Oppo Research Coming for Democrats

 

For hardcore politicos, the ones especially with a disturbingly microscopic interest in North Carolina politics, Marshall Terry's interview with Bryan Anderson about the skill and practice of "opposition research" is a really informative read. It was done for WFAE, Charlotte's NPR radio station. Anderson previously wrote a piece for The Assembly, "Oppo Man," about Charles Hellwig, a self-described "right wing nut" who wants the most conservative person to win any race he signs on to help. Hellwig was the operative who exposed Cal Cunningham's sexual adventures before the 2020 election. He's very proud of it.

So WFAE interviewer Anderson got Hellwig to spill beans on who Hellwig is currently assisting, or planning to assist, through the 2024 elections:

Erin Pare

*Erin Paré, Republican House member from Wake County (Dist. 37), the last surviving Republican to represent any Wake County district in either House or Senate. She beat Democrat Sydney Batch in 2020 and held on to the seat in 2022 by a healthy 3 points. According to press accounts, she was very active on shaping the new anti-abortion laws and was one of the "moderate" Republican women who kept the ban to 12 weeks rather than 6. She has just announced her candidacy for the U.S. Congress, for CD13, the seat currently occupied by Wiley Nickel. She came out of the gate sounding very much like the darling of a right-wing nut: "I won’t stand by while radical liberals ruin our economy, allow crime to run rampant on our streets, and indoctrinate our children. I have stood up to the woke mob here in NC and I’ll do the same in Washington! Join us - let's stop the radical Left!" So now Charles Hellwig will be digging into Wiley Nickel like a mealworm.

*Jon Hardister, who's giving up his House seat (Dist. 59) (and a powerful role as chief Republican whip) to run in 2024 for labor commissioner. He's considered a dishonest snake for being the prime operative in the budget veto override ambush pulled off by Speaker Tim Moore early on the morning of September 11, 2019. The Democrat so far in the race for Labor Commissioner: Braxton Winston II, a Charlotte city councilman. He'll no doubt present a colorful target for Hellwig's oppo research.

*Fred Von Canon, a veteran also-ran who's now signing on for a Congressional race in CD1. He ran twice unsuccessfully against Terence Everitt for the District 35 House seat. Before Von Canon can face incumbent Democrat Donald Davis in November, he must get through a possibly nasty primary with Sandy Smith, a Republican businesswoman from eastern North Carolina. She's the MAGA flamethrower who has lost a CD1 race twice in 2020 and 2022. You might expect a man like Hellwig to gravitate to the much more conservative Smith, but the other part of his druthers in a Republican candidate -- the most conservative -- is the kicker, "who can conceiveably win." Hellwig apparently doesn't think Sandy Smith can beat Don Davis.

 

Devious NCGA Majority Whip Jon Hardister, Skating to Reelection

 

Jon Hardister

Republican Jon Hardister was first elected to the NC House in 2012 from eastern Guilford County. He has risen. He's now the Republican Majority Whip. And through circumstances explored below, he's being given a walk to reelection by a phantom Democratic candidate.

Hardister has a special place in my memory for his being a prime operative in the budget veto override ambush pulled off by Speaker Tim Moore early on the morning of September 11, 2019. Republican leadership had passed the word to the Democratic minority that no votes would be taken that Wednesday morning. It was the 18th anniversary of 9/11, after all, and Democratic members planned to be at official remembrances. But what those too trustful Democrats didn't know was that Whip Jon Hardister was secretly texting Republican members to "be in your seat at 8:30." So with many Democrats missing, the Republicans overrode Gov. Cooper's veto of the Republican budget. (That veto subsequently held in the NC Senate, and as a result the Republican leadership actually began negotiating with the governor. Whether that's produced a net-plus is subject to divination.) 

You might remember the volcanic rage over the Hardister trick expressed by Rep. Deb Butler on the House floor.

Hardister faced a credible Democratic candidate, Nicole Quick, in 2020 but still beat her 52% to 48%, dashing hopes everywhere that he was finally having his comeuppance.

House District 59 has subsequently changed its Democratic prospects during the most recent redistricting. NCFree now rates it R+1, but Dave's Redistricting gives Democrats the edge: 49.4% D v. 48.8% R. So what an opportunity for some credible Democrat to flip this seat.

Actually two Democrats did step forward: Eddie Aday, an ex-Marine (who actually ran a campaign), and mystery woman Sherrie Young, who did not run a primary campaign that could be described as a campaign and who never had any website or social media presence anywhere except for a personal Facebook page that didn't even mention she was running for office. Nevertheless -- and hang on to your butts, O my brethren -- Sherrie Young won the primary on May 17 with 74% of the vote. She's now the official Democratic nominee to take on Jon Hardister.

After that primary win, John Hammer wrote a whole column about her for the Rhino Times, speculating (because there's no other path to take with the Invisible Sherrie Young) about her completely surprising win and her utter lack of effort:

A lot of people get fired up and go down to the Board of Elections office and file to run for office. Often only then do they find out how time consuming and expensive it is to run a campaign and how difficult it is to raise money.

Some spend no more than the filing fee and hope that on Election Day people will like their name or that their opponent drops out or makes a huge mistake....

There were no yard signs and no visible sign of any effort to convince people that she was the best candidate in the race. Voters in District 59 reported they saw no evidence that Young was campaigning.

That candidate invisibility remains unchanged approximately four months from the election. I just spent time trying to find any trace of her.  Still no website. No Twitter. No Facebook (except for the weirdly non-political one linked above that says she's a nurse, though a thread about her on Reddit under the headline, "For those of y'all in State House district 59 who voted democrat yesterday, why did you vote Sherrie Young?" According to that thread, she's a hairdresser, verified (if I've got the right Sherrie Young) on about.me, a kind of personal advertisement service very similar to Linked In. If that's the same Sherrie Young, Fate has pulled a wicked practical joke on Guilford Democrats.

Nicole Quick Has Announced for the 59th NC House District

Jon Hardister, Republican Whip,
NC House

Jon Hardister, the majority Republican whip in the NC House, appears to have been a prime operative in the veto override ambush pulled off by Speaker Tim Moore early on the morning of September 11.

Remember the drill? Republican leadership passed the word to the Democratic minority that no votes would be taken that Wednesday morning. It was the 18th anniversary of 9/11, after all, and at least some Democratic members planned to be at official remembrances. But what those too trustful Democrats didn't know was that Whip Jon Hardister was secretly texting Republican members to "be in your seat at 8:30." To motivate them more, Hardister alleged that maybe Democrats were going to try to pull a fast one with some motion about redistricting, and Republican members better be ready.

Clever.

Hardister could -- and subsequently did -- rationalize his text message to his troops -- I'm paraphrasing but this is the gist of his cover-story: "As Republican whip, I must routinely remind my forgetful colleagues to be in attendance" -- while Hardister refused to admit there was any ruse involved. He won't produce the actual text he sent to fellow Republicans, though he did confirm to the News and Observer reporter that he warned that the Democrats might try something subversive about redistricting.

The Republicans knew -- and have known -- that they couldn't override Governor Cooper's veto of their budget except by deception. By infernal hook or by crook. Representative Hardister was both a hook and smug little crook when all was said and done.


Hardister Now Has an Announced Democratic Opponent

Nicole Quick speaks at her kick-off
on Sunday, Sept. 22

Nicole Quick, currently the chair of the Guilford County Democrats, quietly launched her campaign for the District 59 NC House seat a week ago with a private fundraiser in Greensboro. I say "quietly" because the mainstream media has taken no notice of her yet, but House Democratic Minority Leader Darren Jackson attended and so did Democratic freshman Ashton Clemmons from the neighboring 57th District. Also attending was Democratic freshman Senator Michael Garrett of the 27th Senatorial District in Guilford and Senator Gladys Robinson, also of Guilford. Garrett became a star in 2018 by defeating incumbent bete noir Trudy Wade.

Just from that evidence alone -- pretty much every elected Democrat in Guilford County attended the Quick kick-off to show support -- we might say that Nicole Quick has been recruited, or if not directly recruited, certainly nurtured.

She does have a website (well fleshed-out, so she's been planning this for some time), no campaign video yet, but she does have a Facebook page with a lengthy biography attached. She also feeds the Twitter beast, and I like that in a candidate.

What she needs: A robust field program, with aggressive field organizers who won't wait for door-knocking volunteers to appear via the website but who will hit the phones and recruit troops on the ground. For that, she'll also need comprehensive data and data managers who can turn up those high-scoring Democrats in District 59, some of whom have never volunteered for a campaign before but who will be unusually energized in 2020 because of the threat of another four years of Twitterman.

I must point out here that Jon Hardister is a popular incumbent Republican. He took almost 57% of the vote in 2018. After the most recent remapping of NC House districts, District 59 still has a 54.20% predicted Republican vote share. Michael Bitzer lists the new 59th as "Lean Republican" but also "competitive." It's that last word that can send tingles down the spine. But competition also means "a hell of a lot of work!" Hope she has a campaign manager and a good bench of support staff, whether paid or volunteer.

Can Nicole Quick do it? Dunno. But I'm watching from the mountains.

New Hope for an End to Gerrymandering in North Carolina

Yesterday in Raleigh, a bi-partisan coalition (two Republicans and two Democrats as primary sponsors, supported by others including Democrat Pricey Harrison) filed House Bill 69 to establish a nonpartisan redistricting commission in time for the 2020 Census.

"If it passes, the redistricting committee would be made up of 11 non-politicians appointed by legislative leaders of the state’s main two political parties. It would have four Democratic voters, four Republican voters and three other voters. Anyone who has been a politician, campaign staffer, lobbyist or state board member, or who is related to anyone in those positions, would be legally barred from being on the committee until five years after they leave politics." (NandO)

This is a step, and perhaps Berger/Moore might be a little motivated toward giving it a fair shot at passage following last fall's comeuppance at the polls, with another perhaps ground-shifting election approaching next year. Berger/Moore could lose it all in 2020 and then watch a newly empowered Democratic Party, with revenge in its eye, take out its own map-drawing software for the next round of partisan gerrymandering.

I'm ready for that back and forth to end and to end decisively and for eternity.

Yesterday in Raleigh, North Carolina legislators Rep. Jon Hardister, a Guilford County Republican, and Rep. Robert Reives, a Chatham County Democrat, and other lawmakers from both parties spoke to the press about HB69:

Read more here: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article226205125.html#storylink=cpy