The New Frontrunner for NCGOP Chair

Robin Hayes has been chair of the NCGOP since April 30, 2016, when the Republican executive committee ousted Hasan Harnett from the job. Hayes had been NCGOP chair before, from 2011-2013, and he had served ten years in the US House, from 1999-2009. Hayes was "Republican establishment" all the way, while Hasan Harnett was Tea Party conservative, backed by the rowdier elements and movement conservatives. Most observers thought -- up until yesterday -- that Robin Hayes would run again for the party chairmanship and that he could probably win (with the help of Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse), but Hayes has suddenly dropped out of the running, citing "issues with his mobility" (following hip-replacement surgery and a recent fall at the Cabarrus County GOP Convention).

That suddenly throws the chairmanship of the NCGOP open for a cantankerous and entertaining contest, with Lee County Republican agitator Jim Womack probably emerging as the leading anti-establishment contender. The chairmanship will be decided by the NCGOP state convention in June. Womack ran against Robin Hayes in 2017, was defeated by double digits, but has never stopped his campaign to remake the state party and put it on a "war-footing": "We will campaign on all fronts– in the media, in government circles, and especially in the trenches –where we will encounter the most ardent socialists and anarchists. We will prevail!" ("We Are at War," by James Womack, April 4, 2017)

Those armored columns of "ardent socialists and anarchists" are figments of imagination that have apparently taken on some ample flesh in Mr. Womack's head: He also alleges that "the democrats [sic] have hired agitators who roam from venue to venue seeking to disrupt conservative groups and political events." If you can talk yourself into that fantasy, you'll also believe that millions of "illegals" are always voting against The Right.

Did we say "agitator"? Womack and about a dozen other "grassroots activists" put paper sacks on their heads "in peaceful protest" at the 2016 GOP state convention "each time the convention chairman or central committee staff were perceived to be manipulating the proceedings to disadvantage grass roots candidates running for office, or when resolutions and platform changes were being suppressed" ("Wearing a Paper Bag at Convention").

Womack was elected to the Lee County Board of County Commissioners in the Tea Party wave of 2010 and served four colorful years (he called his critics "libtards," which gives you a sense of his level of discourse). He was a frequent target for criticism on the blog "The Rant: News Out of Sanford, North Carolina."

As the appointed chair of the state's Oil and Gas Commission, Womack has been a vociferous advocate for fracking, and when the Lee County Commission -- on which Womack no longer served -- passed a moratorium on fracking, Womack went jihad in defense of five Lee County landowners who claimed their rights were being infringed by the moratorium. The five, turns out, had written (or had ghostwritten for them) identical letters, all addressed to Womack, and all five, turns out, were Womack's buddies. Lisa Sorg attended that meeting of the Oil and Gas Commission:

...Jim Womack, the agency’s controversial chairman, seemed agitated, frantic even, to attend to what he deemed as Very Important Business: to hear from disgruntled people who want the commission to overturn Lee County’s fracking moratorium.

“I’m a little bit motivated,” said Womack, a long-time fracking proponent, as he pressed the commission’s attorney for more legal leeway on hearing the complaints.

There's plenty more to this guy's history.

Robin Hayes

He's gonna make a fine chair for the NCGOP!

But side benefit: If he makes it, Dallas Woodhouse will be gone as executive director!

UPDATE
This previously sealed indictment became public this afternoon, after the above was posted: Robin Hayes, along with three others, federally indicted for bribery, or more specifically, "of directing illegal political donations to North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey in an effort to bribe him." Here's more news about it.

So "mobility" did turn out to be a disqualifier for Hayes to run again for NCGOP chair, since he surrendered himself to federal authorities today.

Wow.

Dallas Woodhouse's "Suppress the Vote" Memo -- "Stunning and Stupid!"

Dallas Woodhouse was a star of right-wing politics before he became Executive Director of the state Republican Party in September of 2015. He had led the NC branch of Americans for Prosperity and founded Carolina Rising in 2014, a 501(c)(4) with a single big donor, for the purpose of getting a single candidate, Thom Tillis, elected to the Senate. (His subsequent drunken TV interview at the Tillis victory celebration is a YouTube staple. Google it.)

So he's supposed to be smart? His writing of emails doesn't provoke admiration for his skills with language. (His ungrammatical rant attacking WBTV investigative reporter Nick Ochsner is but one example.)

So he's supposed to be a master political operative? The messy way he purged new NCGOP Chair Hasan Harnett, stabbing him in the chest in broad daylight, shows the deft touch of ... well, a Donald Trump acolyte.

Worse, Woodhouse tromped all over his Republican governor's petition to U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts to put a hold on the 4th Circuit Court's overturning of NC's Republican election laws. Woodhouse's memo last Sunday to Republican election officials in NC's 100 counties proves much of the 4th Circuit's scathing appraisal of Republican motives in changing voting laws.

An Ohio State University law professor, who specializes in election law, judged the Woodhouse memo "stunning and stupid."

You know the old saying is true: "Every level seeks its own water."

Will Hasan Harnett Sue the NCGOP?

The Tea Party insurgents in the North Carolina Republican Party have not gone quietly into that good night. Once their leader, the now former Chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, Hasan Harnett, was ousted from his post last Saturday, we're hearing only war drums on the Neuse.

Chief drummer Brant Clifton at The Daily Haymaker is now calling new party Chair Robin Hayes the "Big Dummy," and Harnett's chief defender in the closed-door "trial" that was held by the GOP executive committee last Saturday is loudly proclaiming that the whole process was "illegal and illegitimate."

Illegal is an interesting word here, since Hasan Harnett himself is now speaking publicly: “I am in the process of reviewing all options for next steps and will communicate my plans soon,” Harnett wrote to his supporters on-line.

"All options" might logically include a lawsuit based on that allegation of illegal process.

NCGOP, Bow to Your New Leader

News&Observer

Robin Hayes!

Robin Hayes?

The Robin Hayes who as a U.S. Congressman from the NC-8 cast the deciding "yes" vote on the Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2005. Which makes Robin Hayes about as un-Trump as you can get in the Republican Party.

Which is exactly what the Tea Partiers supporting ousted NCGOP Chair Hasan Harnett -- yes, they ousted him yesterday -- thought all along, that the establishment, country-club Republicans are not capable of sharing power with the insurgents. Evidently Dallas Woodhouse is fine with Robin Hayes, which is what matters.

Insurgent blogger Brant Clifton immediately called Robin Hayes "the big dummy" and predicted renewed civil war in NCGOP ranks. It may be a hot summer.

NC Republicans, Are You Ready for a Purge?

It may be spring in North Carolina, but this is the winter of Hasan Harnett's discontent.

He's about to be the first chair of the North Carolina Republican Party ever ousted from his post (not even a full year after he was elected to it). The NCGOP leaders are meeting in Raleigh this Saturday for an "impeachment-like trial" of Harnett (or a kangaroo court?). Harnett himself says he's out of the country and won't attend. That'll certainly make it easier to take away his title.

The tea party wing of the NCGOP, which put Harnett into his job, has lost the power struggle with Dallas Woodhouse, the executive director of the state party. The only question that remains after Saturday's auto-da-fé: can/will the NCGOP pull itself together in time to save Governor Squishy's ass this fall?

Meanwhile, the NCGOP Resembles Yugoslavia After the Death of Tito

The elected chair of the North Carolina Republican Party has been banned from party HDQs.

Executive Director of the NCDP, Dallas Woodhouse, who shut off the party chair's email, is on the right side of the barricades -- inside the building where the phones, computers, and checkbook are.

Woodhouse has hired armed security guards at HDQs. "Armed security guards." Just try using the bathroom there, folks!

NCGOP Civil War Makes the Wall Street Journal

"Mr. Harnett said he wouldn’t go quietly, even though he knows the fight is ugly." Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2016

Some background on the blood-letting:

NCGOP Central Committee votes "no confidence" in Party Chair Hasan Harnett.

NCGOP Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse cuts off Harnett's email access.

Harnett's election as Party Chair in Sept. 2015 causes immediate dyspepsia.

NC GOP Central Committee Trying To Purge the Party Chair

Harnett

Looks like sleaze-meister Dallas Woodhouse is winning the internal power struggle against very new and inexperienced state GOP Chair Hasan Harnett.

The Central Committee voted no confidence in Harnett on Sunday, laying out a list of grievances which seem to hinge primarily on how much money attendees at the state convention in May must pay for the privilege of hanging out. It's always about the money, eh, GOP? No, in this case, it's about who's running the joint, and it ain't Harnett.

Dallas Woodhouse

One of only two members of the Central Committee who voted against the censure of Harnett, Daniel Rufty, chair of the 12th Congressional District Committee, said, “The establishment hates Hasan and has been actively working against him to make sure he’s not successful.” For his uppityness, Rufty got censured too by the Central Committee.

You may recall that recently the hired Executive Director of the party, Dallas Woodhouse, shut off Harnett's email account. Woodhouse was hired by the Central Committee, not by Harnett, which is part of the problem.

Harnett is clearly being shown the door, but so far he appears extremely near-sighted when it comes to seeing the door. He's defending himself on his Facebook page: "Here we go again with the silly tricks, attacks, and lies. That is not a sign of strength or leadership, but rather a sign of weakness. Recent attacks on my character are just that, silly tricks and lies."

Thank God it's not the NC Democratic Party imploding this year. 'Tis the season, rather, for detusking the elephant. Make that a self-detusking.

Woodhouse to Harnett: "Drop Dead"

Harnett

The Raleigh N&O is reporting that NCGOP Chair (and Tea Party poster child) Hasan Harnett had his party email account shut off by NCGOP Executive Director (and Machiavelli wannabe) Dallas Woodhouse. Apparently, Harnett was trying to act like he was Chair of the NCGOP by sending out emails, and Dallas Woodhouse didn't like the emails he was sending out. The N&O reports that Woodhouse doesn't really like anything about Harnett, who got his job in a Trump-style uprising by Tea Partiers at last year's annual GOP convention.

Woodhouse is trying to freeze out Harnett. Harnett played his race card: “I mean seriously, is this some form of ritual or hazing you would put the first black chairman of the NCGOP State Party through?” Harnett wrote. “Or is it because I am not white enough for you? You keep pushing the limits. I guess time will only tell what your real plot and schemes are all about against me.”

Hoo, boy!

The Republican state convention is in May. Get your tickets now!

The GOP Establishment in NC -- Still in Charge

Woodhouse

Grumbling on the far right of the NC Republican Party against visible corruption in the General Assembly, not to mention the executive directorship of the state party, got put firmly back in its place at this past weekend's party meeting.

Our window into the grumbling has been Brant Clifton's "Daily Haymaker" blog: here and here, for example. To their credit, the Tea Party wing does not like pay-to-play politics (they're looking at you, Speaker Tim Moore, and at General Assembly members like David Lewis, who've made headlines recently for manipulating legislation for their funding pals) along with certain perceived weaknesses of nerve in Senator Thom Tillis and with the general sleaze associated with the NCGOP's new Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse.

Turns out, according to the leaked votes on censure of Mr. Lewis and Mr. Woodhouse, that the far right amounts to about one-third of the Party's power structure, and no more.

One wonders what happened to the Tea Party's insurgent new Party Chair Hasan Harnett, who was elected in a big upset just last September. He was supposed to clean house and set the Party on a more rigidly conservative path. He seems not to figure in any of this at all.

Who'll Be King of That Mountain?

We had heard that Dallas Woodhouse, past director of the North Carolina branch of Americans for the Prosperous and a partisan warrior par excellence, was in the running to be the new executive director of the NC GOP -- in the running and very possibly running far ahead -- but now comes news that a rival by the name of Johnny T. Shull has emerged, with an impressive resume, and is moving up on the outside, ridden hard by a millionaire who thinks the NC GOP has gone all squishy and insufficiently conservative.

Johnny T. Shull's letter of application and full resume have surfaced on the InnerTubes, and you can see for yourself how brightly his star shines, especially that connection to the Koch Bros., which gets mentioned twice and fulsomely.

Shull is being recommended to the Central Committee of the NC GOP by Bob Luddy, who made news earlier this year by announcing to the Republican leadership in the General Assembly that he was withholding the $25,000 he had planned to donate to the House Republican Caucus because of the House's dangerous moderation. I'm not making that up.

Luddy hearts Shull for the executive directorship of the NC GOP, apparently, because there's not an ounce of moderation anywhere in Shull's circulatory system.

The Central Committee is supposed to pick their E.D. this weekend.

ADDENDUM
The bill to move all political primaries up to March 15 -- the freaking Ides -- passed both houses of the General Assembly yesterday and is on its way to The Guv.

A provision was added by the Republican pooh-bahs which appears to be an end-run around the new Republican Party Chair Hasan Harnett. The new law sets up "affiliated party committees," which will allow power-brokers in the NC House and Senate to set up their own fundraising and fund-dispensing operations, separate and apart from the state parties.

This provision was pushed -- inserted? -- by Rep. David Lewis, Republican of Harnett County, who had been a major force supporting someone else besides Hasan Harnett for state Party chair. Looks like Lewis has found a way to make Hasan Harnett totally irrelevant.

NC GOP Dysfunction Debuts in National News

Tea Party insurgent Hasan Harnett gets elected Chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, in a big surprise upset, and about 30 minutes later the executive director of the party resigns ("the last adult in the room," according to Thomas Mills), followed closely by the interim executive director, so now word has leaked that the Republican National Committee might run its money through a county party, instead of the state party, because Hasan Harnett and his "team" don't know what they're doing.

It's bad mathematics: general ineptitude + a looming gubernatorial/presidential/senatorial year. Panic sets in.

This unlovely situation is pretty much where the NC Dems were in late 2013, when Sen. Kay Hagan abandoned the dysfunctional party apparatus and ran her state-wide campaign through the Wake County Democratic Party.

Stay calm, NC Republicans. You'll eventually recover from your tea infection, though it's going to take maybe a spoonful of comeuppance. Make that a tablespoon.

Todd Poole Is Out at the NC GOP

Todd Poole has been executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party for a little over two years, but today he is out of that job ... voluntarily, he says, but we suspect he was shown the door.

If you'll recall, Todd Poole was once upon a time Congresswoman Virginia Foxx's top staffer.

He seems to have gotten crossways with Tea Partiers in the state party. He had been accused of trying to sabotage the new party chair, Hasan Harnett, though we only have a Tea Party blog as a source for that.

It's no secret that new Chair Hasan Harnett's election blind-sided the party establishment. In other words, there's disarray on Hillsborough Street in Raleigh. Disarray not quite as impactful as Donald Trump, but we'll take what we can get.

Meet the Most Notorious "Clerical Error" in North Carolina

Mac Butner is the newly installed chair of the Rowan County Board of Elections. He has made numerous inflammatory (i.e., racist) comments on Facebook, some of which are detailed here and here. Much of his junk has been taken down. MOST OF IT WAS/IS WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS, a form of internet abuse that belongs to another century.

Butner was chair of the Rowan County Housing Authority a year ago. He was also posting racist comments then to his Facebook page that were so foul that the Rowan County Commission called for his resignation and launched an investigation. Butner was defiant. He tried to get on the ballot in 2014 for County Commission via petition, but he failed.

Now he's Chair of the Rowan County Board of Elections, thanks to the recommendation of the Chair of the Rowan County Republican Party, which the Chair of the state GOP merely rubber-stamped and forwarded to the State Board of Elections, which duly appointed Butner last month.

Stephen Kidd, left, Chair of the Rowan GOP who
recommended Butner

Now the state GOP has discovered it has a poisonous racist running elections in Rowan County and is trying to distance itself. Although Butner's offensive Facebook posts in 2014 made national news, North Carolina GOP Press Secretary Kara Carter said yesterday that party officials were "not aware" of the posts, which she termed "offensive."

And then Kara Carter said this: "His nomination was submitted to the State Board of Elections as result of a clerical error. We have absolutely asked him to resign."

Butner, as is his habit, is defiant. He's claiming he's the victim. Many in the new, reconstituted Republican Party of North Carolina will agree with him.

For its part, the North Carolina State Board of Elections doesn't need another scandal right now. It certainly doesn't need a character like Mac Butner in charge of voting in Rowan County, or in any county.

Not Ready for Prime Time

Hasan Harnett, the newly installed Tea Party chair of the NCGOP, has sent out a couple of clumsy and laughable tweets trying to link Hillary Clinton to the Ku Klux Klan. Say whaaaa?

Call it the Huckabee Formula: say something so outrageous that it'll put you in the spotlight for a 24-hour news cycle, which is bound to raise your profile. Raising your profile at any cost is a good thing, right?

Former Virginia Foxx staffer and currently state Republican Party Executive Director Todd Poole attempted to defend Harnett and ended up sounding like he probably put his new chairman up to the original tweets: "The chairman isn't going to comment or give interviews on tweets, but as the first black chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, he believes we have to learn from history and move past it."

Yup. "Learning from history and moving past it" ... a new slogan for the NCGOP.

Paul Foley Has Resigned from the State Board of Elections; What's Next?

Approximately nine hours after declaring he would not resign, despite the governor's promise to remove him for malfeasance, State Board of Elections member Paul Foley told Board Chair Josh Howard he was resigning "to avoid distractions from the important work of the board." Foley was apparently holding out/negotiating an exit that seemed to exonerate him from all wrong-doing. About midnight, Howard sent out the announcement that Foley had resigned, adding this:

There has been no finding of wrongdoing by Mr. Foley, and the report we requested from the Attorney General found no improper influence by Mr. Foley over the outcome of the board's efforts in the matter of Chase Burns....

What that saving-of-face statement didn't address was the presumption among many of us that Foley was never really trying to influence the investigation but merely trying to get useful intel he could productively pass on to his partners at Kilpatrick Townsend, who were defending Burns.

Howard's trying to save Foley for a future leadership role in the NC Republican Party?

Hasan Harnett

New NCGOP Chair Hasan Harnett must submit three names to the governor as possible replacements for Foley. There's no reason to expect a moderating change of direction from Harnett, a tea partier who is said to be bent on purging "moderate" Republicans from other boards of elections around the state.

Plus Harnett's recent press conference in Winston-Salem accusing Rev. William Barber of being paid by labor unions and the thousands of Moral Monday protestors of being paid outside agitators does not inspire confidence in his judgment.

Either the Republican-dominated state Board of Elections can begin to rebuild its severely damaged reputation in the state, or it can continue down this hyper-partisan path toward destroying everyone's faith in fair, free, and honest elections.

Vernon Robinson Watch

Remember Vernon Robinson? "The black Jesse Helms," he liked to call himself. He was the Winston-Salem city councilman who famously ran against Virginia Foxx in her first congressional race in the 2004 Republican Primary, warning everyone that Foxx was a very dangerous liberal femi-Nazi who was a soft-on-gayness Trojan Horse.

Well, he got the horse part right.

Robinson actually came in first in that primary, with Foxx in second place, but he failed to get his 40%. In the 2nd primary that year, Foxx prevailed.

Robinson ran one of the nastiest campaigns imaginable against Foxx, which included a now-famous racist attack on Hispanic immigrants. You could hardly imagine anything nastier, that is, until Robinson ran in the 13th Congressional District in  2006 against incumbent Democrat Brad Miller. Robinson repeatedly intimated that Brad Miller was probably homosexual.

After losing to Foxx in 2004, Robinson subsequently lost his seat on the Winston-Salem City Council, ran again unsuccessfully against Brad Miller, ran unsuccessfully for State Superintendent of Public Education, and ran unsuccessfully for chairmanship of the state GOP. Quite the political record!

Which is why it's more than just interesting that Robinson was present and vocal when Hasan Harnett won the NC GOP chairmanship yesterday. Evidently, Robinson sees Harnett as doubling down on the Robinson Recipe for Winning Hearts and Minds in North Carolina.

Robinson is also the instigator and manager of the National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee, because, while Robinson personally tends to drive voters away, he also tends to collect big bucks from the well-heeled who are motivated primarily by hatred/fear. The National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee is a super-PAC that has raised $12.2 million, which makes Robinson a player, y'all.

Steven Greene, a state politics expert at North Carolina State University, is quoted as suggesting that Robinson is a "strategic loser"—"so extreme in his positions that he'd never have a serious shot at office, but an appealing target for the fundraising dollars of ideologues."

"Strategic loser" or "Angel of Death"?

Those blessed with the Robinson imprimatur seem not to prosper. Have you noticed the Ben Carson for President campaign lately? Carson has recently lost his campaign chairman, his national finance chairman, his deputy campaign manager, and his general counsel: "The four senior advisers all quit the campaign, which has fallen into disarray due to dysfunctional leadership, a lack of professionalism and frequent in-fighting" (PoliticusUSA). Was the Robinson personality involved in driving those people away? Dunno. Could be.

According to the Mother Jones investigative piece on Robinson, Vernon "has quietly turned his quixotic Draft Ben Carson effort into a lucrative enterprise for himself. FEC filings show that the PAC paid out over $250,000 to a consulting firm called Tzu Mahan. Buzzfeed reported in November that Tzu Mahan—its name a mashup of ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu and 19th century Navy admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan—is a one-man company, run by Robinson."

We can only hope that Mr. Robinson has the ear -- exclusively -- of new NC GOP Chair Hasan Harnett!

New Leadership for the NC GOP

Meet Hasan Harnett, the insurgent Tea Partier elected yesterday as chair of the North Carolina Republican Party. Hasan beat lawyer Craig Collins, who had been anointed as the "chosen one" by the entire state Republican Party leadership, including Gov. McCrory, Sen. Thom Tillis, Senate President Phil Berger, and NC House Speaker Tim Moore.

Nope, said 700 delegates at the state GOP convention, decisively beating the 562 delegates who followed the establishment in voting for Collins. Make no mistake: this was a palace coup, and a fairly bloody one, according to Tea Party commentator Brant Clifton. And, also according to Clifton, moves are already underway to undermine and neuter Mr. Harnett by the GOP establishment.

The N&O describes Harnett as "a businessman and author from Concord." He previously served as campaign manager for GOP congressional candidate Vince Coakley, who lost his race for Congress against Alma Adams last year.

As Mr. Clifton has noted, this upset election of a far-right political novice to lead the NC GOP is a major set-back for Gov. McCrory, who is busily trying to reclaim the middle ground in the state, and it's a major set-back for the handful of political allies McCrory may have in the General Assembly, who may also be tacking back to the center.

Harnett and his Tea Party choir may make it much harder to tack back center-ward.