles focused exclusively on the race. All three were published by the News & Observer (May 7, October 11, and October 21). The remaining 20 articles included endorsements, announcements, and miscellanea.
Update: I just received an email from the NC Democratic Party explaining why voters should re-elect June Atkinson. It does not read like a message about an incumbent, probably because Democratic Party staff could not actually identify an actual accomplishment. So, I do not blame them for using words like “worked,” “advocated,” “supported,” and “championed.” They did the best they could.
I did get a kick out of this:
Imagine the day that when you cross North Carolina county lines and see a sign, ‘100 percent of our student graduated from high school’,” June said. “Imagine the day when no student is embarrassed to read in public because of poor reading skills. Imagine the day when teachers will not need second jobs to make ends meet. Imagine the day when North Carolina is recognized as having the best public education in the world.
What a vivid imagination, June!
