If It Weren't For Back-Biting, There'd Be No Biting At All

Craig Collins

The North Carolina Republican Party will be electing a new statewide chair at their convention in June, and the acid-washed conservatives are baring their fangs at the country club establishment. Brant Clifton is our window into that flaming Gehenna.

Best that we can figger, Gaston County attorney Craig Collins has been anointed by the country club establishment: "Collins ... [has] received the endorsements of U.S. Senator Richard Burr, U.S. Senator Thom Tillis, Governor Pat McCrory, Lt. Governor Dan Forest and U.S. Congressman Patrick McHenry, the Chief Deputy Majority Whip of the U.S. House. Additionally, State Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, State House Speaker Tim Moore and NCGOP State Chairman Claude Pope endorsed Collins...."

Tea Partiers eschew Collins (and spit him out). But he appears to have a lock on the job.

So the conservatives (the real conservatives) are turning their fire on the vice chairmanship. The establishment's pick there appears to be one John Lewis, whom Brant Clifton "outs" as a liberal (by which he means a dangerous moderate).

This is all very inside politics (or scorpions in a bottle), and we really should look away. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak!