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Key Runoff Elections Set For Tuesday In Carolinas

http://66.225.205.104/JR20100621.mp3

Three key political races in the Carolinas are down to the final day of campaigning before tomorrow's primary run-off election. Two weeks ago, Nikki Haley was the political name on everyone's lips. The Republican candidate for South Carolina governor was facing bizarre claims of infidelity that gathered steam in the primary election. All the attention only seemed to help. "We saw us push against the power and push against the money and boy did they push back!" said Haley after votes were tallied on Primary Election night. Haley ended up one point short of the 50 percent she needed to avoid a primary, and that left the door open to republican Congressman Gresham Barrett. "I can't tell you the number of times they've counted us out," Barrett told his supporters that night. "But uh, guess what? We're in the runoff and I'm excited about that!" How quickly the winds of political theater can shift. The "Barrett versus Haley" dash toward tomorrow's runoff has been strangely uneventful compared to the pre-primary circus. Not so in North Carolina's 8th district, where Republicans Tim D'Annunzio and Harold Johnson have had two months to ramp up the rhetoric for their runoff. Here's D'Annunzio last week talking to WBT Radio host Keith Larson. "If we let deranged, demented people like you choose who we have for politicians, we'll continue to have dunces and political hacks from here into the future," raved D'Annunzio. "If people wake up and see through you and your types, then we can wind up with people who have the balls to get up there and really fight for what the people need." Since the May primary, D'Annunzio's old divorce papers have surfaced suggesting his past includes some trouble with drugs and the law. And that he once called the U.S. government the Antichrist and claimed to have found the Ark of the Covenant. Johnson started using that info in his campaign ads, which led D'annunzio to sue him for defamation. Johnson fired back. "A bully understands one thing - a bigger bully," said Johnson at a press conference arranged to comment on the lawsuit. "I'm not gonna be intimidated. I'm not gonna be bullied. There's too much at stake." The North Carolina Republican Party and the Tea Party movement have both distanced themselves from D'Annunzio heading into tomorrow's runoff. By comparison, the Democratic run-off for U.S. Senate has been tame. North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall started off demanding State Senator Cal Cunningham drop out of the run-off because he trailed Marshall by nine points in the primary. Cunningham refused. The two Democrats have met in a couple of lackluster debates and traipsed around the state making stump speeches, while the Republican incumbent they hope to unseat, Senator Richard Burr, marshals his resources for November.