Another NC County Says No to Christian Conservatism on Its School Board

 

"I refuse to adhere to the false teaching of separation of Church and State."

--Lisa R. Buchanan, candidate for the Jackson County school board, who was decisively defeated in a run-off election July 26, 2022 ... in a Facebook post

Lisa R. Buchanan (left) and Abigail Blakley Clayton (right)

Chris Cooper alerted me to the showdown run-off for Jackson County Board of Education, something I had heard nary a thing about.  (Cooper, Western Carolina University master political scientist, tweets and writes interesting stuff backed up with numbers.) Yesterday there was a rare run-off between an incumbent Jackson County school board member, who actually came in second in the four-way primary -- Abigail Blakley Clayton -- and her challenger, Lisa R. Buchanan, a (very) Christian conservative who actually wrote the quote above on her Facebook page and who came in 1st in the primary but with less than the 50% she needed to avoid a run-off. Clayton demanded a run-off and won it yesterday because the Democrats unified to defeat the crusader Buchanan, whose social media is a kind of flame dance.

There's a whole mental attitude there that leads down evolutionary channels to an ending I wouldn't want to encounter in the flesh in a dark alley.

The incumbent Clayton, a Democrat, woke voters up to a threat that's happening all over the political map, the conservative push to take over school boards, particularly in rural counties -- under the banner of ending altogether any focus on the history of American slavery and its effects in the modern world and no more coddling of cultural and gender non-conformance. A Lisa Buchanan appears on ballots in other NC rural counties. We took note of the "Right Wing Attempt To Take-Over the School Board" in Watauga, where a team of conservative candidates bent on censorship did not fare well in the primary. I haven't researched other counties. I should. 'Cause I've heard stories.

Anyway, yesterday in Jackson County, the Democrat Clayton was returned to office for four more years. Clayton took almost 60% of the vote (59.69%, 2,146 votes) to Republican Lisa Buchanan's 40% (1,449). Chris Cooper: "Easy to discount this one as small town (or at least small county) politics, but this one has an unusual # of interesting storylines." We expect Cooper will expand his analysis for Michael Blitzer's blog, Old North State Politics.

Isn't it obvious? Jackson County contains the campus of Western Carolina University. Watauga County contains AppState University. Without those populations of people seeking higher education, counties like Jackson and Watauga would maybe buy what the conservatives are selling.