Local Media Issue Invitation to Debate

And then there were three.

Tuesday's confirmation by the Moore County Board of Elections that Gerald Galloway had gathered more than the requisite number (2,040) of verified voter signatures on petitions made it official: Where there was only one officially recognized candidate for the 52nd District seat in the N.C. House of Representatives as recently as last week, now there is a trio of them.

Hair salon owner Joe Boylan achieved that designation in the traditional way: by going up against Speaker Pro Tem Richard Morgan and defeating him in the May 2 Republican primary. Lifelong Republican Manila "Bud" Shaver, a retired Army major general, reacted to the state GOP's heavy-handed involvement in the county election on Boylan's behalf by announcing shortly thereafter as an unaffiliated candidate. He made his signature quota on June 23.

Galloway, a former Southern Pines police chief who spent most of his adult life as a Democrat, jumped into the fray on June 6, also as an unaffiliated, and has now made his stripes as well.

Now that we are assured of having three names on the November ballot for Morgan's old seat (with Boylan listed as a Republican and Shaver and Galloway printed under the "Unaffiliated" non-banner), the question with a lot of Moore County voters remains: Who are these guys, anyway?

All presumably have lots of friends and acquaintances in their own circles, but none has ever run for public office before. Instead of Morgan, one of the most powerful men in Raleigh and a face recognized statewide, we now have three relative political nonentities vying to take his place. The voters of the county need more of an opportunity to learn all they can about them.

We at The Pilot have provided extensive coverage of the issues, personalities and strategies involved in the House election, and we pledge to continue doing so, both in our printed pages and in cyberspace on thepilot.com. But the voters of the county deserve at least one chance between now and Election Day to see the three candidates in person, hear what they have to say, compare them side by side, and judge for themselves.

Accordingly, we hereby publicly invite Joe Boylan, Bud Shaver and Gerald Galloway to a debate, co-sponsored by The Pilot and Muirfield Broadcasting, to be held at the Sunrise Theater in downtown Southern Pines at a mutually convenient time in October.