It's the Romantics Who Move the Ball (Though Their Visions May Fail)

 

Henry David Thoreau

 

I've been reading about Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, the 19-year-old, fabulously rich French aristocrat who defied his king and his own family, bought a ship, and raced to America to support and participate in the revolution. On board ship, as he approached the New World, he wrote his wife Adrienne,

"The happiness of America is intimately connected with the happiness of mankind. She is destined to become the safe and venerable asylum of virtue, of honesty, of tolerance, of equality, and of peaceful liberty .... Night coming on obliges me to stop, for I have lately forbidden the use of lights about the ship." 

Said like a 19-year-old in love with his own heroic image -- who was also not an idiot about self-preservation. When he was preparing to sail to America, with the Atlantic crawling with British men of war determined to intercept any French commerce going west, including war materiel, Lafayette let it be known that if fired on by British cannon, he would rather die than give up the ship. He vowed to blow it up himself. That's a romantic for you. Imagining his own theatrical death for the Great Cause. The romantic is willing to act as though the best future is already here, if he can only grab it. Lafayette sails toward an America that exists first in his imagination: virtuous, tolerant, equal, peaceful. And by gawd he goes and puts his body, money, reputation, and military training at risk for that imaginary America.

Rick Aktinson in Volume 2 of his Revolution Trilogy suggests that Lafayette was meticulous about building and maintaining a vivid public image. All of France knew he was planning to sail west and join the Americans' rebellion -- he was a trained military officer at 19 -- and though the King and his government absolutely forbade any French officer joining with the Americans, Lafayette was determined (and determination backed by great wealth will get you a far distance). He was brave, perhaps dangerously brave. And an odd figure -- a French aristocrat taking up the banner of resistance to aristocracy. He fired the enthusiasm of the very French citizens who would soon be executing French aristocrats. Non-romantics probably thought Lafayette had marbles in his head. Napoleon called him "just another nitwit."

The cynic in me, reading that letter he wrote to Adrienne about the prospects for America, can see the nitwittery, assuming that we, the descendants of the revolution, are supposed to be essential for "the happiness of mankind." 'Cause look what time and decay have coughed up. Are we the happiness of mankind in 2026? Or a persistent stinging nettle? Lafayette promised his pregnant wife that America would be a "venerable asylum of virtue," which under the present regime becomes one of the funniest conjurings ever of the word asylum. 

Romantics have the gene to risk themselves for a cause. The Cause gets bigger as the risk escalates. Romantics can also make the impossible seem possible by their own doing, which is how movements get started. Change rarely happens without a movement. So what if the Lafayettes of this world tend to mistake their hope for reality?

Thomas Jefferson was a romantic and he decisively moved the ball of history. But “all men are created equal” was pure romanticism, asserted as reality before reality remotely conformed to it. It's the romantic's way to imagine a future that does not yet exist, behave as though it might exist, and thereby bull his way through the obstructions. Never mind that their animating vision turns out to be partial, naïve, contradictory, or downright dangerous.

Getting women the right to vote was a long political movement waaay before it became a reality. It became a reality through the gritty determination of women like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Anthony's willingness to violate the law by voting in 1872 is very Lafayette-like. The romantic acts out the future before the future has been authorized. And is more than willing to go to jail for it.

Obviously, romantics can be remarkably grounded in present reality -- Lafayette's knowing he had to sail blacked-out at night -- while carrying the idea of freedom like a torch. Those suffragist women made historical change and could still cook cabbage and tend to the sick. I think of Henry David Thoreau, withdrawn to the woods to get his head straight. In 1846, Thoreau refused to pay his poll tax because he opposed slavery and the Mexican-American War. He was arrested and spent one night in jail in Concord. Someone—apparently his aunt Maria—paid the tax, and he was released the next day. Isn't he a quintessential romantic? He took an abstract moral conviction and turned it into a physical act that put himself at risk. He was saying in effect, “I believe in the America that ought to exist, so I'm refusing to cooperate with the America that actually exists.”

Lenin and Mao belong in the story, too. Both imagined radically transformed societies and possessed the romantic conviction that the existing order could be swept away and something fundamentally new built in its place. They moved the ball enormously. The fact that the resulting societies produced coercion, famine, terror, and enormous human suffering doesn't make them less romantic. It makes the warning in my title real.

I think civilization advances because some people are insufficiently constrained by their knowledge of what is possible.

 

The Uphill Fight for House District 20

 

Tim Merrick

 

I'm not always convinced of the wisdom of adopting a visible trademark, especially if you're a candidate running for office. A gimmicky trademark can attract mockery, like John Fetterman's hoodie and shorts or Marco Rubio's heeled boots or Kristi Noem's cowboy get-up. Tim Merrick's hats are not a recent affectation. His attachment to pork-pie hats apparently goes back years into his long career as a chiropractor and well before he ever ran for office. The hat's a distraction to me, but maybe they work for him. They seem to fit his sometimes smart-ass personality, which can also work for a candidate. (If you want to see just how devoted he is to the style, see his reel posted on Facebook. He speaks to the camera backed by rows of pegs on which hang eight of his collection. That's kind of fetching.)

Tim Merrick was the owner of Alive & Well Chiropractic in Wilmington from 1991 to 2017 and has over 40 years of practice behind him. He retired and promptly ran two years ago for a contested seat on the New Hanover Board of Education. It was a narrow win, and now he's set his sights on the open seat for NC House District 20. Civitas rates it R+4. Merrick was endorsed by Carolina Forward in its second round, and he touts the endorsements of several other progressive orgs.

Dane Scalise, New Hanover County Commissioner and a lawyer, is Merrick's Republican opponent. Scalise is a veteran of politics -- much more so than Merrick -- having won county-wide as a commission candidate. He was first appointed to his seat in 2023, was elected to his own 4-year term in 2024 and became vice chair of the commission. He obviously has civic heft. He serves on the UNC Wilmington Board of Trustees and Cape Fear Community College Board of Trustees. As of June 30, Scalise had raised $327,233, nearly twice Merrick's $170,189. The next quarter reports should be available early in October. I suspect it's gotten more lopsided for Merrick.

If you don't have the money, you have to hustle, and Merrick says on one Facebook post back in May that "we" have knocked 3,200 doors in the last 6 months, which is an impressive start. He posted again about door-knocking in June, showed himself walking solo. What I miss seeing is evidence of a volunteer force behind him. I don't see that energy in Merrick's social media.

Dane Scalise is younger than Merrick and presents a friendly, self-deprecating image in some of his Facebook reels (especially his bloopers while trying to film a commercial). He certainly has no MAGA vibe about him, no feverish lusting after the embrace of DJT, but he did ape one feature of the Trump administration's politics: animosity toward diversity, equity, and inclusion. He pushed to dismantle the New Hanover County's Office of Diversity and Equity, calling DEI "ideology." Gosh. Has being kind and fair fallen ill in Republican hearts? 

It's gonna be epic if Merrick wins. It will take that rumored wave sweeping over the northern part of New Hanover, which stretches from the coast to the alarmingly polluted Cape Fear River.

 

Claire Kempner Could Flip HD 9

 

This campaign looks much healthier on the ground than her campaign bank account would lead you to expect. Claire Kempner is running in House District 9 (Pitt Co.), her second attempt to unseat Republican incumbent Tim Reeder, ECU emergency physician, who's frankly rolling in the dough. In her entire 2024 campaign against Reeder, Kempner raised $42,008 to his $556,287. She spent about $30,155; he spent about $426,963 and beat her with a 5,000-vote margin. This year, according to 2nd Q reports, Reeder has roughly eighty times Kempner's reported contributions, but sometimes piles of money don't mean much if the tectonic plates are shifting against you. Though she lost badly in 2024, has almost no money compared with Reeder, yet she is behaving like somebody who has every intention of making Reeder work for the seat.

Dist. 9 is rated by Civitas as R+3, "Lean Republican," which is well within striking distance for a flip if there is a wave.

Kempner has a real campaign underway, having learned some voter contact lessons from 2024. She says on her Facebook that she's been canvassing neighborhoods all summer. She has established an email/text volunteer recruitment operation along with an organized phone bank, with training on the campaign's script and voter-contact system. She appears to have a well-organized door-knocking operation with training and pairing inexperienced volunteers with experienced ones. 

Claire Kempner is a Pitt County mother of three, married to Greg Kempner. She was long described as a stay-at-home mom, but she now works as a Demand a Seat Recruitment Lead for Everytown for Gun Safety, which trains grassroots volunteers to run for office. She's also served in several volunteer and organizing roles with Moms Demand Action, including regional data work. She has served as secretary of the Pitt County Democratic Party and has been active with the Humane Society, United Way, and a maternity home for unhoused women and their children. She is, in other words, one of those people who apparently cannot be persuaded to sit still, especially when there is a need for action.

She's attracted the attention of the progressive community, earning endorsements from Lillian's List, 
Down Home NC (which brings more volunteers for door-knocking, phone banking, and canvassing), Equality NC, and Planned Parenthood. The Progressive Turnout Project has a paid campaign-fellow position specifically for “Claire Kempner for NC HD 9.” She made the second wave of Carolina Forward endorsements.

In other words, she's working it hard and could win.

Jen Wiles, Building Community Among Fellow Working-Mom Candidates

 

Jen Wiles

 

Two days ago I wrote about working nurse Jen Wiles running to unseat 7-term Republican House member Donny Lambeth in eastern Forsyth County (Dist. 75). I was alarmed at how little money she had reported raising back at the end of the 2nd Q. The next campaign finance report is due after September 30, and apparently Wiles has done exceedingly well in the 3rd Q. She is running a disciplined campaign with a "robust" field operation. She's been knocking a lot of doors.

I received an email from her yesterday announcing that she's raised enough money to carry out the rest of her campaign plan and has money left over to donate to other working-mom candidates like her who are struggling to get traction: "They are working parents, community advocates, and small business owners taking on immense stress with zero personal gain just to fight for their hometowns." She names several. I'll be profiling one of them later today.

Wiles is paying it forward and deserves great credit for sharing in an age that seems to always elevate selfishness.

 

Sonovabitch Really Said It, Because It's Obviously True

 

To the victor belong the spoils.

--DJT, yesterday at the UN 

 

Call me old-fashioned. I was an Eisenhower child. He was president during most of my public schooling. His portrait in Army green greeted us everywhere. He was a solid object we kids were naturally disposed to look up to as an example of manly, all-American integrity and service. Because of Ike, I grew up knowing that the presidency is a public trust, not a property right. 

That man at the U.N. was talking about Venezuelan oil, how quickly and slickly he got his hands on it. It was a brag (like everything he says is a brag of some sort). Meanwhile, the spoils are at the eternal expense of the Venezuelans, about whom DJT gives nary a flip. Of course he was going to get the oil. Possibly thought the same thing about Iran. Learned different.

Just look what busy beavers they've been, just since January 2025 (gathered by my assistant):

Crypto. Not just a risky investment but a DJT family business. Cryptocurrency has produced a gigantic personal revenue stream. His 2025 financial disclosure showed roughly $1.4 billion in income from crypto ventures, including almost $800 million from family-owned World Liberty Financial. More than $520 million came from sales of "tokens," digital assets recorded on a blockchain, and more than $250 million from selling interests in the business. 

The Meme Coin. DJT promoted his own meme coin, and purchasers of the coin were subsequently invited to a private dinner with him. The Washington Post described the arrangement as crossing what had traditionally been regarded as an ethical red line because people could effectively spend money on a DJT-associated financial product and obtain access to the president. 

Foreign Real Estate. The Trump Organization reportedly did zero new foreign deals during his first term. But in his second term, it has entered into eight in countries that depend on American goodwill, like for example Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Vietnam, and India. (He's said out loud that he's also got his eye on Gaza, as soon as that landscape can be cleared of what the Israelis did.) DJT's 2025 disclosure showed $38 million in licensing fees from Gulf real-estate projects alone, including about $21.9 million from Saudi developer Dar Al Arkan and $12.5 million from UAE developer Damac. 

Self-Dealing for Junior. Donald Trump Jr.'s venture-capital firm (1789 Capital) took a stake in Vulcan Elements, a startup manufacturer of rare earth magnets located in Durham. The Pentagon subsequently announced a $620 million loan to the company. ProPublica found that a top White House aide, Peter Navarro, had initiated the loan request and that Pentagon officials rushed the deal after being told it was a White House priority. Vulcan's estimated valuation subsequently increased roughly tenfold.

The Access Tax. Trump Media & Technology Group has been developing a service through Truth Social that provides rapid access to Trump's presidential posts—essentially selling speedier access to information emanating from the White House. Information of considerable market value to traders. AP reported that high-speed trading firms are paying $60,000–$100,000 per month for the service. 

And he's still got two years to go. What will be left to spoil?

 

Working Class vs. Aristocrat -- The Dist. 75 House Race

Jen Wiles selfie with family

 

The match between Democrat Jen Wiles and Republican Donny Lambeth in eastern Forsyth (Dist. 75 --Kernersville, etc.) pits a working-class nurse practitioner against a patrician country club Republican. Civitas rates the district R+4. Lambeth is serving his 7th term for more reasons than the partisan lean. He's a grey eminence in Winston-Salem. He was chair of the Forsyth School Board for 18 years and spent 40 years at Wake Forest Baptist Hospital, rising to CEO of the whole shebang. That's management, Baby! That's competence on the hoof.

So this seems a harder race for a newbie Democrat like Jen Wiles, a working mom of two who can do back-to-back 12-hour shifts as a surgical nurse and still get dinner. And she's mounting an active campaign, judging from her social media. With a job and a family and now a campaign that some influential people believe she'll never win (despite the weather forecast), Jen Wiles must be even more exhausted now than she was at the end of June, while it was yet a long way from the real heat of this improbable campaign: "I’m going to be really honest: I took the last three weeks mostly off from campaigning, and it reminded me just how much running for office takes from me mentally, physically, and emotionally .... Early in the summer, there was a moment where I wasn’t sure I had the fuel to keep pushing for another five months. Between long days knocking doors, creating content, designing literature, and filing finance reports as basically a team of one ... the weight felt immense." All of us who've been active in the recruiting and management of candidates know the brutal truth of what she says. Not everyone holds up through it.

Donny Lambeth

 

Yet she's doing this. Her biographical video is worth watching for a real sense of her working-class bonafides and her native grit. She says in her interviews that her reason for running was because nobody else would challenge Donny Lambeth, and he needs challenging. She's getting plenty of emotional support from a host of endorsers but little in the way of donations. At the end of the 2nd Q, she'd raised a total of $25,475 and had only $10,900 cash on hand. I haven't seen yet any "big-name" Democrats holding fundraisers for her. The Forsyth Democratic Party has featured her on the party's Substack. Yet there are no big donors from the Democratic base. She's been endorsed by NCAE, Lillian's List, Equality North Carolina, Planned Parenthood, NC Now PAC, and professional medical groups, but where's the money to go with that praise. She needs money to run something more than the kitchen-table campaign she's struggling to maintain. (And yes, I just made a small contribution.)

Bottomline: What does it mean for a candidate to mount a serious challenge when the institutional praise isn't translating into campaign money?

CORRECTION

In an August post, Wiles reported some $40,000 raised, along with 5,000 doors knocked -- both good numbers and certainly better than that 2nd Q report. All of that attention by the progressive networks may now be paying off.

Western Forsyth Has a Marquee NC House Race

 

The exciting NC House race in western Forsyth (District 74) will be evoked forever in my mind by this campaign flyer:

Amy Taylor North ran against incumbent Republican Jeff Zenger (in his 3rd term now) two years ago. She ran without state Party support but surprised people by getting close -- she took over 48% of the vote. She's back, she's got the state Party supporting her, along with Emily's List, Lillian's List, Carolina Forward, NCAE, Sierra Club, and Now Or Never NC. Gov. Josh Stein headlined a fundraiser for her. She out-raised the incumbent in the 2nd Q by $200k and has more cash on hand for the final sprint. (Both campaigns' 2nd Q reports are available at NCSBE.)

I'm a shallow person. I'm way too susceptible to first impressions. I rely on any candidate's social media, particularly Facebook, for indications that their enterprise is in fact a functioning enterprise and is in the game to win. I want to see an active Facebook feed that shows me the boots on the ground, the meet-ups and fish fries, the talking-head videos of the candidate out-and-about (when you've got a candidate who can talk to a camera like a friend, like Amy Taylor North does). I'm old. I'm not on Instagram, but North is, and I bet there's a show of energy there too.

That photo above suggests not just energy but sly collaboration -- "Let's do some stuff!" The personality is winning, but North isn't shy about going after incumbent Jeff Zenger, linking to articles that call him corrupt and allege self-dealing. Zenger owns Solomon Development, LLC. He also owns Lisha Construction LLC. He bought property on the town square in Lewisville and wanted to build a big apartment complex there. The town council said no. A year later, it said no again. Zenger's company threatened to sue the town. Lewisville ultimately paid Solomon Development $1,959,372.20 for the property as part of a mediated settlement. Very soon after, in 2025, Zenger sponsored House Bill 765 that made substantial changes to North Carolina's zoning and development law, including limiting the ability of local governments to use certain development regulations against proposed projects. (FB) HB 765 has also been linked to the current uproar over huge Data Centers. H 765 makes it easier for any developer to ignore and get around public opposition. So in a round-about way, Zenger has enabled Data Centers without actually supporting them. The charge seems to have struck a nerve. Zenger came back on his Facebook with a post highlighting The Ratepayer Protection Act (S 730), which has passed the GOP House. The bill aims to make Data Centers pay their own way and not drive up rates for everyone else. The bill is hung up in the Senate Rules Committee. Where things often go to die.

Comparing Zenger's Facebook profile to North's, you might not know the man is even engaged in a campaign. He posts no news from the campaign trail, no evidence of life at events, no displays of happy volunteers doing volunteery stuff. No smiling appearances at even safe GOP events. There's no visible life there, just perfunctory sharing of slogans and memes. 

Meanwhile, Amy Taylor North offers much more of an insight into a candidate who can win it. The relative energy signal between the two campaigns may be totally misleading and useless for predicting anything -- I'm willing to admit that -- but what else do I have to go on without being on that ground myself?

The Civitas Partisan Index rates HD 74 at R+3. R+3 doesn't provide a lot of partisan cushion to rest on. And Zenger appears to be resting.

The Notorious 105th District -- An Update

 

Ken McCool

 

Can't stay away from my favorite chew toy -- Tricia Cotham and her continuing ability to retain her House seat in District 105, a heavily gerrymandered, meandering slice of land on the far southeast corner of Mecklenburg. She's famous in a lot of partisan households, and not in a good way -- unless you're a Republican, which she became one of, abruptly and without warning, to provide Speaker Tim Moore and the Republicans the one vote they needed to overturn a veto. Democrats didn't like that.

She's been targeted for an upset before. In '24 Nicole Sidman almost beat her, coming within 213 votes -- one of the closest races in NC that year. This year Cotham's up against former Matthews Town Commissioner Ken McCool (with the cool name!). Now Or Never NC, an independent PAC, has endorsed him and helped him raise money. Indivisible Charlotte has been campaigning for him. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police has formally endorsed him. His Facebook page is a good window into a campaign with energy. He's been an active fundraiser, outpacing Cotham in the 2nd Q, though Cotham naturally already had a sizable war chest. Cotham gets her money disproportionately from PACs and established business/industry organizations, including Duke Energy, automobile dealers, home builders, Realtors, and restaurant/lodging interests. McCool's fundraising comes more from individual donors in small dollar amounts. Transparency USA lists Cotham with $128,596 in total contributions and McCool with $135,412.

McCool has challenged Cotham to a debate. I can't find a Cotham response anywhere. As the incumbent, and according to "incumbent boilerplate," Cotham has no incentive to debate him. Maybe she perceives herself ahead, due to the cool gerrymandering that the General Assembly delivered in 2023 to make her district a little more Republican-friendly. McCool and state Sen. Woodson Bradley, whose Senate District 42 overlaps McCool's House district, have teamed up for joint events including canvasses. They look energetic on Facebook.

Meanwhile, Cotham has been less visible during the buildup to the next two months. She did appear at a Matthews GOP chili cookoff about a week ago in a very serious bandage, a kind of sling from the top of her head down to her chin, obscuring chin, jaws, and ears. Cotham announced in August 2025 that she was scheduled for "major surgery," caused by "complications from previous medical procedures" (details are vague), but whether that dressing a week ago is connected to that surgery is unknown. 

L.M. Dudzik very recently published a piece titled "Lessons Learned From Lies: Tricia Cotham Turned Her Back on Us" and used the "turncoat" label to make an important policy point:

Cotham had identified herself as pro-choice. She later provided the decisive vote to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of North Carolina’s new abortion restrictions.

She told Equality NC she supported allowing transgender students to participate in sports consistent with their gender identity. In April 2023, she voted for the so-called Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, restricting transgender girls’ participation in girls’ school sports. When Cooper vetoed it, she voted to override him.

Cotham voted for legislation restricting gender-affirming healthcare for minors. When Cooper vetoed that bill, she voted to override him too.

Can the McCool kid (he is very young) overtake her in November? He has an active campaign underway. I hope he has door-knockers in abundance. Meanwhile, Cotham's apparent absence from the campaign trail can't be helping any "enthusiasm gaps." The Civitas Partisan Index rates Dist. 105 as R+0 -- pure toss-up -- that zero providing another hilarious metaphor for maybe flabby prospects.

Scott Colom, Coming on Strong in Mississippi

 

I'm usually focused on North Carolina races. Today, I'm fairly obsessed with Mississippi District Attorney Scott Colom, who appears to be making a lot of headway against Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith, the former agriculture commissioner who got appointed to Thad Cochran's seat when he stepped down, survived a special election, and won her first full term in 2020. She's a MAGA-bot.

You get a quick -- and fairly indelible -- impression of Colom from almost any of his reels and videos, and there are a lot of reels and videos. Here's just one that hits a lot of character traits, remarkable for how he introduces his family, who are downright charming. Also funny. They're genuine. The whole family seems as solid as seasoned oak, and Colom comes across as "all-American striver" for the good and the just.

 

He says in another video that his father, who's a Republican, ran once for state treasurer and campaigned for Ronald Reagan. His mother, also accomplished, served as a sitting state judge. Colom won his district attorney race in north Mississippi in 2015, quickly established a reputation for successful prosecutions, and was himself named to a Federal district judgeship by President Joe Biden in 2022. Why didn't that judgeship happen? Because Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith could -- and did -- block his nomination from going forward. Colom is now running to unseat her. The Great Wheel turns!

The national Democrats have certainly noticed him. Chuck Schumer and DSCC Chair Kirsten Gillibrand praised him when he announced. Schumer attended a fundraiser for Colom in DeeCee. But so far the DSCC has left Mississippi out of its $40 million "investment" fund. Colom has complained a bit about that, but he's also turned the snub into something like a rallying cry. He has raised good money, $2.8 mil by the last filing. But Hyde-Smith has a million more. The best sign is that Colom outraised Hyde-Smith in the 2nd Quarter. There may be wind at his back. Or maybe a wave.

The attack lines against Colom will emphasize the letter he signed in 2021 opposing efforts to criminalize transgender people and gender-affirming health care. "Too liberal for Mississippi!" That oldie. "Probably a Communist!" He did receive support from none other than the George Soros-funded Mississippi Safety & Justice PAC, which spent heavily in support of Colom's 2015 DA campaign. I applaud George Soros for spotting talent. Frankly, if Colom stays very much on message about the economics of life in Mississippi -- as he seems to be doing -- I doubt very much that red-baiting is going to work as well as it used to. With the outrageous prices of everything, who has time to worry about ... did you say "communists"? What is this? 1957?

Some Democratic liberals possibly harbor a grudge against Colom, because as District Attorney he recused himself from the Ricky Ball police-shooting case. It was the standard outrage -- a white police officer manages to kill a Black teenager during a routine traffic stop. Rather than charge the cop, D.A. Colom kicked the case to the state's Attorney General. (I sympathize with that decision.) The officer was subsequently indicted for manslaughter by a grand jury, but the Republican Attorney General of Mississippi dismissed the charge in 2020. You can see why people get upset. Colom later told Mississippi Today that he regretted transferring the case to the Attorney General's Office, with its sad and maddening outcome. The blasted fruit of his own recusal.

One poll puts Hyde-Smith ahead by 6 points. But the Colom campaign's internal polling puts them dead-even. So Colom is getting a fair share of coverage on the Left side of the media right now. I finally decided to pay attention today. 'Bout time.