#ncga: NC Chamber seeks to pick Apodaca’s replacement
Tom Apodaca has been our very own Donald Trump for the last 14 years he’s roamed Jones Street. He speaks his mind. He’s in your face. He tells it like it is.
Well, Apodaca is stepping down from his position representing western North Carolina’s state senate district 48. Three Republicans are on the primary ballot in this very Republican district that includes portions of Buncombe, Henderson and Transylvania counties. 
Henderson County’s Chuck Edwards is talking the Tea Party game, but appears to be the establishment choice in the race. Perennial candidate Dennis Justice and former Buncombe school board member Lisa Baldwin round out the field.
During her time on the Buncombe board, Baldwin fought Common Core and the edu-crats tooth and nail. Lefties and establishment types teamed up to turn Baldwin from a participant in the scrum to a mere spectator on the sidelines.
Battle-tested, Baldwin is aiming to take her no-holds-barred conservatism to Raleigh. She’s been a consistent voice questioning the excesses of big government and the bureaucrats who drive it. And it drives all the right people bat$h!t crazy.
But Baldwin is going to have to fight past the money and influence of The North Carolina Chamber first. The state Chamber — on record as soft on illegal immigration, FOR a gas tax hike, and FOR Common Core — are putting their money behind Edwards. They’ve already paid for some slick flyers mailed out to unaffiliated and Republican voters in the district. 
Dennis Justice has already denounced The Chamber’s involvement in the race and has pledged to boycott ALL Chamber-related events during the campaign. (You may remember the Chamber’s ads suggesting that our kids would die on their way to school in bridge collapses if the General Assembly didn’t approve a road bond package.)
In a Republican primary, you can often tell a lot more about a candidate by who is around them than by their campaign rhetoric. The NC Chamber’s rush to Chuck Edwards should have conservatives worried.
Justice seems like a good guy who needs to be in leadership somewhere. But Baldwin appears to be the safe bet for ensuring common-sense conservative representation for district 48.
The NC Chamber likes to meddle where ever it looks like a True Conservative is Running. It also is double good for them in this case, since Baldwin opposes the Chamber’s beloved Common Core.
https://twitter.com/LadyLiberty1885/status/697163031973912576
The Chamber is the mother of all special interest groups.
Several decades ago, it had a vaguely free enterprise / small government / less regulations stance, but it has had a Jeckyl and Hyde transformation since then. Now the Chamber is a Crony Capitalist / corporate welfare / big government creature. They are total poison. A Chamber endorsement means I skip over that candidate. They are the home of the Special Interest Republicans and the enemy of Grassroots Republicans.
In this day and time, a Chamber endorsement is as bad as an AFL-CIO endorsement.
It looks like Chuck Edwards is even worse than thought as he seems to be tangled up in a big way with the liberals pushing amnesty for illegal aliens.
Here is part of an email I received today from Lisa Baldwin:
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”Obama has repeatedly asserted virtually unlimited executive power in order to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, and my opponent, Liberal-Republican Chuck Edwards, has been a strong backer of Obama’s amnesty.
You see, “Republican” Senate Candidate Chuck Edwards, stood with billionaire anti-gun activist Michael Bloomberg to lobby Nancy Pelosi to implement Obama’s amnesty program.
Because of his support for Obama’s Amnesty Program, Chuck Edwards was called a “lead proponent of amnesty” by North Carolina’s leading illegal immigration watchdog group.
Excessive immigration and the refusal to enforce immigration laws are exacerbating factors which add to the global conditions that have taken their toll on North Carolina workers.
I haven’t let Chuck Edwards liberal positions get to me, and I’ve stayed positive and kept running.”