Behind the scenes: Fraboni and the Perdue incident

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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WLOSer Frank Fraboni came out to the N.C. Press Association meeting at the Crowne Plaza to hear the two candidates for North Carolina governor speak. Fraboni caught the Republican, Pat McCrory, then stuck around for Democrat Beverly Perdue.

Fraboni grabbed Perdue right before she was scheduled to speak (11 a.m.), which delayed her. Typical. Everybody stops for the television camera. But an interesting confluence of events went down at the end of his interview.

As Fraboni finishes with Perdue, McCrory walks up behind her and taps her on the back to shake hands. It’s news anytime candidates cross paths, but Fraboni wasn’t paying attention and was right in his ace cameraman’s shot. The camera guy grabbed Fraboni and pulled him out of the way.

Also about the same time, Perdue was getting verbally pounded by a protester, who is pictured above on at the far right. I missed the confrontation. I did see the state Highway Patrol officer assigned to protect her confront the protester. The two went back and forth, but the patrolman wouldn’t allow the protester back inside the meeting room to hear Perdue. The protester sat quietly for the earlier McCrory speech.