With the primary election behind us, North Carolina’s winning candidates are gearing up for the fall general election. Still, there are big runoffs set for June 22nd in North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race and two races for U.S. Congress. Rick Henderson, Managing Editor of Carolina Journal, assesses the Democratic race between Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and former state Sen. Cal Cunningham. He also discusses the personalities at play in the GOP congressional runoffs for District 13 (Bill Randall vs. Bernie Reeves) and District 8 (Tim D’Annunzio vs. Harold Johnson). Then we turn the ongoing discussion over the possible consolidation of two state programs for young kids. A legislative study committee spent months looking into the best way to consolidate Smart Start and More At Four, North Carolina’s main taxpayer-funded programs targeting young children. Despite the study, there’s no resolution of the issue. You’ll hear highlights from one of the committee’s last meetings. Included are comments from co-chairmen Reps. Dan Blue, D-Wake, and Ray Rapp, D-Madison, along with Rep. Verla Insko, D-Orange, and Stephanie Fanjul, president of the N.C. Partnership for Children.
Next, some people believe the Federal Reserve’s decisions during the recent economic slump have helped avert a second Great Depression. Robert Murphy, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the New Deal and Great Depression, disagrees. He argued during a recent Campbell University Law School debate that the Fed deserves much of the blame for our recent economic slump. That’s followed by a look at the growing movement toward buying local foods. Advocates of the “100-mile diet”; tout the benefits of limiting your food intake only to items grown within 100 miles of your home. A key argument involves supposed environmental benefits of limiting the transportation of food. Pierre Desrochers, associate professor of geography at the University of Toronto, and his wife, economist Hiroku Shimizu, puncture economic and environmental myths associated with the push to buy only local food. And finally, CJ Radio co-hosts Mitch Kokai and Donna Martinez banter about some of the latest postings in the Locker Room, the John Locke Foundation’s online weblog. They discuss the impact of the state’s new smoking ban on a niche smoking industry, the status of an eco-farm project in western North Carolina that has drawn questions and inquiry, and some national, but probably unwanted, attention given to North Carolina’s capitol police chief.