Without Her Easter Bonnet, With All the Frills Upon It

 

NC Senate and House Districts Targeted by the DLCC

 

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) was formed in 1992 by then Democratic National Committee Chair David Wilhelm to target and win races in state legislatures -- because Republican majorities in state legislatures were more than eager to gerrymander districts to their advantage and suppress the voters they didn't like. The DLCC brings with it money to targeted races but also some expertise in ground games, tactics, and overall strategy. NC board members on the DLCC, who no doubt influenced the targets below, are NC Senate leader Dan Blue and NC House leader Robert Reives.

The DLCC has announced its North Carolina targets for 2024. The goal: Break the Republican Supermajorities

Senate District 7, New Hanover Co.: Defeat Republican 4-term incumbent Michael Lee. Elect Democrat David Hill, a pediatrician. Civitas Partisan Index rates it R+2.

Senate District 11, Franklin, Nash, and Vance: Defeat Republican incumbent Lisa Barnes (in her 2nd term). Elect Democrat James Mercer who founded a non-profit to help kids and veterans. Civitas rates it D+1.

Senate District 13, Wake: Elect Democrat Lisa Grafstein, a labor and civil rights lawyer, who's running for an open seat against Republican Scott Lassiter. Civitas rates it D+1.

Senate District 18, Granville and Wake: Elect Democrat Terence Everitt, currently a member of the NC House, running for an open seat against Republican Ashlee Adams. Civitas rates it R+1.

Senate District 42, Mecklenburg: Elect Democrat Woodson Bradley, businesswoman and prolific volunteer, running for an open seat against Republican Stacie McGinn. Civitas rates it D+1.

House District 24, Nash and Wilson: Defeat 1st-term Republican Ken Fontenot. Elect Democrat Dante Pittman, an assistant town manager in Wilson, NC. Civitas rates it D+2.

House District 25, Nash: Defeat 1st-term Republican Allen Chesser. Elect Democrat Lorenza Wilkins, a non-profit activist. Civitas rates it D+2.

House District 32, Granville and Vance: Defeat 1st-term Republican Frank Sossamon. Elect Democrat Bryan Cohn, a member of the Oxford Board of Commissioners. Civitas rates it D+4.

Lindsey Prather

House District 35, Wake: Elect Democrat Evonne Hopkins, a family law specialist, who's running for an open seat against Republican Mike Schietzelt. Civitas rates it R+3.

House District 37, Wake: Defeat 2-term Republican incumbent Erin Pare. Elect Democrat Safiyah Jackson, an early childhood advocate. Civitas rates it R+3.

House District 73, Cabarrus: Help reelect 1st-term Democrat Diamond Staton-Williams, a registered nurse, running against Republican Jonathan Almond. Civitas rates it R+3.

House District 98, Mecklenburg: Elect Democrat Beth Helfrich, a career public school teacher, running for an open seat against Republican Melinda Bales. Civitas rates it R+1.

House District 105, Mecklenburg: Defeat Republican turncoat incumbent Tricia Cotham. Elect Democrat Nicole Sidman, who won a 3-way primary in March. Civitas rates it R+2.

House District 115, Buncombe: Help reelect 1st-term Democrat Lindsey Prather, public school educator, running against Republican Ruth Smith. Civitas rates it D+7.

Except for the one House seat in Buncombe County, it's plain to see that the DLCC writes off western North Carolina. You can't have everything. We can be thankful that the 50-state DLCC sees an opening for loosening the total power the NCGOP has over abortion rights and ballot access. I'll be digging into at least some of the personalities mentioned in the list above in the coming weeks/months.

AppState Chancellor Under Fire for Suppressing the Queer Community on Campus

 

The Appalachian State University Graduate SGA has produced a string of accusations against Chancellor Sheri Everts alleging that she is behind the suppression of "Pride Week," the banning of drag shows on campus, and the actual firing of "at least four (4) Queer & Trans Staff and Faculty" without explanation (and presumably without cause). The document actually names names of those shown the door.

Other student groups have joined the out-cry against Everts (including the ASU College Democrats, which produced its own statement of solidarity). The student groups want Pride Week restored.

Aside from their condemnation of the AppState administration (principally Everts), the students don't raise the questions that immediately come to my mind ... that perhaps Everts is merely carrying water for the Republican-heavy Board of Trustees and the even-more-laden-with-cultural-conservatives Board of Governors, who have shown some eagerness for clamping down on what they consider the too-liberal university system. Everts has seemed all too willing to please those powers and not at all susceptible to the pleas and arguments of her own student body and faculty.

She's been highly unpopular on campus for a long time. The ASU Faculty Senate passed a "no confidence" resolution about her back in 2020, but nothing much about her style of authoritarian administration has changed.

The Newest Chair of the NCGOP

 

Jason Simmons

Following Trump's elevation of Michael Whatley to the chairmanship of the national GOP (and also to holding Lara Trump's handbag), the chairmanship of the NCGOP stood open for an election by the state's executive committee -- which happened last night. The winner of a contested race was the state party's executive director Jason Simmons, handpicked by Whatley and endorsed by Trump. The vote was decisive despite a spirited challenge from the ultra-conservative Jim Womack, head of the "NC Election Integrity Team" who thinks far too many people are allowed to vote in this state.

Womack is a big deal in Lee County -- chair of the local GOP and a former county commissioner -- and something of a serial loser. He ran for the chairmanship of the NCGOP twice before, unsuccessfully, and usually with collateral damage. The ultra-MAGAs supported Womack last night and had made plenty of noise leading up to the vote about the failings of establishment Republicans like Thom Tillis and Whatley himself, who nevertheless remain in control of the NC org.

Womack's supporters are naturally furious. They consider themselves "the real Republicans" as opposed to  the Thom Tillises, who are really just part of a "Uniparty" made up of Democrats and country club Republicans who protect the status quo for their own profit. The ultra-MAGAs have baroque theories to explain why Trump won North Carolina in 2020 despite widespread fraud to elect Biden: “Donald Trump may be happy with NC because he didn’t lose in 2020, but it is my belief he didn’t lose because the Uniparty didn’t need him to lose since the fraud in the other states with unexplained pauses in vote counting was adequate to secure his defeat. Letting Trump win protected the Uniparty in NC” (former Republican state Sen. Fern Shubert, in a comment here).

Letting Trump win NC's electoral votes protected the "Uniparty"? I'm truly stunned by that logic.

If Mark Robinson, Michele Morrow, or Dan Bishop lose their statewide races in November, Jason Simmons will be blamed. We have a sympathy card ready to go.

The Wray of All Flesh

 

Rodney Pierce and Michael Wray

Conservative Democrat Michael H. Wray had a good 20 years legislating in Raleigh before he was taken out in the March primary by Rodney Pierce (profiled here back in February). After the recount, Wray lost his seat by a mere 34 votes. Pierce will be going to Raleigh next January because there is no Republican candidate. It's a safe Democratic House district, and Wray often had no Republican challenger in his reelections though he often had Democratic primary challengers. Rodney Pierce finally had the juice to beat him.

He was unpopular among Democrats for being so popular with the Republican majority in the House. He was said to vote with the Republicans over 80% of the time, most notoriously for Dan Bishop's hated "Bathroom Bill" and more recently for the last Republican budget, choosing to override Gov. Cooper's veto.

He was and is a nice man, people say, at a time that Democrats needed a little more steel in tribal spines. Wray was sweet enough to Republicans that Speaker Tim Moore elevated him to a senior chairmanship on the powerful House Finance Committee way back at the start of the current session in January 2023. Moore was trying to woo Wray to change parties. Moore also wooed Tricia Cotham, who obligingly tumbled in April 2023.

No one said it was illegal to turn your coat. But there are consequences, especially among those who made the coat and expected you to wear it with the right side out.

Mark Robinson Is Nothing If Not Gratuitous

 

Mark Robinson popped off on Brian Kilmeade's radio show: "I'm not interested in anything that Thom Tillis has to say. As far as I'm concerned, Thom Tillis has abandoned the base of our party.”

Thom Tillis, who sometimes amazes us with his willingness to defy the MAGA majority, responded to the Robinson insult to Huffington Post reporter Igor Bobic, "The feeling's mutual."

What's holding the NCGOP together? A couple of strings of baling twine and a little dry-mouthed spit?

Just in case you've forgotten, Tillis endorsed Bill Graham over Mark Robinson in the recent Republican primary for guv.

About the dyspepsia in the NCGOP, Democratic commentator Gary Pearce tweeted, "Senator Thom Tillis and the reliably Republican NC Chamber distance themselves from NCGOP's MAGA candidates. Pass the popcorn."

Comedy in the Age of Trump

 

"The reason 'conservative comedy' never manages to go mainstream is that it's all fundamentally based on punching down at vulnerable people for no reason but sheer meanness. But in the Trump era, that's what some people want. Cruelty for the lols."

--@forwardcarolina, January 17, 2024

P.J. O'Rourke, the author and the subject of Republican Party Reptile: The Confessions, Adventures, Essays and (Other) Outrages of P.J. O’Rourke, could be very funny. He was a satirist, especially of sitting-duck bleeding hearts. It takes a true sense of humor to write satire, and real intelligence.

I speculate on O'Rourke, who's been dead since February 2022, in trying to guess the connection between intelligence and humor and the failure of "conservative comedy" mentioned above. The MAGA wing particularly, who depend for their world view on carefully curated information that blots out evidence not congenial to their hero worship, seem to enjoy cruel put-downs and juvenile insults above all other forms of "humor." When we were ignorant farm kids, we might actually laugh at physical deformity or disability, but as we aged, we sometimes were lucky or persistent enough to learn humility and perspective and some history of humanity.

Teenage girl cyber-bullying belongs to a particular age group for a reason. Like MAGA, they seem to believe any victim deserves it for being weak.

Jon Council, Testing the Power of the Unaffiliated in Watauga County

 

He's a construction worker living with his wife Peden in a reclaimed barn, with four dogs (Hannah  Jack, Bear, and Matilda), and 15 ducks on the Watauga River Road in Watauga, because it was the only available and affordable housing that Jon and Peden could afford in a super-expensive vacation destination like Watauga County. 

Jon Council just became a rare unaffiliated candidate for a Watauga County Commission seat (Dist. 3), "certified by petition" for the November ballot. No Democrat had filed for the seat against incumbent Republican Braxton Eggers. Council knocked doors to get the signatures he needed to qualify for the ballot because he believes that there should always be a choice of candidates and because he believes he can provide an important voice for working people in his district. Council may be the first unaffiliated candidate in Watauga County history to complete the petition process. He's certainly unusual in North Carolina.

Council has always been unaffiliated, and like many people who do not register as either Democrat or Republican, he sometimes has not voted in elections where he felt his interests were not being represented. Political scientist Chris Cooper at Western Carolina Univ. did research and found that some 261 unaffiliated candidates met the requirements and ran in North Carolina between 2010 and 2022. Almost all of them lost -- badly. During those years, 33 unaffiliated candidates (out of those 261) actually won their races, and frequently they were running for county commission seats. Can Jon Council beat the odds and join that rarest of rare winners' circle?

Unaffiliated voters now out-number both registered Democrats and Republicans in the state of North Carolina. And they out-number Democrats and Republicans in County Commission Dist. 3 of Watauga County, which includes the precincts of Watauga, Laurel Creek, Beaver Dam, Shawneehaw, Beech Mountain, and a portion of Brushy Fork. Here's the partisan breakdown of that district:

D 1,695

R 2,921

U 3,445

(Explains why no Democrat filed to run in the district.)

The Jon Council Story

Photo by Sophie Mead

Have you ever tried to live in the structure you're also trying to renovate? Carry on life while you add a kitchen and wood heat and a composting toilet to a structure that never had any of those "necessaries"? You may have to cover the bed with a tarp to protect it from falling construction debris and cook on a single-burner Coleman set on a desk. That's what Jon and Peden went through to have an affordable place to live, while (big irony here) Jon got up early every morning to go to work maintenance at a high end country club. Now he slings a hammer on construction jobs building summer places that he also can't afford. He's a keen observer of the realities around him -- a well informed, smart, and practical thinker who understands how the economy grinds working people. The crisis in affordable housing is a particular flashpoint for him. In a Barn Raiser online magazine interview last October, Jon pointed out that "development" in a mountain county is "just another extractive industry":

We’re in a place that’s got heavy tourist traffic at different times of the year with ski resorts and other recreation industries. We’ve seen a lot of single-family homes that have been turned into Airbnbs and short-term rentals, which makes it difficult for working-class people to find places that they can afford to live and work. Because we’re a pretty low-income community, we’ve seen how easy it is for outside interests with a lot of money to come in, buy up land, parcel it off and develop it, not for the people who live here, but for second homes or for short-term rentals for people that are living elsewhere.

That struggle for a decent place to live is coupled for Jon with a personal determination to heal and reclaim the two and a half acres of mountain hillside that he and Peden were able to afford in 2018. The land had been neglected for years, sprayed periodically with herbicides and pesticides to keep the scrub from taking over, but blackberry canes took over anyway.

Jon Council is characteristic of any number of smart and determined young people (he's 32), for whom college didn't click, which makes him not a candidate for a white-collar type job but worthy of respect for the struggle to live reasonably in a society that does not value physical labor and native smarts nearly enough. Jon and Peden have learned "make-do" -- living "on the cheap" -- but knowing the benefits and pleasures of a vibrant community of similarly struggling working people who help one another and understand barter/borrow. For Jon, duck eggs, which are significantly higher in both fat and cholesterol than chicken eggs and also higher in protein and omega-3 fatty acids, have become a valuable side enterprize. He's sold up to 200 duck eggs at a time to chefs for special event dinners featuring locally sourced ingredients. Jon and Peden trade and barter with other local small farmers for fresh vegetables and other produce during the warmer months. Jon told Barn Raiser, 

Jon and Peden's home. Photo Sophie Mead 

A lot of our friends are craftspeople. My wedding ring and my wife’s wedding ring were made by a friend, a woman we know in the community, which we traded for barter. There’s a lot of that.

Though Jon left college -- sampled but unfinished -- he's become skilled in a number of life-hacks, not just carpentry and renovations but also the nurturing of native plants and the health of the soil (not to mention the precious water). "I didn't do well in college. But I love to learn," Jon says, "and I'm often moved by novelty." So Jon is a deep reader widely curious about the world. He lights up when talking about favorite books and mentions the work of Aldo Leopold (A Sand County Almanac), Peter Heller (a longtime contributor to Outside magazine), Craig Childs (The Secret Knowledge of Water), and Wendell Berry, whose Unsettling of America holds a special spot in Jon's library. He's a deep thinker on the ways and means that economic power gets wielded against the labor that sustains it, and the Barn Raiser interview quotes him at length on the failures of the two dominant parties.

Jon found a new local community organization, Down Home North Carolina, a member of the People's Action Network, dedicated to finding common ground with blue-collar working people and engaging them in action. The Watauga chapter was building a petition to the County Commission about affordable and fair housing (Watauga County has no minimal housing standards). Jon was also motivated by the repeated raw sewerage spills from a mega-student apartment complex on the west side of Boone. Those spills end up in the Watauga River drainage system, which runs it directly past Jon and Peden's homestead. Jon became an activist. He understands the cost-benefits for the corporate owners: They've been repeatedly hit with fines, "and they just pay the fine and everything still goes back into the watershed. And then it happens again, and they pay the fine." An endless loop of abuse.

He told Barn Raiser about what door-knocking and porch-sitting for Down Home taught him about human community:

When you can talk to somebody face-to-face and say, “Hey, man, we share a watershed,” or, “We rely on this mom-and-pop business up here that’s in danger of being run out by outside corporate interests,” I think you find that people are willing to cooperate with one another. People don’t have to agree on everything. But if we take care of one another, especially within a small community like this, it benefits everyone.

He told me, "Look, I'm not like a vigilante do-gooder. It's doing the simple stuff like helping someone get firewood or picking up trash on the road on a Saturday morning." Helping out. Building community. "Common Sense rules the day" is Jon's motto.

Down Home's petition for the county to enact minimum housing standards went nowhere, and that was under a Democratically dominated County Commission. So this unaffiliated activist is testing whether an amorphous non-party can also elect a representative to the partisan office of County Commission. 

An Unaffiliated Candidate Qualifies for Watauga CoCommish