The Democrat Who Threatens Madison Cawthorn

 

A warning from the managers: JWW gets excited about stuff like this. It's a fatal flaw. We know it, and JWW knows it. Because disappointment is inevitable. We put up with his many excitements, especially approaching a General Election, because we sympathize. People eat up with politics need excitement. The excitement of possibilities generates the raw energy necessary for long marches. Plus JWW is into watching candidate videos.

Just take two minutes to know the Democrat who's announced he's running for Congress in the 13th CD, the same district that Congressman Madison Cawthorn carpetbagged himself into last week, to wreck Tim Moore's lemonade stand:

Josh Remillard. That's the Democrat willing to take it to Madison Cawthorn in his new little supposedly safe fiefdom. Remillard -- if he can raise some money -- could inspire excitement in the new 13th, which is supposed to be one of the most Republican districts among all the new districts, a "safe Republican seat." Josh Remillard could at least complicate that smug expectation. A real soldier, with character, integrity, loyalty, kindness -- vs. a toy-boy (who likes to cartoonishly flaunt his supposedly "monster" masculinity). This could be the Iron John political cage-match of 2022.

And good move on Remillard's part. He had already -- since last March -- been running in a crowded Democratic field for the new 14th CD. But what was getting lost about him in that scrum of other Democratic candidates suddenly shines like a beacon in the 13th. (Remillard also ran for Chuck McGrady's old NC House seat in 2020. The Republican Tim Moffitt beat him with 60% of the vote. In other words, Remillard is battle hardened but still charging. WatWatch was enthusiastic about Remillard in January 2020.)

Pacifistic (genteel) Democrats who condemn the Republicans for their violent battle memes and who don't want the Democrats to take a similar gun to a gunfight, may not like that Remillard is actually in a very real sense acting the Army Ranger, an aggressive soldier-guardian doggedly stalking a threat to democracy. That target is already spooked. He just ran away from a different fight in his own district, afraid he might lose his reelection. Never mind. Remillard tracks him. Our Army combat veteran has a quarry, and he ain't giving up the hunt. Meanwhile, the over-exposed 26-year-old "traitor, fraud, and coward" can mull his own human possibilities.

Remillard's website is here, where you can donate to his campaign.

Twitter.

Facebook.

Democrats Lining Up For the Opportunity To Beat Madison Cawthorn

 

Madison Cawthorn (R)

This uneducated punk will be up for reelection in 2022 in the NC11. He's made a national spectacle of himself but is also the darling of the Right. He's said his main objective in office is to build a good "comms" operation, meaning he's much more interested in seeing himself in the news than in passing meaningful legislation for his constituents.

So far, three Democrats have declared their intention to compete in the spring 2022 Democratic primary to take on Cawthorn.

Beach-Ferrara

Buncombe County Commissioner Jasmine Beach-Ferrara was the first Democrat to declare on March 3rd. Beach-Ferrara, who is both a gay woman and a Christian minister as well as the mother of three children, said, “I’m running because Western North Carolina families deserve better than they’re getting from Madison Cawthorn. My faith teaches me that leadership starts with empathy, compassion, and listening and then getting to work to help people. That’s the kind of leadership I want to offer instead of the division and mean-spiritedness we’re getting now. This is going to be a campaign built on bringing people together, finding common ground, organizing everywhere and talking about the issues that actually matter to people’s lives.”

Beach-Ferrara reportedly raised $380K in the first 29 days of her campaign.

Remillard

Democrat Josh Remillard announced his candidacy on March 10th.

A former Army infantryman who served two combat tours in Iraq, Remillard ran previously in 2020 for the NC House Dist. 117, which Republican Tim Moffitt easily won with over 60% of the vote. According to Cory Vaillancourt, Remillard was born in Goldsboro, raised in Wilmington, and was in foster care until the age of four. "After leaving the Army, he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy from the University of Washington. Remillard’s current occupation is serving as a stay-at-home dad."

“I’m ready to roll up my sleeves and do the hard work of strengthening our economy, fixing a broken health-care system, and improving our kids' education,” he said. “I am running to stop Madison Cawthorn and bring honor back to Congress.

The newest Democrat in the race: Ed Gash, an elementary school principal, a preacher, and a former linebacker at UNC-Chapel Hill.

He was profiled today by Kyle Perrotti:

Gash

Gash was born and raised in Western North Carolina, having graduated from Hendersonville High School in 1988. From there, he went to UNC-Chapel Hill, where he also played outside linebacker. While Gash eventually had the chance to sign with the New England Patriots, the team his brother Sam played for, he decided to go a different direction and get into business.

It wasn’t long before a new venture took him to the Caribbean, where he lived for 14 years training people in different countries to run direct sales operations.

Before long, Gash met Katy, who is from Barbados. The two quickly fell in love and got married a year later in 1996. The two got to travel frequently for work to countries all over the world and even lived in Guyana, the Virgin Islands and St. Lucia.

Eventually, in 2008, the Gashes and their three children moved back to Hendersonville to be closer to his family in the mountains.

“I was away for 20 years, almost to the day,” Gash said.

Gash got right to work in the school system. Beginning as a part-time teaching assistant, he became a math teacher before getting his master’s degree and going into administration. In January 2020, he became the principal at Bruce Drysdale Elementary School, which he himself attended as a child.

Since being back home, Gash also coached girls basketball and served as an assistant coach on the football team until 2014 when he was named Hendersonville’s head coach, making him only the second Black head coach in Western North Carolina since integration. Gash coached until 2016 when he stepped away to go into administration.

Another major part of Gash’s life is his faith, which he said guides every decision. Since 2008, after doing missionary work during his last couple of years in the Caribbean, he’s been the pastor at the nondenominational Speak Life Community Church and is also currently the Hendersonville Police Department’s chaplain.

“It’s the faith that causes me to look at folks that maybe don’t believe what I believe or feel the way I feel with compassion and love and still be able to have a conversation with them,” Gash said.

Gash has long been active in the community, but it wasn’t until recently that he began seeing things through a more political lens. While he and Katy said they don’t consider themselves activists, between the COVID pandemic and racial unrest of the last year, they’ve felt compelled to make their voices heard.

“Something happened over the summer,” Gash said. “It was a paradigm shift, just in my heart, where I felt I had to do something.”

Buncombe County Commissioner Has Entered the Democratic Primary To Challenge Madison Cawthorn

 

Take a look at this, the announcement video of Buncombe County Commissioner Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, just released this morning:

“I’m running because Western North Carolina families deserve better than they’re getting from Madison Cawthorn. My faith teaches me that leadership starts with empathy, compassion, and listening and then getting to work to help people. That’s the kind of leadership I want to offer instead of the division and mean-spiritedness we’re getting now,” said Beach-Ferrara. “This is going to be a campaign built on bringing people together, finding common ground, organizing everywhere and talking about the issues that actually matter to people’s lives.”

"Some people will say a gay woman who's a Christian minister just can't get elected in the South. Not to mention, she's a Democrat. When I say an insurrectionist who flirts with Nazis, fires up a violent crowd to attack our democracy, well he shouldn't get reelected anywhere," Beach-Ferrara said in the campaign video.

According to Kristy Kepley-Steward, "As a commissioner, Beach-Ferrara has a reputation as being a pragmatic problem-solver who knows how to bring people together to deliver results for working families, working to bridge the commission’s partisan divide to help expand access to early childhood education, tackle the opioid epidemic and keep people safe during the pandemic." The Smoky Mountain News prints additional background on Beach-Ferrara.

Beach-Ferrara will likely face a lively Democratic primary next spring for the privilege of taking on Cawthorn. Col. Moe Davis, who ran a pugnacious race against Cawthorn last fall, raised substantial campaign cash, but lost to Cawthorn by 12 points, filed a statement of candidacy on Feb. 22 but has a statement on his website saying he’s still “exploring” the idea of running again.

Henderson County businessman and Iraq War veteran Josh Remillard has also filed FEC paper to organize a campaign. Remillard was on the 2020 ballot for the 117th House District against a resurrected Tim Moffitt, but Remillard lost by 21 points. According to the Smoky Mountain News, another potential Democratic candidate, Jay Carey, is also exploring a run, "and it's likely he's not the last."

According to Cory Vaillancourt, Cawthorn may have his own Republican primary next spring with "powerful Hendersonville Republican" Chuck Edwards, who was just reelected to the NC Senate from Dist. 48. Apparently, Cawthorn's stepped on his own weenie a few times too many for an establishment Republican like Chuck Edwards.

If the Blue Wave Rolls Bigly, Brian Caskey Could Bring an Upset in SD48

Prognosticators consider North Carolina Senate District 48 as "Safe Republican" (although Bitzer rated it only "Lean Republican" at some point late last fall -- I have the print-out but don't ask me for the URL). Trump took 59.36 percent of the district vote in 2016. That's enough to sober anybody up -- ice water to one's tenderest aspirations. But Democrat Brian Caskey has been making a campaign there, and anyone should have seen it coming. 

I followed the rise of Caskey starting on December 31, 2019, shortly after the close of candidate filing. He was the frontrunner then, I thought, and has never stopped. He won the Democratic primary in March. In July, he called out Republican incumbent Chuck Edwards for being in Duke Energy's pocket. A scrapper, and that's what it will take to upset this incumbent. If anything, Caskey should do more of that hell-raising with Edwards' record.

The mathematical question: Does Democratic/Independent enthusiasm for voting (i.e., disgust with Trump) equal a 5 percent bump for Caskey? And does a downward trending enthusiasm gap among mountain Republicans equal another 5 percent advantage for Caskey? (Political observers whose roots run deep in the mountains say things aren't so keen for many Republican voters. There's a palpable sense of exhaustion.) Together, Democratic enthusiasm and Republican depression could wipe out Trump's 10 percent advantage from 2016. Is it possible? Hell, in a year when the very bedrock of our Republic, the Post Office, is threatened, I'll believe almost anything is possible

There's another factor impacting on Caskey's chances to flip this Senate district: SD48 overlaps with HD113 and HD117 where Democratic candidates have been mounting energetic campaigns -- Sam Edney in the 113th and Josh Remillard in the 117th. Edney especially is rallying the troops. Edney, Remillard, and Kim Bost over in the 96th District (Catawba County) have teamed up for their own "Breaking the Majority" campaign. The energy is noticeable for mobilizing "sometime" voters, new voters, independent voters (who hold the balance of power), and with Caskey assaulting the Senate, there's every promise of culmulative force applied against The Matrix.

The Elections of March: Army Infantryman v. Smarmy Self-Promoter in NCHouse 117

NC House District 117 -- Henderson County

This was Republican Chuck McGrady's safe district since the elections of 2010. McGrady was often described as a "moderate," though I rarely saw any practical application of his supposed moderation on a House Republican Caucus. He usually voted with his tribe.

MoffittS
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When McGrady announced that he would not be running for another term, former House member (District 116) Tim Moffitt fairly leapt at the chance to get back into politics. Moffitt represented District 116 starting in 2010 and was an ambitious little tick who was always into something underhanded. He thought he might be Thom Tillis's natural born replacement as Speaker of the House after Tillis left for Washington. He also thought he could steal Asheville's water supply to privatize it. That scheme didn't go so well, and Moffitt lost his seat in 2014 to Democrat Brian Turner by a thousand votes.

Moffitt has his own primary contest against Dennis Justice, a perennial candidate in Henderson County who's run for Henderson County Commissioner twice, Board of Education three times, Mayor of Fletcher once, and once for the NC Senate in a primary against Tom Apodaca. Moffitt will probably win on March 3 and will then face Democrat Josh Remillard in November in what is considered a "Likely Republican" district.

Democrat Josh Remillard

Remillard also technically has a primary on March 3. I say "technically" because his primary opponent, Danae Aicher, withdrew her candidacy on January 15 -- though not in time to get her name off the ballot. (Aicher had a campaign up and running and looks to have been a very appealing candidate herself.) So though the outcome of the primary is more or less guaranteed in his favor, Remillard still has to go through the motions.

He's going through the motions just like the veteran infantryman he was during two tours in Iraq. He's participated in the LeadNC candidate training and he appears to be all over the place in joint appearances with other local and district-wide candidates from Buncombe and Henderson. Remillard's mountain man persona is going to present a decided contrast to Tim Moffitt's junior-exec-on-the-make vibe.