Ballantine, Easley keep sniping

RALEIGH - The bickering continued Friday during the final debate before Election Day between Democratic Gov. Mike Easley and his Republican challenger, former state Sen. Patrick Ballantine.

The sit-down debate, closed to the public, was held at WRAL studios with the two candidates and moderator David Crabtree. Crabtree asked a series of questions on the budget, taxes and immigration, as well as some suggested by voters.

Both candidates said they were more effective in balancing the budget than the other, citing examples from their terms in office.

Easley said he worked to reduce the state's large deficits while Ballantine spent his time in the legislature voting against many of those plans.

"It's hard balancing a budget after someone like Patrick blew a hole in it," Easley said.

But Ballantine said he and his party were responsible for the budgets and actually balanced them while voting to raise teacher salaries to the national level.

Ballantine and Easley also differed on the topic of taxes. The governor said he decreased income taxes for people and temporarily raised the sales tax to recover from the deficit, but Ballantine disagreed.

"Look at Easley's record," he said. "Easley raised taxes three times."

Both candidates agreed about the need to halt the state's surge in illegal immigration.

But Ballantine said Easley has not done enough to make sure illegal immigrants are not coming to North Carolina and getting identification.

He said the state should require more documentation, including a Social Security card, before issuing an identification card - especially in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"He blames me for 9-11 now," Easley retorted, adding that he is limited by federal regulations in taking action against illegal immigration.

While the first debate was devoted solely to education, the topic did come up again during the second debate. Easley again plugged for a state education lottery, and Ballantine again said it's not a good plan.

"He wants a lottery trust fund, but you can't trust him," Ballantine said, adding that Easley wiped out trust funds and used the money in areas for which it was not designated.

But the governor denied the misuse of funds and said he did not clear out any trust funds. "You can go to the budget office Web site ... to get the state's tax rates and see mine are right, his are wrong," he said after the debate.

Since some voters expressed concern about the candidates' behavior after the first debate earlier this month, Crabtree asked both men to say two nice things about each other.

After almost a full hour of negativity, the pair was hard-pressed to come up with two positive comments.

But finally, Ballantine commended Easley on his clemency decisions, and Easley thanked Ballantine for his support concerning teacher pay several years ago.

And both men, following the example set by presidential candidates during debates, said they like each other's wives.

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.