Checking In on Mark Robinson's Main Republican Primary Challenger

 

Bill Graham, the Salisbury personal injury lawyer who once upon a time ran for governor in the Republican primary with Pat McCrory (polled at 9% to McCrory's 46%), got recruited this year by some establishment Republicans to challenge blowfish Mark Robinson in next March's Republican primary for governor. Graham is supposed to be the great white hope for more mainstream NC conservatives who fear Mark Robinson's chances of crashing on the rocks of his own extremism. Graham announced his candidacy less than a month ago, so it's an obligation to check in on him from time to time to see how he's doing. 

A Meredith College poll of some 755 voters -- 44% of whom said they would vote a Republican ballot next March -- published these preferences for governor yesterday:

Mark Robinson 41%

Bill Graham 5%

Dale Folwell 3%

A whopping 42% were "undecided." Graham has apparently targeted those undecideds with a scare tactic TV ad, "VIOLENCE IN OUR STREETS!" which one observer justifiably called "racist as fuck." In the ad, Graham says about "violent criminals" that he'll "put them in jail or in the ground." (Bet he was very tickled by that line.) But it's pure trumpist tough-guy posturing and smacks of white supremacy, which no doubt will be reassuring to your country club and truck cab Republicans who make up that 42% undecided. Mean and cruel at heart are apparently requirements in successful Republican primary candidates.