DEBATE: Budd, Manning to Face Off Tuesday Night in NC 13th Congressional Race

RALEIGH – One of the more closely watched congressional races in the country is the 13th District of North Carolina, featuring incumbent conservative stalwart Ted Budd and Democratic challenger Kathy Manning. The two are scheduled to debate each other Tuesday night at 7:30 PM on Spectrum News.

Sure to be featured in the debate tonight is a tiff between the Budd and Manning campaigns regarding the ‘Queen Kathy’ Ad that attacks the Democrat for some cronyism that enriched her husbands firm.

“A parking deck that nobody needed, benefiting a luxury hotel and Kathy Manning,” a narrator says in the ad. “$30 million of your tax dollars plus $2.3 million a year to Kathy Manning and her husband, filling the Manning’s swanky hotel and their own French castle.”

It concludes: “From her castle, it’s no surprise Queen Kathy doesn’t care about doubling parking rates for workers and commuters because Kathy Manning makes government work for her and we pay the price.”

In short, the City of Greensboro provided $30 million in funding for Elm Street LLC, which is lead by Manning’s husband, to construct a six story parking deck adjacent to the firm’s Westin Hotel project. The city will then pay a couple million dollars a year to maintain the deck.

The hardly unbiased PolitiFact rated the ad false, and Manning is asking for it to be taken down, because the deal apparently had more nuance and Manning’s husband is donating profits from the project.

It’s true that Manning and her husband didn’t get handed $30 million, and will not receive $2.3 million a year from the taxpayers of Greensboro. It is also true that the taxpayers of Greensboro are paying tens of millions of dollars to build and maintain 850 parking spaces that will mostly benefit the hotel and retail project.

While the Democrats, and their friends in the media, are eager to attack the ad as false, they are obfuscating the point. That is, that Manning and her husband are, like many connected cronies, taking advantage of taxpayers to supplement their business interests.

“B-b-b-ut the city will own the lot!” says the Leftist media. Sure they will. And the developers are all too happy that the city was so gracious to provided 850 parking spaces next to their big development project, guaranteeing traffic and access that will inevitably benefit their bottom line at the expense of taxpayers.

Budd should welcome push back on the ad during the debate. He’d do well to point out the crony nature at the heart of this project, and how it is consistent with the Big Government policies Kathy Manning wants to force on the district and the country, if elected.

Of course, there will be plenty of other issues addressed in the debate, and we’ll break those down for you later this week. This race is important precisely because it pits a real conservative congressman, not a Swamp Creature, against a stereotypical arts-loving liberal that wants to spend your money on her feel-good policies.