Piling on.
The hits keep coming in Hasan-gate. An email has gone out “signed” by several former NCGOP chairmen:
Please see below for a letter from the Past Chairman’s Leadership Council:
Dear Fellow Republicans,
We are disappointed and even appalled at the actions of current NCGOP Chairman Hasan Harnett.
The multiple inaccurate statements being spread by Hassan Harnett, undermine the work of our grassroots activists that have long been dedicated to our Party.
He has demonstrated time and time again that he is not capable of being chairman. We, as former chairmen, respectfully and sincerely ask you to vote to remove Hasan Harnett as Chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party.
Signed,
Jim Hastings
Jane Rouse
Tom Fetzer
Robin Hayes
Claude E. Pope, Jr.
Ferrell Blount
*Nice.* Basically, the Craig Collins campaign steering 
committee. They did such a bang-up job last June, didn’t they?
Let’s take a look at this motley crew sitting in judgement of Hasan Harnett. I’m going to give Jane Rouse a pass. She’s elderly, and likely being taken advantage of here.
Robin Hayes is likely jealous. So far, Harnett has outperformed Hayes.
And we all remember Jim Hastings, don’t we?:
[…] Hastings left his post with the N.C. Republican Party after being
indicted for failure to file federal income tax returns from 1988 to 1991. He eventually pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to four counts of failure to file income tax returns, misdemeanor charges. He was sentenced to three years of unsupervised probation and fined $20,000, according to court records.[…]
With that track record, I can’t believe he has the cojones to raise his head and partake in this.
Ferrell Blount. He resigned early following a dismal election showing.
And Claude Pope. He of the golfing trip to Scotland during campaign season. He regularly hit up cousin Art and other deep-pocketed family friends for big checks to cover monthly payroll while he was chairman, and has the gall to criticize Harnett’s fundraising. He endorsed Collins, and has been on Harnett’s case s
ince last June. Pope minions have been trying to spin that Pope has “tried to help Harnett” during these past nine months, but Harnett has rebuffed him.
When you hear the word “help” from these people — it means them strong-arming you to see things their way. Refusing their, um, “help” signifies uppityness that warrants the kind of smears and smackdowns you see Harnett being subjected to right now. (Pay attention, Michele Nix. You’re NEXT.)
If these people had spent this much energy building up and uniting the party — instead of trying to forcibly reverse the results of June’s chairman election — the GOP would be looking like a juggernaut for November. Now, we have a circular firing squad. And for what? Some useless placeholders in the NCGOP hierarchy trying to hold onto their piece of “turf.”
(Oh, by the way. Anyone else notice the rather conspicuous absence of former chairman Linda Daves from this emailed hit piece?)
I am STILL looking for evidence of a crime. In fact, I am still looking for evidence that this needs to continue for ONE MORE DAY. The people pushing this narrative have really descended into middle-school-girls-clique-slapfight territory.
JIM HASTINGS??? The same Jim Hastings who was arrested for tax evasion a month after he won the GOP Chair??? We want to listen to HIM..HIS MORAL COMPASS??? Really???
I’m just wondering if he is related to Rep Kelly Hastings?
This is the very same technique that the establishment used from Bill Cobey on to try to dictate who their successors as state chairman would be. It is a machine power play we have seen time and time again. It is the sort of thing that convention delegates said ”enough already” to in the last state convention.
In short. It stinks. And it is massively anti-grassroots.
Dave Flaherty never would play with that crowd or Frank Rouse or Jack Hawke. It is ashame that they have somehow roped in Jane this time.
Not only are they missing Linda Daves as you noted and Dave Flaherty. The are also missing the godfather of establishment machine politics in the NCGOP, Bill Cobey.
Jim Hastings presence on the list is just so amusing. His short tenure as chairman was marked by fighting with his Central Committee, and one of the biggest issues was over the Executive Director’s slot. So what is so different here, Jim?
Only those pining for a return of establishment machine politics in the NCGOP would pay any attention at all to this letter.
The Daves had a firm grip on party order, but I didn’t view them as corrupt – just very loyal to people they knew and had worked with over the years. It’s interesting they didn’t sign on with the CenComm power grab.
I remember Linda looking quite embarrassed at the podium of the 2008 convention when asked why the party re-interpreted the rules to its advantage and took 2 Ron Paul delegates away. (The state legal counsel agreed the next year with the Paul campaign and the 2012 national delegates were divided up evenly.) So I do think it’s credible that she doesn’t like being dragged into intraparty dogfights.
I tend to agree with you. I had and still have a gut feeling that Linda Daves was pressured by the RNC into that action in 2008.
I don’t think she liked having to do it, even if there were others in the NCGOP who were all for it.
Like you said, the Daves were extremely loyal to those who they knew and were very suspicious of anyone new coming into any aspect of party leadership. That said, once you gained their trust, they were not going to purposely screw you over. I don’t think either one of them is all that keen on losing active Republican grassroots that have been involved for 10+ years over this debacle.
I’ve been watching documentaries on Netfix the past few days.
One I watched was about Richard Nixon and the cover up. It is amazing to see him look right into the camera and LIE.
The one I watched last night was about the Duke Lacrosse nightmare.
It reminded me that people will go to great lengths – And use all means at their disposal – To try to destroy someone they do not like.
This thing has grown like a cancer. It is despicable. Thank God for your coverage.
One thing stands out in all of this. No matter what else may be said, this man was ELECTED by the people. There are NO provisions for ANYONE to simply ignore that fact and shut him out.
The Constitution of the state of NC and the will of the people were (And continue to be) ignored.
If this group of connivers is allowed to have their way – We might as well quit holding elections and just have this group appoint someone.
This is serious business folks.
Two of the signers of this letter are the most vicious and obnoxious anti-grassroots state chairmen in recent memory, Robin Hayes and Thommy Fetzer. They are establishment hacks of the very worst sort. If they are against something, grassroots Republicans should be very much for it.
Fetzer ran a very venom-filled campaign against grassroots candidate Chad Adams for state chairman. He was the first to bring the hated establishment consultant Dee Stewart into running a state chairman’s race, something not done again until Craig Collins did so. Fetzer was a failed political consultant himself, who bungled the Elizabeth Dole reelection campaign. As chairman, Fetzer refused to be neutral in primaries. When a tea party oriented conservative won the first round in the RNCC targeted 8th district Congressional race in 2010, Fetzer called a press conference to viciously attack him and endorse the second placed finisher for the runoff.
Robin Hayes is best known for his support of manipulating RNC rules against the grassroots, not letting delegates vote properly on them, and trying to browbeat delegates into voting the establishment position. He then supported the establishment against conservative efforts to junk those bad rules. At his last state convention, Hayes brought two of the national establishment hacks most hated by conservatives, Haley Barbour and Karl Rove as convention speakers.
BTW, I notice that former state chairman Sam Currin, who was rather conservative, also did not sign this letter.
Two of the signers are very short termers. Hastings was indicted in federal court a few months after he was elected, then went on leave of absence, then resigned. Jane Rouse was briefly Acting Chairman during the time that Hayes was on leave of absence before unsuccessfully running herself to try to fill the vacancy.
Another good example of the arrogant elitist anti-grassroots nature of Robin Hayes is that as state chairman, he ignored in multiple counties the names submitted by county parties for county boards of election, and substituted names that came from his elitist buddies, sometimes sending for appointment people who were outright hostile to their county parties. Hayes did not consult with county parties at all to discuss the matter. He just put his own people in, and the counties found out when someone other than their names got the appointments. Claude Pope confronted with this situation backed and defended what Hayes had done, showing he is no friend of the grassroots, either.
One of the counties which was a victim of this highhanded arrogance was Nash, and they fought back. They got an amendment to the state GOP Plan of Organization passed that forces the state chairman to work more closely with county parties on these key appointments.
Any recommendations by Hayes or Pope should be absolutely shunned by the grassroots.
So here we are in 2016. If it’s anything, it’s THE YEAR OF GRASSROOTS CONSERVATISM. And these Lynch Mob folks undoubtedly think OBAMA is tone deaf!
Mmmm-mmmm-mmmm.
Today I got a post card in the mail with this message with the disclaimer not paid by the NCGOP and then I got a letter the looks like it is really from NCGOP with this letter including saying this message was paid for by the NCGOP
I wish to share my disgust with all the donors if your money was used to pay for a message from the past chairman. If they want to sent their message fine but they should do it on their dime without ties to the state party