GOP Virtue in the Age of Twitterman

Reverend Mark Harris’s first primary run in 2016 against incumbent Republican Representative Robert Pittenger failed, in part, because of his trouncing in absentee-by-mail voting. In a race where each of his rivals accrued at least 411 absentee-by-mail votes, Harris had just 195. He lost by 134 votes. That was before his campaign hired Leslie McCrae Dowless for the 2018 primary against Pittenger.

“I’m sure as he was planning his campaign this time, he probably calculated that he needed a strong grass-roots showing,” said Tami Fitzgerald, the executive director of the North Carolina Values Coalition, which supported the insurgent bids by Rev. Harris in both 2016 and 2018. “As far as I can tell, Mark definitely learned some things as he went through his first two campaigns, but he’s always been a good candidate as far as his appreciation for what’s right and what’s truthful and what’s virtuous.”

And all the people said, "Amen! And pass the collection plate."

Rev. Harris still ain't talking about election fraud.

For Those on a High Protein Diet: More Red Meat from Bladen County

Rev. Mark Harris, the putative winner
in the NC-9

Thomas Mills lays out some detail we had not seen before about absentee ballot manipulation down in the NC-9. The hinky results of absentee voting goes back to Republican primaries, in both 2016 and in 2018, and the same character, McCrae Dowless, was involved in all of it:

In the 2016 Republican primary that Mark Harris lost narrowly to incumbent Robert Pittenger, a third candidate, Todd Johnson, won the mail-in absentee vote in Bladen County with 221 of 226 votes cast. Johnson’s “consultant” in Bladen County was a convicted felon named McCrae Dowless. This year, Harris’ team hired Dowless and got an even more lopsided result in the primary in May, defeating Pittenger with 437 to 17 in mail-in absentee ballots. It’s very hard to believe Harris didn’t know what was happening even if he’s maintaining plausible deniability and the Red Dome guys are willing to go to jail for him.

The Red Dome guys.  The Red Dome Group lists Charlotte as a primary base of operations, with officers in Wilmington, in Montgomery, Ala., and in Washington, D.C. Hilariously, their motto (displayed in blood red, no less): "We Know What It Takes To Win!" Among the other "accomplishments" they're willing to tout on their website ... Dale Folwell's win as NC Treasurer in 2016 and the congressional career of Mark Meadows in the NC-11.

According to Mills, Reverend Mark Harris paid Red Dome $400,000 "for field services," which is a hell of a lot of field services and a nice wad of "walking around money" for people like McCrae Dowless.

You May Be Seeing an RNC Operative in Your Neighborhood Soon

A Friday headline to go with your second breakfast: "GOP breaks the glass as House outlook darkens; The party is scrambling to shore up seats deep in Trump country, where incumbents won by double digits in 2016."

And this paragraph, deep in the article:

The RNC [Republican Nat'l Committee] has established an elaborate field program in North Carolina, where [George] Holden, [Ted] Budd, and [Robert] Pittenger are running — and where there are otherwise few voter turnout mechanisms in place. With North Carolina in a “blue moon” election cycle, meaning that there are no statewide races on the ballot other than Supreme Court contests, the committee has dispatched six full-time field staffers to the state.

Presumably those hotshot Republican operatives will be fixating on Congressional districts 2, 9, and 13, where Holden, Budd, and Pittenger have been dragging their heels with fundraising, while their likely Democratic opponents (Ken Romley, Dan McCready, and Kathy Manning, respectively) have had no trouble attracting enthusiastic support.

(Yes, I'm aware that Romley, McCready, and Manning all have Democratic primary opponents, and anything might happen, but Romley, McCready, and Manning are far ahead in fundraising and national recognition. Just saying.)

Anyway, where will the RNC station those six full-time field staffers? In urban centers, that the Republicans in the NC General Assembly have been shitting on for five long years?

Christian Cano Takes Off the Gloves

Democrat Dan McCready, who is running in the NC 9th congressional district (incumbent Republican -- Robert Pittenger), has been a kind of phenomenon this year, gaining national attention and outraising most other Democrats -- and Republicans -- in North Carolina. I've written about him here -- favorably -- more than once. I've also criticized his lack of policy positions, the curious fly-weight vagueness of his campaign so far.

Christian Cano
(But what's with the hat?)

This morning his Democratic primary opponent, Christian Cano, goes after him hard in a campaign email:

As many of y’all have heard by now, our NC09 Democratic challenger, Dan McCready, pulled a Robert Pittenger and cowards out of one of our TV Debates so he won’t have to answer our real-world issues facing our working-class and struggling neighbors (again).

We've come to expect this from cowardly Robert Pittenger. As our 2016 NC 9th Congressional District Democratic Nominee he only showed up for one of our scheduled debates after the tremendous backlash from making his racist and bigoted statements about our Charlotte protesters.

But we didn't expect a so called “brave former Marine” who has spent an entire year trying to convince our Democratic base and our NC 9th Congressional District that his South Charlotte privileged, and elitist class rich kid entitlement was not true.

Let me be clear. Dan McCready is a political coward and a political opportunist of the worst kind. We shared this when we first discovered his collusion with #NancyPelosi and her political cronies and we continue to see it arrogantly on display even now just days before early voting starts.

Dan McCready can't hide forever. He will be forced to answer to our Democratic base and our Democratic values one way or another before early voting starts on April 19, 2018 for our #NCDP Democratic primary election May 08, 2018.

Rest assured, if our Democratic base must camp outside his South Charlotte house, we will force him to answer where he stands on the real-world issues facing our rich culturally diverse working-class and struggling families.

McCready has been the front-runner in the primary, virtually since he announced his candidacy. For some people, Christian Cano is old news, the Democrat who lost to Pittenger in 2016. For some people, McCready looks like a sure winner, and it's kind of expected in American politics that if you're ahead you don't debate an opponent who's far behind.

But Cano's attack does give us pause when combined with McCready's obvious reluctance to state a platform on his website.

The Marine and the Holy Men

Dan McCready and his family

Dan McCready is an ex-Marine and is running for Congress in the 9th Congressional District. He's running as a Democrat. He's an attractive candidate, young and level-headed. He was a college freshman at Duke on 9/11, and after finishing his degree and, seemingly already on the fast track to enter and do well in business, he joined the Marine corps. He went to Iraq in the surge of 2007, and as a captain, he led 65 other Marines in that show of force. After four years in the service, McCready got his MBA from Harvard in 2011, worked for McKinsey and Co. as a management consultant, then started his own company with a fellow ex-Marine -- Double Time Capital -- which invests in solar farms in North Carolina. They've helped build 36 so far. He also founded an online operation, This Land, a retail website that sells handmade American goods.

He's a sharp tack, an entrepreneur. He knows combat. He's smart as hell. He's young. He didn't think about running for office until Trump happened, but he's quick to separate himself from the partisan herd: “We’re really not focused on Trump,” McCready said about his campaign. “I am a Marine and an American before I’m a Democrat .... The American dream I fought for overseas is under attack."

His political "strategery" is still young and unshaped, though he's admitted to being a pro-business Democrat: "I understand from being a business owner how to make a payroll, how to balance a budget, and I believe we need regulatory relief, especially for small business.” Whatevs. I've got to believe there's generosity toward humanity in this package, and he'll be better than any Republican candidate (see below for details).

But he's got to do some renovation on his talking points to overcome "the vague platitudes common among first-time candidates" (Simone Pathe). And so far I can't tell if he's got the instincts for campaigning. (When asked by a reporter from Roll Call how he planned to attack Pittenger, McCready brought up Pittenger’s vote to fast-track trade promotion authority. Huh? That's your number one issue with Pittenger's record?) But McCready did think to criticize Pittenger's votes against Obamacare, quoting the incumbent's notorious insult that people could just move their butts out of state if they didn’t like the health care available to them.

McCready has been a phenomenal money-raiser. He announced his campaign way back last May, and as of last November he had already raised about $1 million, considerably more than the incumbent. McCready's raised more by now. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (a.k.a., DCCC) added him to the party’s Red to Blue program, which provides organizational and fundraising support, and McCready's ex-Marine partner in solar farm investment has started his own Super PAC to help more military veterans get to Congress.

(NOTE: Yes, I know there'll be a Democratic primary in May between McCready and Christian

Pittenger

Cano, who ran at 41.82% of the vote against Pittenger in 2016, and a third Democratic candidate, a woman named Maria Collins Warren, who has not so far filed for office.)

The Holy Men
Rob Christensen has a lengthy profile in today's News and Observer of the two leading Republicans who'll be battling for supremacy in May -- incumbent Robert Pittenger and Baptist preacher man Mark Harris. Harris has become a perennial candidate. He finished third in the GOP primary for the U.S. Senate in 2014 in a race won by then-state House Speaker Thom Tillis. In 2016, he unsuccessfully challenged Pittenger in the Republican primary, losing by a mere 133 votes. I've always believed Harris would win this primary, because Republican primaries have become extended tent revivals where glib preachers shout down sin, a popular Republican activity, and Pittenger looks tired and limp.

Mark Harris is first and foremost a smooth promoter of the Freedom Caucus Gospel, lambasting

Harris

Pittenger as "the most liberal Republican in Congress" for voting for Trump's tax bill. Pittenger's riposte against Harris: “Mark Harris has opposed President Trump’s agenda and is instead siding with liberal Democrats like Nancy Pelosi. While I voted to support President Trump, (Defense) Secretary Mattis and our troops, Harris said no. He is standing with Pelosi and House Democratic Leadership against the President’s budget.” Once again: Real men don't eat Pelosi.

Over the holidays, Rob Christensen reports, Pittenger ran a TV commercial in which he stood in front of a Christmas tree and said: “I’ve dedicated my life to sharing God’s love through Jesus Christ. Let’s end political correctness and put the true meaning of Christ back in Christmas.” If that pasted-on piety doesn't make your skin crawl, remember how Mark Harris led the fight in 2012 to take away civil liberties from LBGT citizens with Amendment One.

I think it'll be McCready v. Harris in November, and I'll lay you odds that McCready wins it.


To contribute to Dan McCready's campaign: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/danmccready

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/rob-christensen/article200517249.html#storylink=cpy

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.

Steve Bannon v. Karl Rove in the NC 9th District

Pittenger

Karl Rove -- so he's still a thing! -- is fundraising for incumbent US Congressman Robert Pittenger. I think we knew that already but had stifled a yawn in its general direction. But then this: Chaos King Steve Bannon has now come out for Pittenger's holy primary challenger, Rev. Mark Harris, whom Pittenger managed to beat in the primary of 2016 by a mere 134 votes.

Karl Rove may have inadvertently invited Bannon into the 9th District primary. Oops. Rove published a tart take-down of Bannon for meddling in Senate Republican primaries, and Bannon responded within hours by expanding his war on the Republican establishment to the Pittenger House seat, probably because Pittenger is one of Rove's pet projects. Take that, Turd Blossom!

Karl Rove is one of the higher profile Republican establishment figures who has consistently criticized Trump as an imploding star who's going to create a sucking black hole for many Republican office-holders. Rove famously said of Trump last June in the Wall Street Journal -- his organ of choice, wherein he also blasted Bannon last Thursday -- "His chronic impulsiveness is apparently unstoppable and clearly self-defeating. Mr. Trump may have mastered the modes of communication, but not the substance, thereby sabotaging his own agenda."

Dan McCready

Rove also said this: "Mr. Trump has figured out how to tweet his way around the mainstream media. Yet by disregarding basic fact checking, he is deepening the already considerable doubts Americans have about his competence and trustworthiness."

Meanwhile, Rev. Mark Harris, who can pound the living hell out of any Bible you give him, has out-raised the incumbent Pittenger. But also know this: the likely Democratic challenger in the 9th District, former Marine Dan McCready, has out-raised both of them, reporting $416,000 for the quarter and bringing his total to $875,000 for the year.

The Shadow of Political Death Hanging Over Congressman Robert Pittenger

Pittenger

Dan McCready

Karl Rove heads to Charlotte to attempt resuscitation of Congressman Robert Pittenger's anemic reelection campaign.

Pittenger has represented the 9th Congressional District since Rep. Sue Myrick's retirement in 2012. In 2016, he was challenged by Baptist preacher Mark Harris in the Republican primary. Harris came within 135 votes of beating him. Harris has already announced he'll be challenging Pittenger again in 2018, and there's every likelihood he'll beat Pittenger this time.

Pittenger's seat had already been targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC),  and it looks as though solar energy financier and Marine veteran Dan McCready is the DCCC pick (although there are a couple of other Democrats in the race, including the man who lost to Pittenger in the general election of 2016).

The Karl Rove appearance looks like flop sweat to Erik Spanberg. He writes, "A Republican insider told me Tuesday that, while Rove remains a reliable draw for GOP donors, he also represents the anti-Trump wing of the party. He makes it hard for Pittenger to say, ‘I’m a Trump Republican’ because Rove has been so critical of President Trump.”

If Pittenger makes it through the primary with Harris, he's going to be potentially damaged goods in the general elections of 2018.

To Prove He's Macho, Rep Pittenger Proves He's an Idiot

Poor Robert Pittinger, the Charlotte freshman Congressman who replaced Sue Myrick in Washington!  He voted to raise the debt ceiling, immediately got a Tea Party challenger in May's primary, and to save his own precious hide, he's calling President Obama "Enemy Number One" in a fundraising letter to his conservative base.

Profile in courage not.

This would be funny if it weren't so remarkably pathetic.

Especially pathetic in what it says about the Republican base and what their elected leaders think of them ... that they're too stupid for school and easily manipulated by labeling The Black Man with some outlandish charge.

The Rumble

Long lines reported at 6:30 a.m. this morning in some North Carolina precincts, particularly in urban areas and most particularly in heavily Democratic areas.

Happened to catch Robert Pittenger's TV ad last night, as I was sinking into a late-primary-campaign coma. Pittenger is projected to win the Republican lieutenant governor primary today. In his ad he attacks wasteful spending in Raleigh and mentions prominently as an example Madam Virginia Foxx's Teapot Museum in Sparta, to which the state government contributed (according to the ad) some $400,000. Isn't it a case of mixed messages when one Republican candidate uses another Republican office-holder's pet project (can you spell "e.a.r.m.a.r.k."?) as an example of out-of-control Democratic spending? Or is it just plain ole vanilla incompetence?