The Enduring Hard-On of Tim D'Annunzio

Machine-gun Tim D'Annunzio, the man publicly repudiated by the Republican state party chair back during the 2010 primary in the NC-8, has launched a tea party insurgency against the selection of Robin Hayes as the presumptive heir to the chairmanship of the NC Republican Party.

D'Annunzio favors Tim Johnson, about which there is perhaps slightly less trailing baggage than there is for D'Annunzio himself, but still plenty of baggage.

D'Annunzio does NOT favor Robin Hayes, the plush teddy bear evidently favored by Dick Burr and other country-club Republicans. "Stop the RINO establishment from controlling the NC GOP," reads a banner ad that D'Annunzio paid for on the Drudge Report. (Can't seem to catch the ad. Drudge's banners rotate, but if D'Annunzio's dyspepsia is still evident, we haven't been able to see it.)

FOOTNOTE
AP's Gary D. Robertson posted an extensive profile of the chairman's race.

Unity and Disunity

Me likee the slide show of the Democratic senatorial unity rally on Wednesday in Raleigh following Elaine Marshall's decisive 2nd primary win.

Compare and contrast with Machine Gun Tim D'Annunzio's attitude toward the man who beat him in the Republican 2nd primary in the NC-8 and toward the Republican Party generally (not to mention the godless Democrats!). Apparently, the apocalypse is upon us.

2nd Primary

Cal Cunningham lost to Elaine Marshall. No surprise.

Machine Gun Tim D'Annunzio lost to Harold Johnson. No surprise.

But Bernie Reeves lost to Bill Randall in the NC-13 Republican run-off, which was something of a surprise to those of us who read Carter Wrenn. Wrenn, who was a major synapse in Jesse Helms's brain trust, had been railing against Randall as a fake, a man who plagiarized and fluffed his resume. We knew Randall as the dude who suggested that the Deepwater Horizon disaster was planned by Barack Obama and BP. Randall was the darling of religious conservatives and tea partiers.

If Carter Wrenn represents in any way the old Republican establishment in NC, then the Tea Party defeated the Republican establishment yesterday in giving Bill Randall the nod to go up against incumbent Congressman Brad Miller in November.

D'Annunzio Going Down, Flailing

Republican Congressional candidate Tim D'Annunzio in the NC-8 has sued. Not Tom Fetzer, chair of the NC GOP, who said recently that Tim was unfit for any office at any level. No, D'Annunzio sued his rival in the June 22 run-off, Harold Johnson.

For defamation.

Defaming a defamer. Now there's a trick.

Fetzer Scalded

Tea partiers picketed state Republican Party HDQs in Raleigh yesterday, protesting Chair Tom Fetzer's intervention in the 2nd primary run-off between Machine Gun Tim D'Annunzio and Blown Dry Harold Johnson.

Angry voters with signs, marching up and down outside the dignified corporate offices of a major political faction? That's a scene we might expect more at Democratic Party HDQs!

Sorry To See Him Go

Republican voters of the NC-8 congressional district, meet Toast. Toast, say goodbye to the Republican voters of the NC-8.

The 2nd primary on June 22nd ... merely a foregone conclusion.

The Teapot Boileth Over

Tim D'Annunzio, called "unfit for public office at any level" by the chair of his party, has now demanded that the chair of his party resign his position for violating the plan of organization of the North Carolina Republicans.

That throwing down of the gauntlet was accomplished at a press conference yesterday in Concord that resembled nothing so much as the Ukraine parliament on one of their vodka-and-rotten-eggs theme day.

D'Annunzio cussed out Tom Fetzer, chair of the NC GOP, who was not there. D'Annunzio refused repeatedly to answer reporter's questions, a somewhat innovative tack to take at a press conference. He ordered a reporter to leave, and when the reporter didn't, D'Annunzio said he'd leave, but didn't. D'Annunzio and his supporters got into a shouting match with Rowan County Republican Larry Lancaster, who evidently does not support D'Annunzio. Another non-supporter, Cabarrus GOP Chair Justin Thibault, got a Bible poked in his face and was called a coward. "That's you. I'm talking about you and the Republican Party that you represent!"

A poster on Justin Thibault's Facebook wall included this insight about D'Annunzio's posse at the press conference:

What was interesting to me was who was attending the press conference as D'Annunzio supporters -- the core of the We The People PAC, formerly known as the Cabarrus Conservative Coalition, formerly known as the Republican Men's Club, formerly known as the Cabarrus Taxpayers Association -- Their treasurer -- Mr. Coy C Privette. If you thought he retired, guess again. If you are a member of We the People in Cabarrus County, and didn't know this little fact -- now you know the rest of the story.

Coy Privette is his own study in high-profile train wrecks.

Oh so little time, so many volatile Republican personalities.

Tim D'Annunzio: "Unfit for Public Office at Any Level"

They're ganging up on poor Tim "Machine Gun" D'Annunzio, who is locked in a primary run-off for the privilege of being the Republican nominee who will take on NC-8 Dem Larry Kissell in November.

D'Annunzio is mainly just a blunter version of Rand Paul, but he's so alarmed the state Republican establishment that NC GOP Chair Tom Fetzer came out on Friday and said, "By my personal observation of his behavior, and by acquaintance with his record and background, I consider Mr. D'Annunzio unfit for public office at any level. What he could do to the party as our nominee is secondary in my view to what he could do to the country if he got elected. If he got elected, for crying out loud, that would be a disaster."

We confess to a certain fondness for any major party spokesman who uses the phrase "for crying out loud" in 2010! It's more than just quaint. It's positively endearing.

But poor Tom Fetzer! To have to say such things about the man who took more votes (some 36.85% of the total) than the five other Republicans in the first primary on May 4th!

Fetzer loses either way, whether he succeeds in destroying D'Annunzio's candidacy or not, because he's earned himself and his state Republican Party several thousand potential enemies among the Tea Party and libertopian elements on the right.

The country club Republicans, of which Tom Fetzer is a shining avatar (for crying out loud), want blow-dried Harold Johnson to win the run-off, but Fetzer just knee-capped that campaign too by insuring that many of the D'Annunzio voters will stay home on November 2nd.

Winner ... Larry Kissell!

"Political Puppet," Empty Suit, and Not That Bright

Those are the characterizations of Republican Congressional candidate Harold Johnson, former sportscaster at WBTV and the man the Republican establishment hopes will save them from the hair-brained (and similarly triggered) Tim "Machine Gun" D'Annunzio, who actually led the voting in the 8th District Republican primary but failed to get 40% and must now face Johnson in the run-off election on June 22nd.

The person who used those descriptors of Johnson was D'Annunzio. He was reacting to the news that the former holder of that Congressional seat, Robin Hayes, had just endorsed Johnson, who does not scare the country club Republicans at all, something that evidently can't be said about D'Annunzio, who scares lots of people with more or less stable emotions.

If elected, Johnson will do as he's told by brighter men. D'Annunzio won't, 'cause nobody nowhere is brighter than he. Which sets up the basic conflict in this run-off between the tell-me-what-to-think mainline Republican Party and the up-yours-and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on insurgent tea partiers.

Meanwhile, the man who stands to gain the most from this herculean struggle, incumbent Democrat Larry Kissell, is understandably mum. First rule in politics: don't interfere while your enemy is destroying himself.

Where Elevators Don't Go to the Top Floor

The unfortunate second primary between Elaine Marshall and Cal Cunningham will not be the most entertaining. That dubious honor will go to the second primary run-off between Republicans Machine Gun Tim D'Annunzio and Blown-Dry Harold Johnson down in the NC-8, for the privilege of running against Larry Kissell this fall.

D'Annunzio has put a million dollars of his own money into convincing the Republican base that he's the most extreme candidate that anyone could possibly imagine. He's apocalyptic in his theocracy. The only other Republican who has come close to his toxicity is Vernon Robinson of Winston-Salem.

His run-off opponent is nice-guy Harold Johnson, a former Charlotte sports newsman for WBTV, and the old-guard Republican establishment, terrified of D'Annunzio, is lining up behind Johnson.

In other words, this is a tea-partyer's wet dream, a contest between the establishment devil and the born-again saint of anti-government millenarianism.

May the crazier man prevail!

Making Tea From Briars

Republican Congressional candidate, Machine Gun Tim D'Annunzio in the NC-8 (remember him?), appears to be deeply connected to a Tea Party effort to smear his chief rival, former Charlotte sportscaster Harold Johnson, as a convicted federal "tax cheat."

Turns out that such charges are actually fairly easy to disprove.

We're still rooting for D'Annunzio to win that primary, though there's a possibility, we suppose, that 50% + 1 of Republicans in that district have not drunk this particular pot of tea.

North Carolina's Blue Dogs

On passage of H.R.3590 (219-212), North Carolina Democrats Mike McIntyre, Heath Shuler, and Larry Kissell all voted with the Republicans. Those no votes won't earn them any support from Republicans come November, while driving away their own base.

Kissell, particularly, can ill afford losing his base ... unless, of course, the Republicans actually nominate Machine Gun Tim D'Annunzio to run against him.

Shuler ... who knows? Haven't seen any Republican challenger among those running in the primary who looks like a winner.

McIntyre ... he's been voting with the Republicans so long he's barely indistinguishable from ... Howard Coble.

The Jack Hawke Legacy Tour

Jack Hawke, the infamous NC Republican operative, has bragged that he's the one who "recruited" Virginia Foxx to run for the NC Senate in 1994. He apparently has, in other words, a fatal attraction for the extreme and the unstable, because he also signed on for the Tim D'Annunzio primary campaign down in the NC-8. D'Annunzio went from zero to 60 on the nut-job scale in just under three seconds, being outed by Laura Leslie as the author of the I-heart-Armageddon blog and then holding a well publicized "machine-gun social" fundraiser.

Anyhoo, Hawke, by his own words, told D'Annunzio that his blog was a very bad idea. No candidate "should get up at 3 or 4 in the morning, sit down in front of a computer and pour your heart out. It's just not a smart thing to do." Like, never let the voters see your true self, eh, Mr. Hawke? Supposedly, D'Annunzio promised Hawke that he had sworn off blogging, but just couldn't quite do it. So Hawke has resigned from the D'Annunzio campaign, and in a very public way.

Okay okay, bloggers are like alcoholics, only without the charming party tricks. We get that.

But, now, about this Jack-Hawke-recruited-the-Foxx-gnome factoid ... don't we need to chew on that for ... oh, spit that out! It tastes like gun metal and old hairnets.

NEWS FLASH! All Liberals Are NOT Vegetarian

We said earlier that Republican Congressional candidate Tim D'Annunzio (in the NC-8) was showing great promise for comedic relief this year, and he's proven that by releasing a video of his "machine-gun social" (complete with purely educational gunfire at a paper target) and containing his voiceover complaint that a lone "protester" went through the food line and ate his barbecue!

Clown Car

At the moment, Democratic Rep. Larry Kissell (NC-8) has only one filed Republican opponent, Tim D'Annunzio, with several others supposedly waiting in the wings to file. For the time being Mr. D'Annunzio will do nicely for the entertainment.

D'Annunzio plans a "Machine Gun Social" fundraiser at a local gun shop in Fayetteville this Thursday. For $25 (cheap!) you get to fire a machine gun until the bullets run out. No word on what the target will be.

After Jim Morrill publicized this event in the Charlotte Observer, over 70 comments came pouring in, some funny, some rude, many signed "Anonymous." D'Annunzio went ballistic over "Anonymous," posting in the same comment thread under his own name:

...Hiding behind these web sites as "anonymous" is the same as hiding under a the white hood, COWARDS. You wouldn't dare say these things to my face, but I wouldn't have any trouble telling you this same thing to yours, if you dared.

Interestingly, D'Annunzio has been posting anonymously since last May on his own blog, "Christ's War." Posting anonymously until today, that is. If you look at what he put up early this a.m., for the first time he uses his own name.

D'Annunzio's coming out from behind the "Anonymous" device owes a good deal, we suspect, to Laura Leslie's outing his blogging ways yesterday on Isaac Hunter's Tavern. Leslie's opening is priceless (and the whole thing, a must read):

"I don't know anything about that," Tim D'Annunzio's press flack Lauren Slepian told me this afternoon. Finding out from someone else that your candidate has a personal blog does not generally make for a good day. Finding out from a reporter is even worse.

So ... who else does the Republican Party have to offer in this race?