Shelane Etchison Revs It Up

 

Shelane Etchison, the ground-breaking first independent candidate for Congress from a North Carolina district (CD8), released her first TV ad on the night of that disastrous debate performance by Joe Biden.

We had previously written about Etchison's campaign back in April.

Etchison is up against the veteran Republican Richard Hudson in the 8th CD. There's also a Democrat on the ballot who doesn't even live in the district. Most knowledgeable commentators say Etchison hasn't got a ghost's chance of winning, but in this year of surprises, I'm not about to count her out.

Year of the Independent Candidate?

 

I was impressed when an Unaffiliated candidate for Watauga CoCommish, Jon Council, qualified to be on the November ballot as an independent. He was required to gather 4% of the registered voters in his district to meet the threshold. He got way more signatures than he needed.

Shelane Etchison

It's a much higher threshold for an Unaffiliated candidate seeking to run for a US House seat, but Shelane Etchison far exceeded her required 7,460 petition signatures to get on the ballot as an independent in the NC 9th Congressional District. She gathered over 12,000 signatures, which is actually damn impressive.

I first heard about Etchison from political analyst Thomas Mills, who also happens to be advising her campaign. I trust Mills's judgment in most things, and while Etchison is probably far more conservative than a lot of Democrats. But according to Mills, "she became disillusioned with a [Republican] party that espoused support for liberty and individual freedom but opposed women’s rights to reproductive health. Overturning Roe v Wade solidified her break with the GOP." Congressman Richard Hudson, the Republican incumbent in CD9, adheres to the current GOP orthodoxy on denying women their rights.

Mills breaks down the partisan makeup of CD9 as 35% Unaffiliated, 35% Republican, and 30% Democrat. The Democrat who filed against Hudson, Anson County probation officer Nigel Bristow, is a novice in his first run for office and on the surface of things the newly gerrymandered 9th CD looks pretty impossible for a Democrat, especially an unknown with little base support. It would take a sizable portion of the Democratic minority to abandon the Democrat candidate and support Etchison, even if she was able to motivate the great majority of the Unaffiliated voters in the district. Etchison might just pull that off. It's a district with Ft. Liberty, the former Ft. Bragg, with many active and retired military, and Etchison's biography, as portrayed by Mills, will impress many:

She was in high school when the country was attacked on 9/11 and felt called to serve. She joined ROTC in college and commissioned into the army in 2008. In 2011, she became one of twenty women attached to the 75th Ranger Regiment, providing support on direct combat operations in Afghanistan.

According to a Fox News report, “During the Afghanistan War, special operations forces hunted high-value Taliban and al-Qaeda targets. But the all-male teams weren't allowed to speak with women and children due to cultural norms, causing the U.S. and Afghan militaries to lose out on critical intelligence. As a result, the all-female Cultural Support Team was formed. Before long, the women proved themselves and won over not just the Rangers Etchison was embedded with, but top brass at the Pentagon.” Etchison also served in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.

 

No Hope that NC Republicans Become Human Beings

The U.S. House just passed a bill, 267 to 157, that would formally repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law against same-sex marriage that was overturned in the Supreme Court landmark Obergefell decision. It would require states to reciprocally recognize marriages that are legal in other states as valid, and would prohibit discrimination under state law in public acts against married couples based on their race, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.

All of the Republicans representing North Carolina voted against it. Specifically...

Dan Bishop (N.C.)

Ted Budd (N.C.)

Madison Cawthorn (N.C.)

Virginia Foxx (N.C.)

Richard Hudson (N.C.)

Patrick McHenry (N.C.)

Greg Murphy (N.C.)

David Rouzer (N.C.)

Astounding, that these "freedom-lovers" and "-defenders" are willing to sacrifice the rights of fellow citizens to satisfy -- what? -- religious fundamentalism and the dictates of an ideology that intends to punish difference. I would say these guys are going to hell, except they're already there. 

Trump Bombshell Dropped on the Military: Will It Matter to the Congressional Race in NC-8?

 

The American military was already backing away from Trump -- carefully, to be sure (discussed more below) -- even before his contempt for military sacrifice became a bombshell revelation yesterday.

I immediately wondered how that totally credible news of Trump's betrayal would affect the Democratic insurgency of Patricia Timmons-Goodson down in the 8th Congressional District. She's from Fayetteville, in Cumberland County, which just happens to hold two large military parks: the US Army at Fort Bragg and the US Air Force at Pope, meaning, in short, that the military vote in Cumberland County could be a wildcard heavy thumb on the political scales of 2020. Being pissed at what Trump said could sway the election toward the Democrat. But are they pissed?

(NOTE: Used to be, in the old 8th district, only the northern, more rural parts of Cumberland were included, but that already included Fort Bragg and Pope. The new 8th adds all of Cumberland, including more urbanized and liberal Fayetteville. Which makes the 8th lean slightly more Democratic, though it's still stubbornly labeled "Lean Republican" by the Cook Report.)

I've been surfing this a.m. for any answer to how Trump is playing there this weekend. Can't find a thing specific to the populations of Bragg and Pope, and the Fayetteville Observer gives me nothing. What I did run into was background on how the military decided to ban all displays of Confederate battle flags without triggering Trump's wrath (he has very forcefully defended everything Confederate). Because Trump's also notorious for not reading, the Pentagon's order cleverly buried their ban by not using the word ban, nor the word Confederate, and by making their policy order sound wholly positive, not negative. Defense Secretary Mark Esper signed the order on Thursday night, listing all that's allowed, and so much is allowed (U.S. and state banners, flags of other allies and partners, the widely displayed POW/MIA flag, and official military unit flags). The Confederate flag is not listed. Oops. But it would take reading to understand what just happened. The Pentagon's wording was "a creative way to bar the flag’s display without openly contradicting or angering President Donald Trump" (Lolita C. Baldor, AP).

That significant attempt to deceive the Commander in Chief is what I was referring to in the lead graph above: "Military, backing away from Trump already," even before he characterized their sacrifice as sucker-hood. Not to put too fine a point on it, the freshest and most promising new federal Democratic candidates since 2016 have tended to be former military men and women. I'm not going to list them here now. Take my word for it: the new Democratic star is likely former military, fed up with Donald Trump. I've profiled a bunch of them here since 2017, in many different states.

Timmons-Goodson is a distinguished lawyer and jurist, with 30 years experience including a seat on the NC Supreme Court and nomination by Barack Obama to the US 4th Circuit. She's massively accomplished and Black. The "new 8th" still contains plenty of the "old 8th," the conservative White counties of Harnett, Moore, Montgomery, and Stanly. A Black woman in the race complicates the Deep South metrics -- the incumbent Republican is a White man, Richard Hudson, who's supposedly more moderate than most of his brethren. But her candidacy maybe also liberates a different voting bloc that hasn't been participating up to their potential. The new 8th is about 1/4th Black. It's more heavily urban in the far east -- Cumberland -- and also the far west, Cabarrus (with its big city of Concord), which is increasingly a suburb of Charlotte and where there are several other strong Democrats making energetic runs for the General Assembly. They all mutually benefit one another.

I have no -- zero -- information nor insight about how Trump's words are playing among the active duty in Cumberland County, just curiosity to know. Not just the active duty personnel but also the retired military community, which I've been led to believe is substantial. The military has always been considered a part of the Republican base, hasn't it? Trump's been reportedly popular with the troops, and he's certainly courted their approval, which just makes his reported opinions about the Service all the more a betrayal.

Un-Trumping North Carolina: Democrat Pat Timmons-Goodson in the 8th Congressional District

The redrawn 8th Congressional District still looks gloomy, on the face of it. Made up principally of conservative rural counties of Stanley and Montgomery and large parts of Moore (yikes!), Lee, and Harnett, but bookended (here's the good news) in the west by more suburban Cabarrus and the city of Concord and in the east by Cumberland County and the city of Fayetteville, a Democratic stronghold. Nevertheless, Trump carried the area by 9 points in 2016, and Politico still considers it +8 for Republicans. The Cook Political Report rates it "Likely Republican."

Never mind that. The DCCC -- all the way back in January -- named the 8th as part of its "offensive battlefield" for 2020 -- a targeted push to increase the Democratic majority in the US House. Later, just a couple of weeks ago, the DCCC named the candidacy of Pat Timmons-Goodson in the 8th as one of its "Red-to-Blue" targets. Means financial and tactical support. Smart people seem to think that Timmons-Goodson has a shot at it, especially in a year like TwentyTwenty.

Larry Kissell was the last Democrat to win the 8th (a differently drawn 8th back then), in the Obama year of 2008. Kissell beat the Republican incumbent, Robin Hayes by a good 10 points. Kissell was reelected in 2010 but lost in 2012 to the current Republican incumbent, Richard Hudson. The Republicans had redrawn districts to favor themselves following the Census of 2010, and they drew Fayetteville out of the 8th, so Kissell was out too. Didn't help either that he voted against Obamacare.

Now, Pat (Patricia) Timmons-Goodson looks to be a very strong candidate. She's got the gravity and wisdom of a judge because she was one. She spent over three decades in the judicial system of North Carolina, earning her law degree at Chapel Hill and working as an assistant prosecutor in Cumberland County (Fayetteville). She rose to a local district judgeship and then to the North Carolina Court of Appeals before becoming in 2006 the first African-American woman elected to the North Carolina Supreme Court. President Obama attempted to add her to the bench of the 4th Circuit, but Sen. Richard Burr blocked her nomination and of course Mitch McConnell was not about to confirm her.

Her integrity and intelligence come through strong and clear in her introductory video. She marshals respect.

More video! That DCCC support needs to invest in some professional productions that utilize the inarguable, earned wisdom of this woman as a talking-head, but an ad that breaks free of the talking-head monologue. Her deliberate reasonableness provides a rich contrast to the chaos of the Trump administration and to Congressman Richard Hudson's collaboration with it.

Incumbent Republican Congressman Richard Hudson is really a swamp creature. He became a rising Republican Party foot soldier shortly after he graduated with a poly sci degree from UNC-Charlotte in 1996. He rose quickly to working for Congressman Robin Hayes back in the district, and then Virginia Foxx brought him to Washington to work for her, and he stayed in Washington power circles, working for several other Republican congresspeople after he left Foxx, until he defeated Larry Kissell in 2012 for his own seat.

He's frequently described as a "moderate." What is a Republican moderate in the age of Trump? A silent collaborator who kowtows to the strong man, keeps his head down and his mouth shut. The times require sinew. But he was photographed wearing a COVID mask (which in a Republican county like Moore is tantamount to being a Democrat), and he approvingly retweeted the video of the Fayetteville police taking a knee in solidarity with street-marchers.

So, okay, "moderate." Rhymes with "human." At least he can express empathy for people not in his corner. But Pat Timmons-Goodson may out-rank him for humanity and out-flank him for votes.

Belly Dancing for Donald Trump

I count 37 North Carolina Republicans who want to go to Washington, or who want to remain in Washington -- Republicans who have filed for either the US Senate seat currently held by Thom Tillis and Republicans who have filed in one of our 13 Congressional districts (including seven Republican incumbents). I went looking to see which ones wrap themselves most theatrically around Donald Trump, and which ones keep a more antiseptic distance. This is a survey based on cursory evidence -- a quick tour of candidate websites and/or social media feeds.

We know Senator Thom Tillis as a conspicuous Trump toady, a lickspittle who's been trying to take back that one moment of independent thought he had about Trump's state of emergency at the southern border, but the one person you don't see on Tillis's website is Trump. Nor hear his name. However, the Tillis Twitter feed is a different story -- littered with little coos of @RealDonaldTrump and pictures of Dear Leader and links to articles about how deaf, blind, and dumb the Democrats are for failing to recognize the greatness of Trump. His Twitter feed looks like a burlesque act for an audience of one. He puts tassels on his tits and twirls them for Trump.

In the Republican primary for Congressional District 1 -- and the privilege of getting to lose to Democratic incumbent G.K. Butterfield -- Republican candidate Sandy Smith, who likes to refer to herself as the "Little Red Firecracker," is in a pro-Trump class all to herself. She had intended to run against Thom Tillis in the senatorial primary, but -- well, I'll let her explain:

Why not continue to primary Thom Tillis? I originally ran against Thom Tillis for the US Senate in order to defeat him for his horrible anti-Trump rhetoric, opposing the border wall, supporting gun control, among other liberal positions.

It was not long after I filed for Senate that he began to change his tune and passionately support President Trump. He even changed his vote in support of the border wall, even though he publicly said he would not support it previously.

Then, President Trump endorsed Thom Tillis for reelection. Like many of you, I am skeptical of Tillis’ “newly found support” and my entire reason for running was to hold Thom Tillis accountable for being a roadblock to the America-first agenda. Then last week President Trump reaffirmed his endorsement of Tillis. President Trump very clearly wants Thom Tillis to be reelected.

Thom Tillis now owes President Trump for helping him clear the field, and honestly, Tillis can’t win reelection against the Democrats without President Trump’s help. So I have a feeling he will remain a supporter of the president, at least until November. By 2020, there should be more conservative senators in office to counter Thom Tillis if he decides to go back to his old ways.

The Little Red Firecracker has some competition in the CD-01 primary from Michelle Nix, who says she's running against Butterfield because he voted to impeach Trump and brags that she was a Trump delegate to the Republican National Convention in 2016 and says she traveled the state on Trump's behalf. "Trump" is all over her issues page, along with his photograph.

Greg Murphy was only just elected to Congress in CD-03 last year, so I was curious how he would play Trump. He's a medical doctor, and what I see on his website looks like a quarantine to lessen infection. Under the heading "Greg Murphy on the issues," he headlines this: "SUPPORT PRESIDENT TRUMP." The wording of what follows is equivocal while ostensibly kissing ass:

President Trump is one of the few Presidents in recent memory who is attempting to do exactly what he said he was going to do on the campaign trail. If Senate Republicans had supported him, Obamacare would have been repealed. I will support the Trump agenda because it is the people’s agenda, especially Eastern North Carolina that voted so overwhelming in his favor."

Short version: When the people cease to support Trump, so will I.

For a celebrity hound who is famous for photo-bombing President Trump, Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (CD-05) stays strictly separate from the Prez and never mentions his name on her website and social media accounts. Go figure. She's been photographed multiple times standing practically in his armpit.

David Rouzer in the CD-07 is adamant on his official website: "Rouzer Lays Out Case Against Impeachment Sham." On Facebook he has been a warrior against Democrats over impeachment, for which he sometimes suffers significant anti-Trump blow-back from his constituents. Rouzer is constantly defending Trump on his Twitter feed.

Big contrast on Trumpiness between Congressman Richard Hudson (CD-08) and newly installed Congressman Dan Bishop (NC-09). Bishop on his Twitter feed obviously feels his Trumpy oats, adding to the echo chamber that anyone who supports the impeachment is disloyal to America, while Hudson nowhere mentions Trump -- ever.

Congressman Patrick McHenry (CD-10) rivals Thom Tillis for coochee dancing for Trump's benefit on Twitter, though, like Foxx, he clearly doesn't have a use for Trump on his campaign website.

Here ends this survey, because there's only so much punishment a body can take in one morning, and I'm out of coffee.

George Holding in the NC2 Opts for Retirement Because of Redistricting

US Congressman George Holding's District 2 became Wake County and Wake County alone (greater Raleigh) in the most recent round of court-ordered redistricting. Whereas Holding was initially elected and reelected via very Republican-heavy mapping, he's suddenly been thrown into one of the most blue-trending counties in the state, with strong Democratic contenders for that congressional seat already either announcing or already well underway. Who said, "Discretion is the better part of valor"? Was it a fat man in armor? George Holding announced a couple of days ago that he wouldn't run in another adjacent district if it already had a Republican rep. So today he opted out entirely, said he's retiring from Congress.

There's already a potentially invigorating Democratic scrimmage for the seat. On Tuesday, Deborah Ross, the former Democratic candidate for the US Senate (she ran against Dick Burr in 2016 and got over 45% of the vote statewide), announced that she would seek the seat. She'll be formidable. But retired Marine "top gun" aviator Scott Cooper also looks strong, and he's been building a campaign against Holding since last year.

Shame to watch Cooper and Ross duke it out, so it's relieving to hear this morning that Cooper might be reconsidering, might jump over to the new 8th District, which runs south of Wake through Harnett, Cumberland, and Lee counties, then due west through Moore, Montgomery, Stanly, and Cabarrus. On the face of it, the new 8th looks considerably less friendly to Democrats, though an ex-Marine fighter pilot like Scott Cooper might be the man to change that. (For the record, the rumor of Cooper's maybe switching his campaign to the 8th might be nothing more than rumor. Cooper's Twitter feed certainly doesn't indicate anything other than "full throttle up" for the 2nd.)

In the environment we're currently occupying, every weather-front creates more weather. Democrat Scott Huffman has been running an energetic campaign already for months in the 8th against incumbent Republican Richard Hudson, and the forecast that Scott Cooper might move his campaign south could seem like a bad cold front blowing in (and I've exhausted the weather metaphor).

Lots of ferment since the court approved the new NC congressional districts for 2020. Sometimes it's just going to come down to the better candidate prevailing.

Republican Richard Hudson (NC-8) Has a Democratic Opponent

Richard Hudson

Congressman Richard Hudson (R), who has represented the 8th Congressional District of North Carolina since the election of 2012, is pretty much a swamp creature. He's been hanging around Washington, DeeCee, and particularly Capitol Hill as a congressional staffer, for many years. He even did a term in hell as Congresswoman Virginia Foxx's chief of staff before moving on to other congressional offices and holding the bag for other congressmen. He knows how the place works -- or doesn't -- and that you go along to get a leg up.

Hudson worked for the now arrested and disgraced Robin Hayes when Hayes was the congressman from the 8th district. Hudson had moved on to DeeCee when Hayes was defeated by Democrat Larry Kissell in 2008. Hudson returned to North Carolina to oust Kissell in 2012. So the worm turns.

Hudson's association with Robin Hayes glows like a neon of his swampiness. Hudson also took lots of money from billionaire Greg Lindberg, the man behind Hayes's arrest for attempted bribery.

Among those associated with the congressman, the largest recipient of money from Lindberg was a joint fundraising committee affiliated with Hudson — the Hudson Freedom Fund. According to campaign finance reports, that group received donations of $44,300 and $33,900 from Lindberg in December [2018] and January [2019], respectively. [Josh Bergeron, Salisbury Post]

Scott Huffman

Hudson gave $15,000 of that to charities benefitting soldiers at Fort Bragg: "The GOP lawmaker says he didn't do anything wrong, but just wants to avoid the appearance of any impropriety" (Politico). The appearance lingers, as does the aroma of influence peddling.

Hudson already has a Democratic challenger in Scott Huffman, who tried once before in 2018 but lost the Democratic primary to ultimate candidate Frank McNeill, who took almost 45% of the vote against Hudson last year. Huffman is a Navy veteran and owner of a "technology business." His greater community involvement has come from founding and leading Indivisible Charlotte.

He has a website, a very active Twitter feed, and a Facebook group.

2018 North Carolina Congressional Races--Lay of the Land

Keep in mind that filing for office in 2018 doesn't end until the last day of February, so there will be flux to come in the races below, both primaries and -- hence -- general elections.


District 1
Incumbent Democrat G.K. Butterfield [safe]
Solid Democratic district.


District 2
Incumbent Republican George Holding [?]
Holding already has a primary opponent and a wave of Democrats who want to take him on. The Cook people put Holding in the "Competitive Races" category, but leaning Republican decidedly.

Allen Chesser, his Republican primary opponent, attacks Holding for not holding town halls (ping Virginia Foxx). He doesn't return phone calls. He ignores his constituents. He's never accessible. Chesser is a younger Iraq war veteran and a pretty standard foot-soldier for conservative talking points. He's a Steve Bannon wet dream, is what he is.

Sam Searcy

The Democratic primary could get even more interesting with the entry of Linda Coleman, a high-profile African American public servant and former candidate who ran twice statewide for lieutenant governor. She'll get big backing and can raise money. But the district is 74% white. Dunno if that means anything necessarily, not in a wave year.

The entry of Coleman may have persuaded ASU alum Sam Searcy, who had previously announced for the seat and was raising money, to drop out and run for an NC Senate seat instead. (Searcy has become an entrepreneur businessman and a manufacturer of a local brand of Vodka, and he might beat Tamara Barringer, the incumbent Republican state senator. He looks like a wave candidate to us.)

Other Democrats running in the 2018 primary: businessman Ken Romley and transgender veteran Wendy Ella May. (Scoff not. Remember what happened recently in Virginia?) "Romley, 52, was the CEO of Zift Solutions, a marketing software company based in Cary that employs about 200 people, until he stepped down last month to run for office."

District 3
Incumbent Republican Walter Jones [safe]
Solid Republican district. Jones, a total fuck-you maverick and hence admirable in doses, is safe unless he gets knocked off in a primary, of which there will certainly be one. Put your money on Jones.


District 4
Incumbent Democrat David Price [safe]

Richard Watkins

David Price will have a loser Republican opponent in November (whichever of at least two candidates wins the Republican primary), but he'll have his own primary too.

Richard Watkins, a young African American Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology, is challenging Price. Looks like a generational contest to me, and a potentially important one. Watkins probably can't beat David Price, but I'm glad he might be a once and future candidate. We need more young scientists on the ballot.

District 5
Incumbent Republican Virginia Foxx [safe]
Yuck. The consensus is always "she can't be beat." Anyone can be beat. Anything can happen in a wave.

Two Democrats, both impressive women, are vying in the primary to take Foxx on next November. We'll know come middle of May who the candidate will be.

District 6
Incumbent Republican Mark Walker [safe]
The district is solid Republican, but there's a small gaggle of Democrats massing to challenge Walker. Walker is a charismatic Baptist preacher and the slayer of Phil Berger Jr. in the Republican primary of  2014, for which he will always be memorialized.


District 7
Incumbent Republican David Rouzer [safe]
Rated solid Republican district.

Jonah Gardner

Two Democrats so far have gotten in the race. Dr. Kyle Horton, an internal medicine doctor and a woman, announced way back in May, followed in June by Jonah Gardner, a computer programmer and IT professional. This 2018 crop of young activists of both sexes (thank you, Donald J. Trump!) inspires new confidence and old hope.

District 8
Incumbent Republican Richard Hudson [safe]
Solid Republican district (but it's a lot of suburbs, bro, and the suburbs is where the turn will come). No considerable Democrat has stepped forward yet.


District 9
Incumbent Republican Robert Pittenger [?]
Cook calls this district competitive but "likely Republican" (a moment which may be slipping away).

Pittenger may not make it through his primary with Baptist firebrand Mark Harris (who knows a special place in hell for those who disagree with the Lord him and who almost beat Pittenger in the primary of 2016).

Dan McCready

On the Democratic side: Front-runner Dan McCready, along with Christian Cano, who ran for the seat in 2016,  and Maria Warren, an attorney, will face off in May. All the smart money's on McCready, who could beat Pittenger and will beat Rev. Harris, should he prevail in the primary.

District 10
Incumbent Republican Patrick McHenry [safe]
Despite being high up in leadership in Congress, McHenry usually draws a primary opponent, and 2018 will be no different. But he also hasn't drawn a stand-out Democrat yet.


District 11
Incumbent Republican Mark Meadows [safe]
Meadows has made a name for himself in Washington as The Man Who Shut Down Government in 2013, a badge he wears happily among the conservative voters of the 11th District and unhappily among the Republican leadership in Washington. He's a pain in the ass tool of ALEC.

Meadows has a dark horse Republican by the name of Christopher Money running against him in a primary.

For awhile two Democrats wanted to run against Meadows. Matt Coffay, a leader in the Asheville chapter of Our Revolution, got into the race with a splash back in April but pulled out in July. Scott Donaldson announced in September. He's a 53-year-old urologist from Hendersonville who has made "a name for himself in certain circles with a series of YouTube videos, radio show appearances and even a published book."

District 12
Incumbent Democrat Alma Adams [safe]
Safe Democratic seat. But Adams does have one Republican announced against her. Yawn.


District 13
Incumbent Republican Tedd Budd [?]
Cook rates this district "competitive" but "likely Republican." Democrats are massing to challenge

Adam Coker

the relatively indistinctive Budd.

Adam Coker also ran for this seat in 2016 in a crowded field but lost the primary. His big issue is health insurance and he wants to win by getting Republicans to vote for him (a fool's errand). His Democratic opponents include Kathy Manning, "a former immigration lawyer who is well known in her district for her philanthropy," and Beniah McMiller, a 36-year-old African American teacher at Mitchell Community College in Statesville.

Foxx Votes No on Relief for Sandy Hurricane Victims

Well, at least the woman (...) is consistent in her refusals to help Americans devastated by natural disasters. Once it was Katrina aid. Today it was Sandy. She voted no, one of 67 mostly Republican members to turn their backs on the citizens of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.

Joining her were the three newest North Carolina Republican members of the U.S. House, Mark Meadows (NC-11), Richard Hudson (NC-8), and George Holding (NC-13).

Wonder what they'll be saying, and how they'll be voting, when the North Carolina coast is wiped out by a hurricane.

CORRECTION
All 67 of those voting against Sandy aid were Republicans.