How To Run As a Loser in a Blood Red District

 

Kate Compton Barr is the brand spanking new Democratic candidate for Senate District 37, and I like her style. First heard about her on Joe Bruno's Twitter feed, an article headlined "‘Clear eyes, full heart, can’t win’: Why Kate Barr is running anyway." Watched her intro video on Instagram. She's a bright light -- a heavily credentialed behavior scientist, mother of two, volunteer everything, but also a force of nature in business, founding a start-up called "Pip and Grow," a high-end catalog of "elegant, eco-conscious products expertly designed to keep your child safe." Linked In:

As the owner of a start-up, Kate is involved in nearly every aspect of running the business - from corporate strategy to customer service. Not only is she in charge of logistics and inventory management, but she also handles company finances and pricing models. Kate is the primary content creator for the Pip & Grow blog and contributes to social media messaging. She also works in partnership with her co-founders to create and maintain influencer, media, and customer relationships.

The company garnered national attention winning both Outstanding Small Business and Retail Small Business at the 2018 SCORE Awards, an NC IDEA Seed grant in November of 2019, and Charlotte's Social Impact Inno on Fire Award in January 2020. Kate’s business journey has been widely documented in publications including Forbes and MSN.

According to Linked In, her control of Pip & Grow ended last April, and she's now running for the NC Senate out of principle -- people ought to have a choice -- in a gerrymandered district that is 62.3% Republican. She's a self-knowing sacrifice, and strategic about it. That motto, "Clear Eyes, Full Heart, Can't Win," a brilliant piece of marketing. Instead of a terrible burden of marching to electoral execution -- dead candidate walking -- Kate Barr might be having the time of her life (and she actually could gather a movement of self-conscious parodists: "Get in losers, we’re (not) going to the Senate! #getinlosers #katebarrcantwin." Jokes can become movements. Yes they can. That's my theory.)

Kate Barr's shorthand Twitter bio: "Dem for NC Senate District 37. Gerrymandered out of a chance. F*ck it. I’m running anyway .... let’s raise a little hell and have some fun anyway."

Website: https://www.katebarrcantwin.com/

The Republican Incumbent

Vicki Sawyer was said to have played a role in keeping the Republican caucus from going even more whole-hog extreme on abortion -- which is why we got a 12-week ban instead of a six. I called her "moderate" when she first ran in 2018 (and beat the blustery Bob Rucho in that year's primary):

Member of the Iredell County Planning Board and treasurer of the Iredell County Republican Party. Sawyer and her husband own Sawyer Insurance & Financial Services in Mooresville. She seems civic -- served on the Iredell County School Facilities Task Force, co-chaired the successful 2014 school bond referendum committee, and has been president of Lakeshore Elementary and Middle School Parent Teacher Organizations. She is a Methodist.

Sawyer's now serving her 3rd Senate term (but in three different districts, because of the repeated attempts among her brethren to harvest, then prune, then harvest again the succulent fruits of gerrymandering). 

Is Vickie Sawyer a Republican Feminist?

 

To hear Vickie Sawyer, Republican state Senator from Iredell (Dist. 37), tell about the behind-closed-doors negotiations that went on between House and Senate Republicans about how much abortion to ban, and how, you might deduce that she was the leading feminist in that coven of deciders, a warrior for "exceptions" to the new bans.

According to the interview Sawyer gave Will Doran from WRAL News, "Many of her fellow Republicans were initially opposed to allowing exceptions for issues such as rape, incest or medical complications, Sawyer said, adding that she fought hard to get those added into the final compromise. 'If you ever knew how hard those meetings were,' Sawyer said. 'How hard I fought for that rape exception, that incest exception. And how hard that was to get across the line.' "

No. We believe you! We're familiar with folks with that single "pro-life" issue to their name. They don't take prisoners.

Some of Sawyer's Republican colleagues wanted proof of rape -- did the woman report it? -- before they would allow the rape exception into the law. Sawyer told reporter Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan of the News and Observer, "I was very adamant about not having a reporting requirement because I did not want a young woman who was raped to have to go through anything else. So for me, that was a big deal.”

I had to look more into who Vickie Sawyer is and discovered, first, on her website, that you won't find a whisper of allegiance to any of the raw meat, hard-right conservative issues that we automatically associate with the Republican caucuses down in Raleigh. She really does appear moderate or at least totally indifferent to pushing all the regular conservative buttons.

She mentions -- just a passing, brief mention -- that she grew up in a trailer park in rural Davidson County, and I might want to read more into that than I should -- that maybe she learned some toughness but also some understanding and compassion for people -- especially women -- who are "seeing it hard." How different that background may have tempered her, compared to, say, Virginia Foxx, who likes to brag about how poor she was without any trace of humility.

But before I get carried away, I have to note that Sawyer is also a soldier in the GOP army, so she was duty-bound to do something against abortion. It's the price of admission to that political party. Plus she was a prime sponsor of the Fairness in Women's Sports Act, which passed the Senate in May and which will ban transgender girls from competing in female sports events -- an issue I really think is a loser for Democrats. “This bill is not about being anti-trans," Sawyer said during debate. "This bill is about being pro-woman. If we want to talk about uncomfortable, let’s talk about how young women’s lives are put in danger by having to play a sport they love against someone who’s three times as strong as them.”

Sawyer was first appointed to the senate in August 2018 to fill out an unexpired term. She had already won a Republican primary for the seat in May against her principal rival, the notorious Bob Rucho, who had previously been in the senate and chose not to run for reelection in 2016 but wanted back in in 2018. Sawyer easily beat him, since he had kind of a volatile reputation. So she's in her 3rd senate term. She and her husband run a big insurance firm.