Major Republican Contenders in the NC-9 Special Election

We've been watching the slow progress this week of candidates filing to run in the NC-9 special congressional election. Filing officially ends this afternoon, so other big names may appear, but at the moment Dan McCready, who ran a close race against Mark Harris last fall, is the only Democrat who's filed. There's one Libertarian, Jeff Scott of Charlotte, and one Green Party candidate, Allen Smith of Charlotte, and six Republican candidates.

The Republicans run the gamut from the unserious (Stony Rushing) to the deadly serious, state Sen. Dan Bishop, who wanted so badly to frisk suspicious individuals before they visited a public toilet, and former state Sen. Fern Shubert, who served in the General Assembly with Virginia Foxx and is just as mean as Foxx, with maybe not as much makeup.

Fern Shubert -- A certified public accountant from Marshville with a long elective history, though she's been out of the public eye for some time. According to Ballotpedia, she was first elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives in 1994, was reelected for three more terms, then ran for and was elected to the state Senate in 2002. In 2004, she unsuccessfully ran for governor in the Republican primary (one of six candidates, the only woman, and she placed 5th). She attempted to return to the state Senate in 2010 and lost to Sen. Tommy Tucker (who had a big interest in running in this special election but who announced he wouldn't a couple of days ago). In 2012, she ran for State Auditor and got only 18% of the vote in the Republican primary. Though most recently a three-time loser, Shubert has no lack of confidence in herself: “I have a huge head start on name recognition and I’m a known quality,” she said. “You can spend $1 million telling people what you’re going to do. But people can see what I’ve done.” Well maybe. But she would seem to be the major competition for...

Dan Bishop -- Currently a state Senator representing District 39 in Mecklenburg County, the last surviving Republican member in the General Assembly from that county after last November's blue wave. He's powerful in the state Senate, chairing the Redistricting and Elections Committee (meaning he's an accomplished gerrymanderer) and chairing both the Health Committee and the Committee on Appropriations for Health (meaning he's been at the forefront of stopping the expansion of Medicaid in the state). Most famously, Bishop was the co-sponsor in 2016 of HB2, the notorious "bathroom bill" that cost North Carolina and most especially Charlotte millions in investment and tourism money. He's rumored to be planning to spend $250,000 of his own money in this race. He'll need a lot more than that to first get by Fern Shubert (and the other, lesser known Republicans in that primary) and then face the very well funded Dan McCready.

Election schedule: Republican primary, May 14. General election: September 10, unless a primary run-off election is required, in which case the run-off will occur on Sept. 10, with the general election pushed to November 5. Odds are that a primary run-off will be required. A candidate must get to 30% of the vote to avoid a run-off.

Boss Hogg Will Have Competition in the NC-9 Republican Primary

We've already taken notice of "Boss Hogg" Stony Rushing, who's says he's running in the NC-9 congressional special election and who's been endorsed for the seat by Mark Harris, the man who ran last year and supposedly won but who may now be running from the Wake County District Attorney.

Boss Hogg will obviously provide the comedy for the special election. Who will supply the credibility?

Tommy Tucker

Maybe Wyatt Thomas "Tommy" Tucker Sr., a former state senator (first elected in the Tea Party Year of 2010 and who stepped down rather than run again last year). At his retirement he was co-chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee. (Republican Todd Johnson -- who has also been implicated in the McCrae Dowless investigation -- won his open seat easily last November.)

Tucker is infamous for a 2013 confrontation with a newspaper publisher, at the time the Berger/Moore super-majorities in the General Assembly were really getting their conservative juggernaut underway and were feeling visibly arrogant about their power. In a committee hearing over a bill that would seriously hurt small-town newspapers, the publisher of the Goldsboro News-Argus challenged Tucker's interpretation of a voice vote in the committee. The publisher believed the vote had failed and wanted a show of hands. Tucker refused and declared, “I am the senator. You are the citizen. You need to be quiet.”

Apparently, Tucker had a habit of regularly shushing public opposition in similar fashion. His voting record is textbook conservative: He voted for repeal of the Racial Justice Act and even voted to ban the use of statistical evidence that would show racial bias in cases where the death penalty was chosen.

Tucker was a big opponent of same sex marriage, voting for the ban in the state constitution, and after the Supreme Court stepped in and declared such measures unconstitutional, he voted for SB 2 in February 2015, which would allow state officials to refuse to perform marriages on “religious grounds.” He supported HB 819, which banned climatologists and other scientists from monitoring sea level change along North Carolina’s coastline. Et cetera.

Ridenhour with his family

Or maybe Matthew Ridenhour, who was a Mecklenburg County commissioner until he was defeated last November in the complete Democratic sweep of all county commission seats. He was a North Carolina delegate for Marco Rubio to the 2016 Republican National Convention. Interesting, as was this: After his defeat last November, at his final meeting on the Mecklenburg Commission, Ridenhour decried the partisanship, especially from national politicians, that is “rotting us to our core." He seemed to be indirectly referencing Donald J. Trump.

Ridenhour is an urban Republican, a little more moderate, a little more house-broke than his rural rivals. You won't catch Ridenhour in a Boss Hogg outfit. Ridenhour, like Democratic front-runner Dan McCready, is a former Marine and had evidently earned the respect of both Democrats and Republicans while he was on the Mecklenburg Commission. According to Politico, he's considered "a rising star in the local GOP" (popular among the far right of his party especially because he pushed for concealed carry rights in Charlotte parks).

Ridenhour has not completely decided to run, but he says he could win if he did, especially with the Charlotte part of NC-9 behind him.

There will probably be other Republicans jumping into this primary, including some currently serving members of the General Assembly. The schedule for the special election, including the filing period for candidates, will be set by the State Board of Elections on Monday. Whoever decides to run, and whoever eventually wins that primary, will likely be facing this man who already has good name recognition and a big financial advantage.

Dan McCready

Preacherman Harris Won't Run Again in NC-9; This Is the Candidate He Wants in His Place

"Boss Hogg," a.k.a. Stony Rushing

Boss Hogg! No, really. Union County commissioner Stony Rushing thinks dressing up as a notoriously stupid and corrupt county commissioner in the fictional world of "The Dukes of Hazzard" earns him votes.  Apparently so, because he's been reelected more than once in Union County. He's now decided he wants to go to Congress. Reverend Mark Harris, ruined by the balloting fraud uncovered in the 9th District, sez he wants this guy too. He's endorsed him.

"Most elected officials would spurn the comparison to Boss Hogg, especially those eyeing a seat in Congress. But not this local politician and gun range owner, who dressed as the grifter for Halloween last year, on the eve of the November election that would solidify his local following and set him up to seek higher office" (Isaac Stanley-Becker).

"He embraces the comparison to the unscrupulous television character .... He has even campaigned on it, plastering his Facebook page with photographs of himself in the classic Hogg get-up, gun in one hand, cigar in the other."

Rushing says the ballot fraud that scuttled Mark Harris was “blown out of proportion." In keeping with the character pictured above, he blames Democrats for everything. “Dan McCready and his Establishment Friends Just Threw ALL of Our Ballots in the Trash!” he protested on Facebook, sharing an image with an American flag. “What are We going to do about IT?”

As I was finding out about Mr. Rushing, the news flashed that Dowless McCrae has been arrested. That arrest frames Mr. Rushing's impersonation of a corrupt county commissioner. It'll be up to the voters of the 9th District to decide if, denied their sanctified preacherman, they want a buffoon as their representative in Congress.

He may not make it to the special election, as he's almost guaranteed to have one or more primary opponents who don't emulate idiots (though they may play one in private).