Sunday, May 07, 2006

Catawba County GOP "Unity Day" Postponed for Lack of Unity

You can read about the acrimonious split in the Catawba GOP here, which had apparently hoped to stage a "Unity Day" dinner to bring all factions together but had to postpone it because the source of much of the acrimony, Sheriff David Huffman, appears to have won his primary against challenger Mike Ledford.

The split goes back to the close second-primary loss in 2004 of Sheriff Huffman to wet-behind-the-ears Patrick McHenry, running for the 10th Dist. congressional seat vacated by Cass Ballenger. McHenry went on to join Virginia Foxx as a fellow freshman in Congress.

McHenry, bless his heart, couldn't stay out of Catawba County party politics and unwisely backed Ledford against Huffman in the primary just concluded. It's a move similar to Virginia Foxx's backing of David Blust against John Garwood in the N.C. Senate primary, though Foxx's man won. Foxx refused to back Watauga Sheriff Mark Shook, however, which is ... interesting.

They used to preach that elected officials of either party were dumb beyond words to get involved in primary elections involving other members of their own party. We can see how McHenry has hurt himself. What damage has Foxx done is another question.

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