Todd Poole Is Out at the NC GOP

Todd Poole has been executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party for a little over two years, but today he is out of that job ... voluntarily, he says, but we suspect he was shown the door.

If you'll recall, Todd Poole was once upon a time Congresswoman Virginia Foxx's top staffer.

He seems to have gotten crossways with Tea Partiers in the state party. He had been accused of trying to sabotage the new party chair, Hasan Harnett, though we only have a Tea Party blog as a source for that.

It's no secret that new Chair Hasan Harnett's election blind-sided the party establishment. In other words, there's disarray on Hillsborough Street in Raleigh. Disarray not quite as impactful as Donald Trump, but we'll take what we can get.

Not Ready for Prime Time

Hasan Harnett, the newly installed Tea Party chair of the NCGOP, has sent out a couple of clumsy and laughable tweets trying to link Hillary Clinton to the Ku Klux Klan. Say whaaaa?

Call it the Huckabee Formula: say something so outrageous that it'll put you in the spotlight for a 24-hour news cycle, which is bound to raise your profile. Raising your profile at any cost is a good thing, right?

Former Virginia Foxx staffer and currently state Republican Party Executive Director Todd Poole attempted to defend Harnett and ended up sounding like he probably put his new chairman up to the original tweets: "The chairman isn't going to comment or give interviews on tweets, but as the first black chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, he believes we have to learn from history and move past it."

Yup. "Learning from history and moving past it" ... a new slogan for the NCGOP.

"Top o' the World, Ma!"

Todd Poole, Virginia Foxx's former chief of staff, is taking over as executive director of the NC GOP, working under party chair Claude Pope.

Chairman Pope praised Poole for "his political instincts."

Those political instincts have been on full display in the past: here and here.

Foxx Drains Poole

It was clear from the outset of the Todd Poole drunk-driving-and-resisting-an-officer arrest in Watauga County that Congresswoman Virginia Foxx intended to see him successfully through the judicial process. In a Roll Call interview published on August 12th, three days after her Chief of Staff was taken before a Watauga County magistrate and charged with three different offenses, the Congresswoman said that her employee had her support and would keep his job.

“He’ll remain on the staff. It’s a judicial matter and it will work its way through the process,” she said.

The current odor of special treatment for Poole (from both a DA and a judge with long political ties to the Congresswoman ... Judge Horne was not too long ago Chair of the Watauga County Republican Party during Foxx's rise to greatness) has centered on the sealing of Poole's blood alcohol test.

According to Scott Sexton in the Winston-Salem Journal, in his column on Dec 18, "[Poole] refused a breath test, but troopers got a sample of his blood and sent it off to the State Bureau of Investigation."

That's very different from what the Roll Call reporter was told for the article linked above:

A Watauga County, N.C., deputy clerk confirmed the authenticity of the record and that Poole was “taken to the magistrate’s office,” that is, arrested. A court date is set for Sept. 13, the deputy clerk said.

“He blew a .08,” the clerk said, indicating that Poole was at the legal limit of intoxication under state law....

Passing strange. Would .08 alcohol content in one's blood make one act like Todd Poole acted that night? Maybe. Or perhaps the deputy clerk was wrong, but by what stretch does a deputy clerk of court make that up and tell it to a reporter for a Washington newspaper?

Clearly, someone talked before the Foxx Cone of Silence fell over this whole episode.

Now It's a Political Story

When Todd Poole, Congresswoman Virginia Foxx's Chief of Staff, was arrested a year ago (on Dec. 14) for drunk driving and was subsequently also charged with resisting an officer, I said nary a word on this blog about it because I saw it as a personal tragedy and not a political story.

But now that Mr. Poole has been given very special treatment in the disposition of his case -- and had the actual alcohol content of his blood that night forever sealed by the judge -- it has become perforce a political story.

The things you can get when you work for a powerful Congresswoman. Mr. Poole, on the night of arrest, apparently warned everyone within earshot that they didn't know the towering importance of the person they were dealing with, hauling him in to stand before a Watauga County magistrate. Todd took a belligerent, arrogant "don't-you-know-who-I-am?" aggressiveness with the officers of the law, and, well, turns out he was right.

He's somebody who gets special treatment from the legal system.

Scott Sexton delves pretty deeply into just how special that treatment was in his column in the Winston-Salem Journal.

Virginia Foxx, Still Dodging Accountability

Fifth Dist. Congresswoman Virginia Foxx released her full "debate schedule." One is a whole hour at an Ashe County middle school during the middle of the day, and the second is for 30 minutes on Triad Today hosted by her buddy, conservative columnist Jim Longworth.

One very obvious thing wrong with this schedule of severe heavy-lifting: neither venue will allow any questions from regular citizens, and they are obviously designed to be anything BUT debates. One not so obvious thing wrong: Foxx released this schedule without bothering to seek and receive the cooperation of her opponent, Coach Roy Carter. According to Carter campaign manager Ryan Eller, the Foxx people have NEVER contacted the Carter campaign about these so-called "debates."

Carter counter-proposed a series of town-hall meetings across the district, wrote a letter to Foxx inviting her to participate in any or all of them, and hand-delivered the letter to Foxx's Boone office on Thursday.

Foxx's aide Todd Poole answered Carter's proposal in a pouting letter, saying that a member of Congress has just too many important obligations to show up (where regular citizens might ask her questions). Ryan Eller countered that since Congress is in recess, Foxx ought to be freed up sufficiently to demonstrate the barest commitment to an open discusssion of issues and her voting record.

Foxx deserves a lesson in democracy. And maybe she thinks it's coming, considering the way she's now raising money. She told one woman who is now supporting Carter, "I'm really scared. My polling is telling me that this election is going to be close, and I need all of the last minute help I can get."

Poor-mouthing, a Virginia Foxx speciality.