VOTE 2010: WSJ – NC’s swing status put to the test

By VALERIE BAUERLEIN
The Wall Street Journal

BOLIVIA, NC — Democratic U.S. Rep. Mike McIntyre has built a career of bringing home the bacon to his rural district in the state’s sandy southeastern corner, from computer labs to veterans’ clinics.

But now Mr. McIntyre is fighting for his political life against Republican challenger Ilario Pantano, an Iraq War veteran and tea-party favorite who warns he won’t be a “pork and candy guy.”

“It’s not about delivering another fire truck when volunteer firefighters are on food stamps,” Mr. Pantano said at a debate at a packed community college auditorium here recently. “We need someone whose record goes beyond voting quietly and slinking into the corner when you see the train going off the cliff.”

At the debate, Mr. McIntyre ticked off a dozen local projects he had shepherded, including a new Veterans Affairs clinic, paying to deposit sand on an eroded nearby beach and modernization of the Sunny Point military shipping site. “Who’s been the one fighting for Sunny Point? Who’s been the one fighting for your schools?” he said. “[Mr. Pantano] is a ‘no’ man with no plan.”

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