Politics 101: Don't Pick a Fight With the Press

Stephen Kidd

Longish article in the Salisbury Post on current political campaigning in Rowan County (which is east of Eden), with the local Democratic Party energized and the local Republican Party throwing a snit-fit over press coverage in the Salisbury Post:

"Local Republicans ... refused to speak with the Salisbury Post about efforts to prepare for November’s election. Rowan Republican Chairman Stephen Kidd cited disagreements with past Salisbury Post stories. Other local Republicans didn’t return requests for comment or directed inquiries to Kidd."

BWA-ha-ha!

The Rowan County Republican Party has been riven by Tea Party v. Establishment bitterness, and the Salisbury Post has reported on that. Maybe that made Stephen Kidd sore. More likely, it was the Salisbury Post's coverage of the notorious (but blessedly short) tenure of one Mac Butner as Republican Chair of the Rowan County Board of Elections that got under Stephen Kidd's thin skin.

Stephen Kidd was responsible for getting Mac Butner appointed to the Rowan County Board of Elections in 2015. Within minutes, it seemed, Butner's history of flamboyantly racist posts on Facebook made national news, and in an unprecedented move, the Republican NC State Board of Elections removed Butner from office. The SBOE determined Butner's appointment had been "a clerical error." All of that made it into the Salisbury Post.

Mac Butner died suddenly last month, and the Salisbury Post published a lengthy profile of his political career and did not shy away from his controversial last years. That could not have pleased Stephen Kidd.

And so he's decided to feud, in a very Trumpian way, with the Salisbury Post and thus add to a growing impression that the Rowan Republican Party has much to be defensive about.