NCGOP Sez It's Just a Personality Thing (That Clears Everything Up!)

 

Money Isn't Everything But It Beats 2nd Place

 

Kudos to the youngest Democratic party chair in the nation. Anderson Clayton deserves much of the credit for excellent fundraising, as she has brought a new energy and a bright vision, and she seems downright indefatigable criss-crossing the state, holding events, cheering on the troops especially in formerly neglected counties where Democrats have in some cases just given up all hope.

Colin Campbell reported:

So far this election cycle, the state Democratic party has raised $5.26 million for its state and federal campaign accounts. The state Republican Party, meanwhile, has raised over $3.34 million across its accounts.

As of the latest campaign finance reports in February, the N.C. Democratic Party had $2.44 million on hand, while the NCGOP had $871,000.

This success is naturally driving MAGA mad. Anderson's personal mantra of "outwork, out-organize, outlast" has them rattled, and they are trying to tear her down. Someone even posted that she looked a lot older than 26, implying ... what? That she's a 50-year-old political ringer brought in to impersonate a vivacious and successful political organizer in her mid-20s who refuses to accept that the North Carolina Democratic Party was finished after the election of 2020. Suck it, GOP.

Clayton will be holding an April 14th fundraiser for the Watauga Democratic Party at Ski Mountain resort between Boone and Blowing Rock. You can get tickets to come see and hear her rousing message of rock-'em, sock-'em for 2024 here.

Cage Match: NCGOP Establishment vs. Hard Right Activists

 

Michael Whatley

Back on May 30th, we wrote a piece called "Who'll Lead the NCGOP?" about the hard-right insurgency vying with the establishmentarian current chair, Michael Whatley, to lead the state party for the next two years. The insurgent candidate was "MAGA ideologue, John Kane, who comes from an election-denying gene pool of some prominence." Whatley beat the insurgency and won a new term as chair ... with what three convention delegates-for-Kane now allege in a Wake Superior Court was a flawed and/or illegal election process which allowed off-site electronic voting. The office of chair, therefore, must be vacated for a do-over election, the plaintiffs allege.

Unusual lawsuit, in that the three plaintiffs named only "the North Carolina Republican Party" as defendant. How often does the state organization of any major political party get sued?

The delegates' beef with the way Chair Whatley run the convention gets a thorough airing on The Daily Haymaker, which generously reprints much of the complaint. A lot of nit-picking, but then, a lot of nits to pick. The screwed up election -- if it was screwed up to the point of being actually illegal, which the lawsuit alleges -- may have all been accidents or incompetence -- faulty software, poor signal, failure to instruct the delegates -- but the implication behind this lawsuit is that the election was stolen (and Michael Whatley better give it back!).

Oh, Trump-era Republicans. If things don't go your way, it's always election fraud.

They Eat Their Own

 

The Republicans at their state convention yesterday in Greensboro voted to censure senior Senator Thom Tillis because he had not been sufficiently mean to the queers. No, seriously. Delegates -- we don't know how many of the 1,800, because the press was barred -- said "you're not welcome in the Republican Party because you supported gay marriage." (Tillis pushed a bill to codify same-sex and interracial marriage, which President Joe Biden signed into law last year.) Plus some other stuff about not being mean enough to immigrants. 

On a thread started by DemsParty Chair Anderson Clayton, someone tweeted, "When Thom Tillis fails their test for a 'real Republican,' you know their party has gone off a cliff."

Because reporters were barred, the only eye-witness source I have is extreme-MAGA blogger Brant Clifton (unreliable and prone to exaggeration, as he is). Clifton sez that the meeting was raucous and contentious because Party Chair Michael Whatley's lieutenants ran it with an iron fist. Motions of "no confidence" and "vacate the chair" were shouted out from the floor, "but were quickly dispensed with via parliamentary means by Whatley’s convention managers."

Whatley won reelection as party chair, incidently, against a determined faction of extreme-MAGA bullies who considered Whatley as big a weak loser as Thom Tillis. Anger at the convention boiled over mainly among the supporters of the insurgent MAGA candidate John Kane, who also ran and whose bitch against Whatley was that he wasn't a big enough election-denier. Kane boiled everything down to "election integrity," which was his shorthand for "every election that goes against us must be fradulent; therefore, we must crack down on people who are balloting ... to prevent fraud." It's simple logic, invented to cover crimes against democracy.

Michael Whatley

Whatley seemed to play into challenger Kane's hands by devising an electronic method of voting, with no paper trail, which the Kane adherants immediately condemned as potentially fraudulent, and when the electronic system went suddenly dark in the middle of voting, the Kane delegates erupted and chaos ensued. 

In his speech to the convention prior to the voting, Kane said (according to Brant Clifton),

“Everyone in this room knows the cardinal rule of election integrity is there's a PAPER TRAIL. Machines have issues, sometimes unintentional, sometimes intentional [there it is! the suggestion of fraud]. As we get ready to vote for our Party leadership today it will all be done electronically. No paper trail.

This simple election was 100% under the control of Chairman Michael Whatley and he broke the cardinal rule of election integrity. Here today, just like the elections in our State, Michael Whatley doesn’t think we have a voter integrity problem. I do."

Here's what I can't figure out: Why a convention of true-believers would censure the senator and still elect establishmentarian Michael Whatley with 60%-plus of the vote. It must come down to Whatley's term coinciding with Republican dominance at the ballot box: Two successful Senate races, a sweep of the judiciary, total dominance of both houses of the General Assembly, and a trophy party-switcher to put on display. 

Whatever else you say about Whatley, he's totally lacking the trumpist edge of aggressive nastiness. Plus Donald J. Trump re-endorsed him for the chair at the start of the convention, and Mike Pence praised him as the best state party chair in the nation.

DEMOCRATIC REACTION

State Party Chair Anderson Clayton tweeted a thread:

It’s ironic that the NCGOP can get away with criticizing my party on bullying ["bullying" had been Tricia Cotham's big excuse for leaving the Democrats], meanwhile, they just silenced their *senior* United States Senator over his support of a person’s freedom to love who they love. Which party is the party of freedom again? Not the NCGOP —

It’s ridiculous to still have the fight over basic human rights. And yet the NCGOP continues to fight against the LGBTQIA+ community and their existence. Guess what? Queer folks ain’t going anywhere! But we can make sure y’all do come next November. Folks who support attacking and persecuting our own citizens for being gay, trans, bisexual, gender-nonconforming, or don’t fit into the boxes defined by the right wing extremists in our state, do NOT belong in positions of power. We’re here to make sure everyone in North Carolina can call this state home.

We deserve a North Carolina that is diverse, welcoming, & accepting of all who live here, grow up here, or grow old here. But under the extreme NCGOP agenda, our folks continue to be attacked. I refuse to stand for it, & Democrats will always fight for rights for ALL NC’ians.

Former Republican Governor Pat McCrory condemned the convention:

“It’s time also for all NC state and federal elected republicans to stand with Thom and publicly voice their opposition to the action taken at our convention.”

One Republican state senator, Bobby Hanig from the coast, took up McCrory's challenge and emphasized Uncle Thom's practical advantages:

“I believe that a mob mentality doesn’t do us any good. Senator Tillis does a lot for North Carolina, he does a lot for the coastal communities, so why would I want to make him mad?”

The Hill also quoted State Sen. Jim Burgin of Harnett County, who said the vote to censure Tillis "sets a dangerous precedent and does not allow enough flexibility for individual interpretation of party values."

Burgin questioned whether his own vote last month for North Carolina’s 12-week abortion ban would similarly put him at risk of being censured because it’s out of line with the Republican platform, which states that life begins at conception.

“I don’t think we need to be attacking our own,” he said. “You don’t shoot your own elephants.”

Who'll Lead the NCGOP?

 

John Kane, insurgent candidate
for NCGOP Chair

There's a contest going on right now that'll be fought out and settled one way or another on the second weekend of June at the Khoury Convention Center in Greensboro ... the state Republican Party Convention, where the biggest question before the delegates will be who's going to be the next Chair of the NCGOP? Behind Door Number One: current chair Michael Whatley, running for reelection with the blessings of the old Republican mainstream; Door Number Two features an extreme-MAGA ideologue, John Kane, who comes from an election-denying gene pool of some prominence.

The Daily Haymaker, a MAGA standard-bearer who knows no end of serious contempt for the rest of the world, makes the savaging of Michael Whatley a long-running and therefore tiresome replay. The most recent Haymaker headline story ("Michael Whatley: A Cheney-Kinzinger Republican") opens like this:

The current NCGOP chairman loves to talk about Donald Trump and post pictures of himself with Trump’s plane. But much of what he does and says aligns much more with Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger — the two former “Republican” congressmen who colluded with Democrats on the farcical so-called “January 6 committee.”

It takes great courage and fortitude against sin, doesn't it? to sweep away every piece of evidence, including the ocular proof, as totally and unironically "farcical," but at least we know the mind-set we've waded into. Haymaker hates Michael Whatley (at least in today's blog post) because Whatley supposedly "boasted" that he had been the first Republican state leader to "condemn the mob."

Michael Whatley

But who's John Kane, you ask. John Kane is the number one son of an elder John Kane, a renown Raleigh mega-developer who was actually honored as Tar Heel of the Year in 2016. The elder Kane is also renown for raising big money for Republicans. The younger John Kane (he who would be chairman) emphasized his MAGA bona fides in an interview with Haymaker, hitting especially "election integrity," which is MAGA code for a cascade of conspiracies: "The election was stolen and we have to prevent more theft and all Democrats (and some RINOs) are suspect."

Kane also seems on-board for punishing Sen. Thom Tillis and other RINOs for snubbing MAGA orthodoxy, so if Kane wins, we might expect a purge-night with a lot of screaming.

A blow for the Haymaker crowd: Way back in January, Donald Trump endorsed Michael Whatley for reelection. That was before there was a John Kane campaign, so the Trump endorsement perhaps means only that he didn't have another choice.

"Signature Matching" on Absentee Ballots in NC Shut Down By Court

 

Back in the summer, the NCGOP put in a formal request to the State Board of Elections (SBE) to force county boards to match signatures on absentee ballots to voter registration forms. The SBE said no, that North Carolina already has “an extraordinarily secure absentee ballot process” and that adding signature matching “would introduce a level of uncertainty where some voters might be treated different than other voters.” North Carolina law already requires absentee ballots be filled out in the presence of two witnesses or a notary, more stringent identification requirements than in most states.

In other words, "signature matching" is just another version of voter suppression.

The NCGOP sued in Wake Superior Court to overturn the SBE's decision.

Last Friday, Judge Stephen R. Futrell dismissed the suit. There will be no signature matching on absentee mail ballots in North Carolina.

NC GOP Caucus Turns Nasty, Preys on Ignorance

 

Ricky Hurtado is the only Hispanic member of the NCHouse, representing HD63. Against considerable odds in 2020, Hurtado flipped this seat from red to blue, the only House seat to flip to Democrats in 2020. The Republican incumbent he beat, Steve Ross, was a country-club establishment, former Wells Fargo executive who has nevertheless gone full Trumpist in his attempt to retake his seat from Hurtado this year.

A photoshopped photo of Hurtado was mailed to voters in HD63 with his T-shirt altered to "Defund the Police," a nasty smear of a good man. I was first alerted to this by Sen. Jeff Jackson.

Not sure whose name is on the "Paid for by" disclaimer (assuming there is one), but Carolina Forward says it's the NC House Republican caucus cooking up this lying shit with dough from a dark-money PAC, @joinclc.

 They did one on Rep. Terence Everitt in HD35 (and no telling who else).

It's their identity as a political party. It's in their DNA.

Alienation May End the Republic

 

Brant Clifton over at The Daily Haymaker, is sometimes my window on the North Carolina branch of the national conservative movement (national conservatism = "the intellectual version of Trumpism"). Clifton has never covered up, or even softened, his contempt for anything that smells of "establishment Republican." He's a constant goad for the leadership of the NCGOP. He has launched shitballs at Dallas Woodhouse, Thom Tillis, Renee Ellmers, Tim Moore (among many others). The complaint against the establishment always involves its apparent lack of courage, its frequent failure to scorch the earth, or its corrupt bargains with big corporations. 

Clifton just published (again, as it turns out) a call to action for his brand of politics: 

Are you frustrated with the current state of the NCGOP? Start organizing your like-minded friends to take over — or at least build a sizeable contingent within — your precinct and your county party organization. The county party organization makes the decisions about who goes to the state convention. That’s where the platform AND the party chairman are decided on. He who shows up, wins. That’s how it works.

That alienation from the Republican Party hierarchy mirrors a similar alienation among some Democrats. Many of us are at least sympathetic to an "alienated worldview" because we have our own grievances against long lists of people in power, people with too much money, people who've gotten an unearned advantage at the expense of others. That alienated worldview animated both Tump voters and "Bernie Bros," a sobering but widely ignored connection.

Setting aside Brant Clifton and his brand of conservatism, I understand the attractive pull of some of the basic assumptions underpinning economic populism (and the alienation that goes with it):

Culture War is class war.

"Conventional Wisdom" is the path to stagnation.

Big-time "globalization" -- international deals under the banner of "free trade" -- benefit corporations at the expense of workers.

Globalization moved manufacturing jobs to China (and elsewhere).

The deindustrialization of the US because of globalization destroyed working-class families. 

I can recognize how much of their alienation I might have shared with many who stormed the Capitol on January 6th a year ago. Minus the fundamentally illiberal impulse to fall in behind a selfish and cruel "strong man" who has promised to right all wrongs if only he can be given all the power.

Define 'Trumpism'? See Mark Robinson

 

Our lieutenant governor since last year's election, Mark Robinson, has a bully's instincts: pick on the weakest on the playground. Physically, he indeed comes off as a great big bully, and he channels the Trump advice, "never apologize."

He's exactly what the Trump Party likes, applauds, gives money to, and elects. Billy Ball complains that no one visible in the NCGOP has called him out on anything he's said or done:

Robinson, the highest-ranking Republican in North Carolina, was open about his anti-LGBTQ beliefs long before he called queer folks “filth” at a Randolph County church in June. Long before he called trans folks “demonic” at a church in Raleigh in August.

So stow the shock. The hate isn’t a mistake, it is the message.

Robinson is not, as so many headlines labeled him, “homophobic.” He does not fear queer folks. He hates them. He will be remembered as a bigot, a spiteful buffoon who — best-case scenario — resigns today, even if that’s unlikely.

To call him out would invite bullying, and who wants that? Not Senate President Pro-Tem Phil Berger and NC House Speaker Tim Moore, who resolutely had no comment about Robinson's latest LGBTQ+ = "filth" statements (plural). But the NCGOP issued a message on its Facebook page saying the party "stands with" Robinson. Those are the two acceptable stances now for Republican office-holders watching their party transmogrify into a racist frat-initiation fueled by hatred. In the new Party of Trump it's either say nothing at all or be a lickspittle, groveling enabler of bad behavior and even worse morals. Those Trumpist voters will turn on you and take your hide -- any fellow Republican even thinking about criticizing the current drift. 

Disloyalty Like Burr's Requires Emergency Action

 

This is how hollowed out the North Carolina Republican Party has become because of Trump: the Central Committee of Party pooh-bahs have called an emergency teleconference this evening for the sole purpose of censuring their senior senator ... because you just can't let an outbreak of personal integrity and conscience fester.

Will anyone on the Central Committee support Burr's independence from Trumpism? Will we know?

Sen. Burr Votes 'Guilty' and Opens a Rift

 

Senator Richard Burr's conscience in his vote of "guilty" yesterday earned him no respect from the NCGOP. Republican Party Chair Michael Whatley quickly issued a statement saying Burr's guilty vote was "shocking and disappointing." He stopped at that. Rep. Dan Bishop of the 9th District went further. He immediately joined in a call for a Party censure of Burr. Meanwhile, former Rep. Mark Walker, who's running for Burr's seat, used the Burr vote to fundraise for himself: “Wrong vote, Sen. Burr. I am running to replace Richard Burr because North Carolina needs a true conservative champion as their next senator.”

On the other side of the Republican Party, the side that still wants to put country before the perverse itches of one man, Judge Bob Orr announced that he'll be submitting his change of party registration this coming week, and he did it with all caps: "I CAN'T WAIT TO LEAVE THE GOP."

Even though Chair Whatley's statement -- all things considered -- was very short and perfunctory, more than it was scalding, he may not be able to hold his party back from an open split when Trumpists outnumber the Judge Orrs. If they intend to enforce loyalty to one man who mainly golfs, it can't be good for the future of traditional Republicanism in North Carolina. Can it?

Sen. Bob Steinburg -- Ass Or Idiot?

NC state Senator Bob Steinburg is aiming to break all previous records for stupid (and dangerous?) public speech. After the November elections, Steinburg, who represents Senate Dist. 1 down on the coast, wanted Trump to declare martial law and suspend habeas corpus, and he also wanted Chief Justice John Roberts investigated for suspected involvement in the plot to steal the election.

On Inauguration Day, first on Twitter and then in a fulminating video posted on Facebook, Steinburg offered new provocation: “This election was stolen – no one – no one will ever convince me otherwise," he wrote on Twitter. "I, like many of you, probably 75 million or more of you, who do not believe that Joe Biden actually was elected” -- the very first words uttered in the video.

He's a nasty piece of work, this senator, staking his reputation (and his sacred honor) on the big lie. But here's the question: Does he actually believe the lie that Trump was defrauded out of a second term, or is he merely posturing to gild his popularity with the Trumpists? That is to say, is he ass or idiot? And which would be preferable in a duly elected public official, especially a state senator?

Steinburg's Inauguration Day project was shocking enough that WRAL reporter Travis Fain reached out to other Republican senators, including Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, to see if they would defend Steinburg. Most ducked the question. 

WRAL News reached out via email Thursday morning to all 27 other Republicans in the state Senate, seeking to determine how widespread these beliefs may be. None responded, beyond a statement from Senate President Phil Berger's office: ... "We are not in the business of policing the speech of other members, who are responsible only to the voters who elected them."

Berger's spokesman then went on to write out the indisputable facts that Trump had appropriately exhausted all his legal options and that no evidence of fraud had been proven in any qualified court (including ones presided over by Trump appointees) and that therefore Joe Biden was and is the duly elected president. 

All of that quiet put-down of Steinburg communicated via email. Fain wasn't satisfied. He placed personal phone calls to some seven Republican senators. Only one of them would talk to him about Steinburg -- Sen. Warren Daniel of Burke Co., who said, "I’m a lawyer, and I’d like to see evidence before I take a position on an issue.” Meaning, precisely, that anyone who believed as Sen. Steinburg believes might just be an idiot. "We need to move on."

There's the split in the NC Republican Party, such as it is, the clown-show of Trumpist cheerleaders on the one hand (and don't forget Madison Cawthorn in the NC-11), overwhelming the weak signal from sane and traditional Republicans rapidly falling out of love with Trump. There'll be no Trumpist purge in the NCGOP, mainly because Trump won the state (so no need for reprisals), though we've witnessed a minor wave of volunteer defections. In the week following January 6, some 2,879 Republicans re-registered as Not Republican (many if not most, Unaffiliated) in North Carolina. Steinburg (and Cawthorn) don't stem that tide.

I've Got To Get Hold of Myself

 

Okay, I'll confess. After the Ray Russell loss in the NC House District 93 race Tuesday night, I went to bed for 24 hours. Didn't necessarily sleep. Turned off all electronic devices, including WETS, but still developed a throb in my temples. Hugged my pillow and shrugged off Jake, who wanted a walk bad. Finally, this a.m., I still ain't pretty to look at, but at least I'm standing on my feet.

Researching in depth this morning what went down in North Carolina (see previous post down-column), it's like body blows to see that Christy Clark and Sydney Batch lost their House seats and J.D. Wooten and Terri LeGrand couldn't quite win their Senate races. (Setting aside for the moment the many other body blows we sustained in both Federal races and statewide in Council of State contests.) I've spent over three years researching and writing about the brave Democrats -- those folks I just mentioned and many more -- who were breaking into the Republican pods in our General Assembly, or trying to break in. It's demoralizing to see what gerrymanding continues to dish up.

It ain't just gerrymandering. Of course, maps count, but the larger fact is that overwhelming majorities in some locales, not all, have watched the Phil Berger/Tim Moore regime in Raleigh (I'll get to the Trump regime below) and consciously asked for another big helpin' of it. They're perfectly okay with the strangling of public education and the back-handing of the unemployed, the poor, and the sick. They're super okay with the coddling and the privileging of the rich at the expense of the middle class. They're just fine with the power-grabs, the deliberate suppression of black and young voters, the petty vendettas against a Democratic governor, and the attempted manipulation of the mechanics of voting to maintain their power. Worst of all perhaps, they're partisan enablers of a pandemic, libertarians with the public health. That's the government the people around me want (actually, more the voters in the County of Ashe -- the prime movers in Ray Russell's loss -- cause Watauga's blue). That majoritarian reality dominates many isolated progressives marooned in many other North Carolina counties.

Our local reality in North Carolina is one thing. Nationally, the shit is even deeper, even if Biden ekes out a win. Largely, in fact, because Biden ekes out a win. You think Trump goes away at all, or goes away without a big public stink? It'll be like trying to induce an unwilling spider monkey back into his cage. He ain't going until he's caused a big enough spotlight to guarantee the financial success of his next commercial enterprise, perhaps his own television network to rival Fox. The charm of a snake-oil drummer will not go wasted, along with the inherent gullibility of low-information voters, who also ain't gonna take losing gracefully. 

Trumpism is here forever. It's always been here, truth to tell. Trump has just awakened it with pure blarney -- "The hatreds and resentments you feel are the right hatreds and resentments to feed, and I'm here to help puff you up by insulting your enemies. Listening to me proves how smart you are!" Selling that line of bullshit takes the unmitigated skill of the carnival barker. Once hooked, the gulls are entertained by the spills and thrills of Trump's immorality and cruelty. "Owning the libs," dissing this media, and torturing illegal immigrants is great rippin' sport. 

Meanwhile, the Trump show is the Republican Party, and its elected officials going forward will probably now be even more leery of bucking the Trumpists. McConnell is still king of the Senate (you think he won't treat Biden the way he treated Obama?). But the Republican Party is also now a co-respondent in an unhappy marriage with Qanon and the KKK, the Proud Boys and militia dudes everywhere. Kids in cages was not just Trump public policy. It was irresistible catnip for the bloody-minded -- validation and flattery for their grudges.

That's the harsh reality in 2020 for North Carolina. It'll be even worse for Democrats in the Midterms of 2022. 

The NCGOP’s White Supremacy Problem

 

Guest Blogging: Blair Reeves, founder of The Long Leaf Pine Slate

Racial polarization is, and has always been, an unfortunate fixture of North Carolina politics. For an old Southern state whose history is more intertwined with slavery than perhaps any other state but Virginia, this is somewhat expected. From the Wilmington Coup of 1898 to the Greensboro sit-ins, North Carolina’s largely white power structure has always resisted the fullest measure of racial justice and equality.

 

It would be a comforting idea to believe that North Carolina has completely changed since then. And yet, all signs indicate that our state’s right-wing flank is still locked in resistance against the rights of non-white North Carolinians. Like a chemical agent, the Trump era has both emboldened and flared the slow burn of racism inside the modern North Carolina GOP. Through actions both symbolic and real, Republicans have responded by embracing the Trumpist strategy of white grievance politics with gusto. Indeed, the party seems increasingly comfortable with its role as, in the words of Gene Nichol, a “white people’s party.” This poses major challenges to our future as a pluralistic, modern democracy.

 

Let’s just put it bluntly: the North Carolina GOP has a white supremacy problem. And it’s not getting better. Indeed, it’s likely to only get worse. And we need to talk about it in the open.

 

The opportunity in white backlash

 

Since the North Carolina GOP hijacked our state government 9 years ago, their list of offenses has grown infamous: their hyperpartisan gerrymanders and voter disenfranchisement measures have been extremely well-documented, as well as their constant lying on both issues. The political logic behind this strategy is cold-blooded and obvious: Black North Carolinians vote overwhelmingly Democratic, and Republicans don’t want Democrats to vote. This is the essential reason why North Carolina Republicans - among whom there is not a single non-white legislator - made their assault on the electoral rights of voters of color their top legislative priority.

 

But this alone doesn’t fully explain the NCGOP’s enthusiastic embrace of white grievance symbolism.

 

To be sure, racism has always been an integral part of North Carolina politics. There’s been plenty of evidence of it in both parties, though the Democrats have done a much better job overall of expunging the worst elements from their ranks. 45% of the Democratic caucus in the General Assembly is made up of people of color today, including the party’s Senate leader. 

 

By contrast, Republicans haven’t just failed to make these efforts - they’ve done the opposite. The NCGOP has made few inroads among communities of color, largely because they haven’t tried. 91% of registered Republican voters are white in a state that is about 63% white, 22% Black and 10% Hispanic. There is, again, not a single non-white Republican legislator. Instead, the party increasingly welcomes open antagonisms of our state’s atrocious record on racial justice. North Carolina Republicans simply refuse to engage on fundamental questions of racial justice. Indeed, they increasingly see “racial justice” itself as a loaded concept. 

 

Far from discouraging racial division, Republican leaders have evidently seen more opportunity in exploiting it. Across the state, we’ve seen Republican leaders fall back to the Jesse Helms strategy of pandering to white racial grievance by “protecting” Confederate monuments while attacking BLM protesters in thinly-veiled coded terms like “thugs” and “criminals.” The North Carolina chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans even started their own PAC to support Republican candidates they saw as friendly to the so-called “Confederate cause,” including Phil Berger, Tim Moore, Steve Troxler, and, of course, Larry Pittman. Indeed, Confederate flags are nearly interchangeable with “Trump 2020” ones at these events, as protests in Chapel Hill, Pittsboro, and Graham have shown countless times.

 

The examples of the NCGOP’s embrace of racists are almost too many to count. Attendees at a big recent Republican rally in Alamance County - which was co-organized by the founder of a local hate group - screamed “White power!” at bystanders. Sitting Republican state representatives - Dennis Riddell and Stephen Ross - spoke at that same rally. Actions like these are an unambiguous message (and, for some, a threat) to a whole community. (If that’s what they yell at unknown passers-by, one can only imagine what they say among themselves.)

 

Was it inevitable that Republican leaders would embrace the racists in their party? After all, the dominant Republican opinion-leader in the country, Donald Trump, has made overt racism a hallmark of his presidency. It would’ve taken real political courage for Republican leaders - especially in the South - to resist that potent siren call from above. But as we know, political courage is in very short supply at the NCGOP. Instead, we’ve seen Republicans in Raleigh do the opposite. And this says volumes about where their party is headed.

 

Demographics is destiny

 

The data is clear: North Carolina is quickly becoming a more diverse and less rural state. Whites, while still a clear majority of voters, are continuing a long-term trend of decline as a percentage of the whole. White voters were a little over 70% of the total state electorate in 2016, and they are currently about 66.6% today, according to the State Board of Elections. They will likely drop below 60% of North Carolina’s total electorate by 2028, if not sooner. Instead, multiracial voters - particularly Hispanics - are becoming a larger share of the electorate.

 

This is a nightmare scenario if your party is overwhelmingly white and rural and relies on its base’s worst instincts of racism for power. But as the pool of white voters slowly shrinks, losing even a small proportion over insufficiently strong support for Lost Cause mythology could be decisive for them. But instead of broadening their appeal, we have instead seen the NCGOP double down on attempts to consolidate the white vote with grievance politics.

 

Ideally, we would have two (or more) parties that both tried to appeal to all constituencies in North Carolina. Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, and other voters are just like white ones in the sense that each group contains a wide range of ideological and political preferences. Black conservatives very much exist - they’re not even uncommon! But the fact that so many feel demonstrably uncomfortable voting for Republicans should give us all reason to think truthfully about why. It is not, as Republican leaders like to claim, simply a “messaging” or “packaging” problem.

 

The Democratic Party is far from perfect itself. White Democrats in particular must be sensitive to how our party speaks to and includes non-white representation. For the large majority of its history, the state of North Carolina has been actively hostile to its non-white residents - and especially voters. And that’s when the state even considered them fully human at all. We are well within living memory of nonwhite residents not enjoying the full benefits of citizenship. And it was not the beneficence of white North Carolinians that won those basic civil rights for Black and non-white citizens; it was federal enforcement action. (It may yet be that way again.) It is incumbent on white Democrats to understand this history as a good reason for centering Black representation - both in our party and in our state as a whole. In a quickly diversifying state and nation, this strategy is not only how we will all win, but how we will make our government best serve its people.

 

And what about the Republicans? Well, it isn’t up to us to solve their problems for them. If Republican leaders simply lack the courage (or perhaps the interest) to lead their party into accepting North Carolina as a pluralistic, multiracial democracy, then that is their problem. Our job is not to help Republicans rehabilitate their own party - our job is to win. By winning, and building a strong progressive movement in our state, we can keep the other side out of power. We are, after all, a majority in North Carolina. Let’s act like it.

In Outing a Bribery Scheme, Mike Causey Is a Credit to His Office

Read WRAL reporter Travis Fain's wrap-up of the Greg Lindberg bribery case down in Durham. Read it and weep. Because billionaire Greg Lindberg is one of those "masters of the universe" who are single-handedly capable of shoving enough money at politicians to cast an ethical cloud over whole departments of government. For those public officials who accepted great heaps of his cash, they raise suspicions about personal integrity and suggest once again that the love/lure of money is the root of all evil.

Lindberg gave money to both the Republican and the Democratic parties. He gave money to Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer as well as to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. He gave 6 figures to Tim Moore, for his House Republican Caucus fund. He gave $50,000 to state Senator Wesley Meredith who was introducing an insurance law rewrite in the General Assembly that would have advantaged Lindberg (the law went nowhere). Most striking of all, Lindberg gave over $2 million to support Dan Forest for governor, a "strategic" expenditure in case Forest should become governor.

Lindberg isn't the first nor will he be the last, to grow his tendrils everywhere, from Raleigh power-centers to Mugstomp-on-the-Potomac. We've always had these guys who respect no bounds to get what they want. And elected officials with their hands out.

Except for NC Commissioner of Insurance Mike Causey. (You can read about what Lindberg wanted out of the Insurance Commissioner on your own. I'm not going to summarize all that here. It's beside the point anyway.) Mike Causey, Republican, cooperated with the FBI to expose a bribery scandal involving both billionaire Lindberg and Robin Hayes, Chair of the NCGOP. Mike Causey resisted the attempted bribery and exposed it all. Mike Causey is a civic hero.

Travis Fain found evidence that the Lindberg gang thought Commissioner Causey was also "dense," a kind of Gomer Pyle lame-brain. That Causey always seemed to agree to their quid pro quos and then dragged his feet and appeared to forget his assigned duties and never delivered what Lindberg thought he'd agreed to. All the time Causey was playing Lindberg, wearing at various times both hidden microphones and videocameras and gathering the evidence that led to Lindberg's conviction last Thursday (March 5). Robin Hayes had already pled guilty for participating and is awaiting sentencing.

Some North Carolina Democrats get tarred with the same Lindberg tar. Nobody's accused them of wrongdoing, but it's not a good look. What's documented is some $750,000 that Lindberg gave to the NC Democratic Party in 2018 while it was chaired by Wayne Goodwin, the previous Insurance Commissioner. In fact, according to Fain, Goodwin was Lindberg's "first." Lindberg had spent "more than $340,000 between Goodwin's campaign [to become Insurance Commissioner] and a separate political action committee that supported his re-election."

That's what Fain documents. What's undocumented is the money Lindberg gave to "dark money" groups, of which there was apparently a generous helping given to both sides. Including an unspecified amount to a 501(c)(4) group supporting Gov. Cooper's 2016 campaign.

What set off the whole bribery scene?

Goodwin had given the Lindberg insurance companies an advantage that appears to have been out of the ordinary. Causey's department after January of 2017 began reversing that policy. Lindberg was putting pressure on Causey to go easy on him.

Under Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin, the department allowed Lindberg's insurance companies to keep investing up to 40% of their assets, cash from policyholder premiums, into other companies that Lindberg owns. When Mike Causey took over as Insurance Commissioner, his team, led in part by Jackie Obusek, a senior deputy commissioner, insisted on "unwinding" what Goodwin had given Lindberg -- lowering that 40% and thus Lindberg's control over the companies' cash.

Lindberg wanted Jackie Obusek fired. That's what he was willing to buy from Mike Causey, along with of course a more generally lenient regulatory regime overseeing his activities.

Respect His Authoritah

Michael Whatley

So if you're a registered Republican voter in North Carolina who's also not in love with Donald Trump -- I know there are at least six of you! -- your state GOP leadership wants to make sure you won't have choices on your Republican primary ballot in March. They intend to disappear Bill Weld and Joe Walsh. No lie.

News broke yesterday that NCGOP chair Michael Whatley submitted only the name of President Donald Trump for the 2020 Republican Primary ballot, ignoring the other Republicans who've announced -- Weld and Walsh (Mark Sanford already dropped out).

"Parties are required to submit a list of candidates to the State Board of Elections this week, including all 'candidates whose candidacy is generally advocated and recognized in the news media throughout the United States or in North Carolina.' ”

The Democrats submitted 15 names. The Libertarians, 16 (including the evergreen Vermin Supreme). But Mr. Whatley couldn't think of any other Republicans but Trump.

What's a ballot with only one choice when that "choice" is decreed by the bosses?

Yeah. Whatever Trump's got has spread to the little Trumps in states like North Carolina. It appears to be an incurable disease, immune to inoculation and resistant to antibiotics. Evacuation may be the only treatment ... like the three Republican county commissioners in Transylvania County who left the Republican Party en masse yesterday and re-registered as independents. Evacuation like that.

But Whatley actually doesn't have the final word. The State Board of Elections has the power to add names by majority vote of the board. They'll meet in January.

Good Luck With That Project, Brethren

Michael Whatley

CREDIT MICHAEL WHATLEY FACEBOOK PAGE

At the North Carolina Republican state convention last weekend, there was a good deal of public talk about how the NCGOP should and can win back urban areas.

“The first thing is that the party has to get branded as the party of family, faith and fun,” said Jim Womack, who was running to be the next state party chair and who received the most in raw votes but who lost the chairmanship anyway to "weighted voting."

"Family, faith and fun."

"Has to get branded."

diospswwixei ... Sorry. Sudden onset of "HAR-DE-HAR-HAR," and I doubled-over for a minute there.

Fun is funny enough, but it's the faith part that is deeply and offensively funny.

The Christianity of those evangelicals who've been publicly drunk with Trump-love doesn't resemble any Christianity I recognize from actually growing up on the Bible and going to church three blessed times a week. Is it not the essence of idolatry, their winking at and excuses for a shameless liar, a deeply cruel and immoral man, "a pagan who embodies the seven deadly sins"? One Watauga County Republican even claimed that he actually heard the voice of God when Trump came down the escalator, informing him personally that Trump was the future savior of both Christianity and the nation. God chose a man of those values and that behavior to save Christlikeness on earth? 

By "urban" we assume Womack meant black, and let me tell you something. Black Christians are the best Christians, and they tend to recognize hypocrisy when they see it.

But back to the Republican state convention and their discussion of re-branding themselves for the urban audience. Jim Womack, the candidate for state party chair who got snaked out of winning it, promised that if elected to leadership he would start running "ads on radio stations that cater to African-Americans." Boy! Wouldn't you like to get the contract to produce those radio spots!

Michael Whatley, the man who actually won the chairmanship, said the party needs "a permanent presence in urban communities. And it has to remind voters of Republican economic policies he said have benefited those communities." “It’s messaging but it’s also presence,” he said.

Maybe the NCGOP should open a chain of second-hand stores.

The NCGOP Elected a New Chair Yesterday

He's called "businessman Michael Whatley." He's from Gaston County. Here's how he describes himself: "Since volunteering for Jesse Helms in his 1984 race against Jim Hunt as a sophomore at Watauga High School, Michael has knocked on doors, worked on phone banks, put out yard signs and raised money for Republicans in Local, Legislative, Congressional, Senatorial and Presidential races from one end of North Carolina to the other." Republican conservative activist Brant Clifton rebuts that: "Thirty days ago, NO ONE had heard of Michael Whatley. He has no record of recruiting candidates, promoting the party platform, running campaigns, or raising money for party organizations."

The Tea Party conservatives were backing Jim Womack, currently the chair of the Lee County Republican Party and a harder edged conservative. Womack actually won the raw vote at the convention yesterday, but then something magical -- called "weighted voting" -- intervened, and presto-chango, Michael Whatley came out on top.

So the conservatives are pissed. The establishment (Dallas Woodhouse) is still in control, and a Republican primary against Senator Thom Tillis, the establishment's boy, is looming next March.

Good times!

The Headline in What the NCGOP Submitted to the FEC

As I spend most of my time these sun-lit days distinguishing Stellaria media from Baptisia australis, and not (mos def) reading finance reports submitted by the North Carolina Republican Party to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), I'm perfectly and always happy for someone else to read them and then let me know what's what.

The NCGOP was left with just over 4 thousand dollars (no freaking way!) by the time Chair Robin Hayes' got himself arrested for attempted bribery and Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse got shown the door following him. At the end of the First Quarter of 2019 (April filing deadline), Woodhouse and Co. boasted a "balance (receipts – expenditures) of $4,137.09 at the end of the quarter."

Holy Implosion, Batman!

And with two special elections for Congress happening right now too, in the 3rd and the 9th districts. Some strong Democrats running in both. Meanwhile, the eventual Republican winners in the primaries will be dangling out there without strong party support.

What Sound Does a Hollow Log Make?

The Central Committee of the North Carolina Republican Party reportedly met for seven solid hours on Sunday, arguing over what to do about their top leadership. The state party chair, Robin Hayes, was recently arrested for attempted bribery of the state's insurance commissioner and is now under five federal criminal indictments. Hayes has been allowed to step aside from his duties, appoint an interim leader (Aubrey Woodard, who chairs the 11th Congressional District Committee), but also retain the title of "chairman" until the state party's convention in June.

Executive Director of the NCGOP, Dallas Woodhouse, is also being allowed to resign at the conclusion of the June state convention. Woodhouse has been the pugnacious and rambunctious executive director since 2015 and has left plenty of roadkill in his wake. “I am under contract through the convention. When my contract expires I am moving on, which is always what I had in mind,” Woodhouse said.

Woodhouse admits that he testified to the grand jury in the Hayes bribery case but is not mentioned in the indictment. He has also claimed that the party did nothing wrong in laundering a large contribution from Greg Lindberg into the campaign account of the insurance commissioner.