Could This Ex-Marine Put the NC-3 Special Election in Play for Democrats?

Richard "Otter" Bew

Retired Marine Col. Richard “Otter” Bew announced yesterday that he will be running in the Democratic primary on April 30th in the first step toward running in the special election in NC-3 on July 9th to fill out the term of Rep. Walter B. Jones, who died last month. (News about other Democrats in this primary, included below.)

Bew completed the Platoon Leaders Course in Quantico in 1988, received a degree in Philosophy from Lehigh University in 1989, and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant of Marines. He became a naval aviator in 1991.

He retired from the Marines last fall after 29 years in the service. He served in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, and Serbia, and he already knows some of the doorways and secret knocks on Capitol Hill, having served as deputy legislative assistant to Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He also served as a legislative aide to the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and he earned a master's degree in international public policy at Johns Hopkins.

In other words, he's a richly experienced, smart dude to try for a seat in Congress, and he does remind us of the many ex-military personnel who ran strong campaigns last fall as Democrats, from Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania to Amy McGrath in Kentucky.

"Otter" Bew was watching those races too: “When I saw folks like that step out and run really good campaigns and do so with a different kind of dialogue — one that’s inclusive — and stay on target, the thing that I took most from that is inspiration that this can be done,” Bew said.

He's sensing a seismic shift in the voting public, a change that produced last fall the largest turnover of Congressional seats since Watergate, and even a deeply red district like the NC Third, which gave DJT 60% of the vote in 2016, can produce surprises, especially in a special election. “I got strong feedback that folks who normally would have opposed a candidate from the Democratic Party are more open to it now,” Bew said. “You have to really be ignoring some clear evidence of how [the US is] viewed in the world and how we’re performing in the world to still be sticking — with the same level of your conviction — with your vote from two years ago.”

There's some wishful thinking in that assessment, no doubt, but there's also a creeping reality.

Bew says he won't accept corporate PAC money. He puts health care issues at the top of what motivates him for office, and he acknowledges climate change as a major defining problem going forward.. 

He has professional help, obviously, judging from his website. 

Other Democrats in the April 30th Primary

Filing ends this Friday, so there may be additional candidates by Saturday, but at the moment:

Isaiah "Ike" Johnson, also a retired (1999) U.S. Marine who mentors students in Onslow County Schools. Johnson is African-American and ran unsuccessfully last fall for the NC House District 14 seat, receiving 41% of the vote in that race.

Dana Outlaw, New Bern’s mayor (since 2013) and the owner of a self-storage business and real estate consulting and appraisal business. 

Ollie Nelson, another retired African-American Marine and a Jacksonville pastor. 

Republicans Also Competing to Replace Walter Jones in Congress

There are currently at least four, one more wacko-conservative than the next (Michael Speciale ... really!). We'll wait to see who wins the primary in April before we waste our time researching all of them.

Footnote

If no candidate in either party primary fails to win 30% of the vote on April 30th, the 2nd primary will fall on July 9th, with the special election proper pushed to September 10.

Crazy-Acting Michael Speciale in the NC House Gets a Democratic Opponent

Michael Speciale

Republican Michael Speciale was first elected to the NC House in 2012, representing Beaufort, Craven, and Pamlico counties (House District 3). He has often teamed up with that other crazy-acting House member Larry Pittman to propose embarrassing legislation. In February 2017, Speciale and Pittman teamed up on an amendment to the NC Constitution to allow the state to secede from the Union, and in April of 2017 he and Pittman proposed a law declaring gay marriages in North Carolina, whether they were performed in-state or anywhere else in the known universe, illegal and illegitimate, the US Supreme Court be damned!

NC House Speaker Tim Moore, a house-broke Republican who knows not to pee on the furniture, decided the law against gay marriage was a bridge too far, and he killed it (by referring it to the Death Chamber, a.k.a., the Rules Committee) before it reached the floor of the House.

Speciale made vicious fun of the people taking part in the massive Women's March on the day after Trump's inauguration, and when the Raleigh News and Observer reported his Facebook posts, Speciale made vicious comments about fake news and the "snowflakes" infesting his sunny world.

But nothing captured the Speciale personality like his comments in his first year in Raleigh about First Lady Ann McCrory's favorite anti-puppy-mill law requiring commercial breeders with 10 or more female breeding dogs to provide the dogs with the American Kennel Club's basic standards of care, like food and water, clean bedding, daily exercise, and veterinary care, and humane euthanasia when needed.

In the House floor debate, Speciale couldn't contain his nastiness: " 'Exercise on a daily basis?' " Speciale sneered at the language of the bill. "If I kick him across the floor, is that considered daily exercise?" Speciale continued: " 'Euthanasia performed humanely' – so should I choose the ax or the baseball bat?" Ann McCrory was sitting in the gallery of the House at the time. Later Speciale declared on Facebook that he "will not succumb to political correctness."

He won't succumb to basic humanity either, apparently.

Speciale has a Republican primary opponent this May, Eric Queen, a retired career Marine who explicitly

Charles Dudley, outside the New Bern
BOE

denounces extremist views on his website. We'll see if that gets him anywhere in the contemporary North Carolina Republican Party, won't we?

Democrat Rev. Charles Dudley of the New Beginnings Ministry of Faith in Havelock filed for the seat on February 16. New Beginnings, a non-denominational church, is located practically at the gates of the Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station: "Our mission is to reach the lost, give every person a New Beginning in life, teach the saved by the Word of God, equip the saints for the work of the ministry, and reach the world through the mission field."

After filing to run in New Bern, Charles Dudley spoke to supporters outside the Board of Elections office. He described himself as “strong, fair, and compassionate.” He said he considers taxes as investments, and more investment should be made in education, especially in teacher salaries. He said more of the tax dollars paid by Craven County residents should be invested in Craven County. He also promised to represent all people in his district equally. “Every one of our 83,000 residents [in this district] is worth investing in,” he said.

House District 3 is almost 20% black and over 90% decent human beings (I bet!) who might in a Blue Wave year want a compassionate Christian representing it in Raleigh.

An NC House Race That Needs a Democratic Candidate

NC House District 3

Incumbent Republican Michael Speciale

Speciale

Speciale is notorious for being unhinged in that special way of extreme conservatives: He sponsored a bill in 2017 that sought to repeal the part of the state constitution that prohibits secession. He was one of four House sponsors on a bill that would have once again made gay marriage illegal in the state, in defiance of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. As the bill made national news, House Speaker Tim Moore said it would not be considered. Speciale loves his social media tirades and boasts, which makes him a Trump wannabe.

Speciale has drawn a (relatively moderate, compared to him) Republican primary challenger, Eric Queen, who like Speciale is a former Marine. Queen doesn't agree with Speciale about defying the Supreme Court and rewriting the state's constitution, though he's pretty much a doctrinaire Republican conservative on other issues.

So far, no Democratic challenger has announced a run for this seat, which includes Beaufort, Craven, and Pamlico counties. Come on, guys! Anything can happen in a year like 2018 is going to be. Filing will close on the last day of February.

NC House Member to Governor: "Your Comments Are Sophomoric"

Michael Speciale

Michael Speciale, R-New Bern, who originally voted against Trudy Wade's scheme to seize control of the Greensboro city council for Republicans (before he got himself disciplined by the Republican leadership in the NC House and came back into the House chamber to vote for the "local bill"), has lashed out at his fellow Republican, Governor Pat McCrory, who called Trudy Wade's plot against Greensboro Democrats “a bad bill and a shameful process.”

Speciale isn't having it! With a guilty conscience for having changed his vote and allowing this piece of garbage to become law, Speciale posted this on his Facebook page: “Gov. McCrory just cannot seem to get that he is no longer a Mayor and we are not his Aldermen. As usual, the governor’s comments about the General Assembly are sophomoric and borne of ignorance and a lack of knowledge. The Executive Branch needs your attention, governor, not the Legislative Branch!”

Speciale went on to suggest that McCrory is “constantly grandstanding in the press.”

Well, yes he is ... constantly grandstanding in the press ... but what's really striking here is how little respect the governor gets from members of his own party, let alone from political hacks like yours truly. Is this good for North Carolina? To have a governor whose own "allies" in the General Assembly characterize as "sophomoric" (which in other instances might be an apt adjective, but not in this present case)?