Trump's Man in CD 6

 

“There is no mistaking the job Addison McDowell woke up every morning to perform. He was a lobbyist fighting for the special interests of Big Insurance .… He represented the very specific, very uncompromising, very determined mission of a big insurance company.”

--Alfredo Rodriguez, Green Beret Col. Christian Castelli’s political consultant, in a written statement to McClatchy

Addison McDowell 

Okay, I'm about to beat, if not dead horse, at least a limping one in the person of Addison McDowell, the out-of-nowhere Raleigh lobbyist whom Trump also out of nowhere endorsed for Congress in the formerly Democratic 6th CD. A made man, McDowell upended the hopes of young Bo Hines, heir apparent to Madison Cawthorn who thought he was scheduled to get the Trump blessing. Trump's endorsement of McDowell also didn't exactly help poor Mark Walker, who's ping-ponged all over the higher offices sniffing for an opportunity to get back to some handhold on power, but he's becoming the Joe Btfsplk of North Carolina politics.

A fundraiser for McDowell in Raleigh last week reportedly gathered together a power base of Republican General Assembly honchos including Phil Berger and Destin Hall and the young lobbyist who until very recently tugged at their lapels and tried to urge them toward what his employer really really needed. His employer incidentally was Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. About which, opinions vary.

Interestingly, the political consultant for a rival Republican for the 6th CD seat, the obscure military man named Christian Castelli, actually blew the whistle on McDowell's milking of the whole corporate culture of big-time insurance and made those comments directly to a McClatchy reporter. The press on this probably won't hurt McDowell. He's going for a MAGA base that absolutely admires influence peddling and doesn't read newspapers any more.