When word of a shooting in Whittier roused Swain County Sheriff Bob Ogle from his house last Thursday night, he arrived at a complex crime scene.

As the front page of this week’s paper illustrates, it’s election season. Trouble is, it’s just not feeling much like it yet. U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor, R-Brevard, and Heath Shuler, this Democratic challenger from Waynesville, are still mostly preaching to their respective choirs at local party events.

Jennings Randolph does not leap from the pages of history. Perhaps he should. His likeness is not found on any T-shirts, but perhaps it should be, especially of those graduating from high school.

No, Jennings Randolph was not a founding father, but a 20th century figure. He was a long-time member of Congress from West Virginia, first as a member of the House of Representatives and later a senator. He did something in 1941 that he continued to do methodically for 30 years until he was successful. His photo might be depicted as an example of persistence and/or commitment.

By Marshall Frank • Columnist

Time to send a message to our government leaders. Our democracy is ruled by the will of the people. It appears our president, and our senators and congressional representatives from both parties have forgotten that.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Michael Morgan sits at a table near the back of Malaprop’s Bookstore Café in Asheville eating from an unlabeled can of applesauce, his 6-foot plus lanky frame casually folded, one leg across the other. He’s dressed in khaki pants and a natural colored striped polo shirt, a short necklace peeking out from its open collar and a small diamond stud earring in his left lobe.

For the first time in Haywood County, a group of residents has formed a political action committee with the goal of influencing the county commissioners race.

The political action committee, called the Good Governance Legion, is less concerned with the candidates they are supporting than they are the candidates they hope to defeat, namely County Commissioner Chairman Mark Swanger.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Voters in Jackson County will elect predominately Democratic county commissioners in this May’s primary elections, regardless of voter turnout.

Twelve of 13 candidates in the county’s unusually large commissioners campaign pool — fueled partly by incumbents choosing not to seek re-election — are running on the Democratic ticket, with three of the four district seats unchallenged by the Republican party.

When CNN chose John Armor’s web blog as the political site of the day several years ago, coining him an “intellectual redneck” in the process, Armor accepted the tagline proudly.

From his home in Highlands, Armor posts satire columns on the Internet by an invented character, “The (More er Less) Honorable Billybob Congressman” from Western North Carolina. It’s one of many outlets for Armor’s political commentary and humor that floods the journals and digital newsletters of numerous national think tanks, an unwieldy profession that pits Armor as a watchdog of the liberal media one day and a Supreme Court analyst the next.