Lee County’s Jim Womack to challenge Robin Hayes for NCGOP chairman’s post
Somebody needs to wake Dallas’s grandpa. It appears the old man MAY have a fight on his hands.
Here are the details from a release out of Lee County:
Lee County Republican Party Chairman Jim Womack has announced he will challenge Robin Hayes in his bid for re-election as Chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party.
Chairman Womack is a West Point graduate, a career U.S. Army officer, and an Information Technology Executive from Sanford, North Carolina. He has been politically active in North Carolina for the past ten years. He served as a Lee County Commissioner from 2010-2014 and served on the state’s Mining and Energy Commission from 2012-15, chairing the organization from 2012-14.
Chairman Womack has been a grass roots activist in the NCGOP and has authored several resolutions and platform changes seeking to decentralize the power and authority of the GOP’s Central Committee, putting control of the party back into the hands of the Republican base. Womack is advocating top-to-bottom reform of the party and a complete reworking of the NCGOP’s Plan of Organization.
Who gets to chair the state party through the next election cycle is just one of the things to be debated and decided at this year’s state GOP convention. 
Womack is closely tied to party conservatives across the state. He was an outspoken critic of the Raleigh-centered coup that deposed duly-elected state party chairman Hasan Harnett and paved the way for the installation of Robin Hayes. Hayes, Womack, and party executive director Dallas Woodhouse have clashed repeatedly since the coup. So, this campaign for state chairman is not expected to be touchy-feely.
Many observers see Hayes as vulnerable to an aggressive, competent challenge from the right. Hayes has never been a friend to conservatives. He spent years in DC as an active leader in the anti-conservative, Rockefeller Republican, Ripon Society. The man he replaced as chairman, Harnett, was criticized for alleged weaknesses in the area of fundraising. However, a post-coup analysis revealed party fundraising under Harnett was running ahead of that of Hayes during his previous term as chairman. (Hayes had the added advantage of all kinds of wealthy family members to lean on to write checks to cover payroll and keep the lights on at party HQ.) 
While Womack has helped make the GOP a force again in Lee County, Hayes has been alienating key party constituencies. During the 2016 campaign, it was learned that Hayes — while serving as state party chairman — was also a highly-paid flack for a radical environmental group seeking to crush the state’s commercial fishing industry. Hayes even got caught –post coup — hosting a fundraiser for a GOP candidate in a crowded congressional primary.
Hayes and Woodhouse had TWO KEY TASKS during the 2016 campaign: (1) Get Pat McCrory reelected, and (2) Get Bob Edmunds reelected to the state Supreme Court. They 
failed spectacularly on both counts. Party insiders admit that the grassroots dynamo powering the Trump campaign in 2016 saved the state party from seeing even worse results. Internal polling had been indicating significant losses for the NCGOP from Jones Street to the county courthouses to the various city halls.
In a year where the state GOP is seriously considering a surrender on the concepts of limited government, ethics, gender and natural law, this challenge from the right could be just what the NCGOP’s conservative base was needing.
So what makes Womack think that the Central Committee won’t just pull a Harnett Hatchet Job on him should he win?
They will!
The key is making sure we elect a central committee that represents the grassroots instead of arrogantly thumbing their noses at the grassroots as the current one does.
Start with the district chairmen in April. We need a fruitbasket turnover.
The Central Committee is up for major change also!!
Jim Womack is a very principled intelligent gentleman. He would serve HCGOP well, if the goal is to honesty promote conservative values and honest and open governance within the party.
Which is why NCGOPe will probably oppose him tooth and nail.
Womack is a untruthful rule breaking establishment hack.
I think you have him confused with Comrade Robin.
Just to be clear, Womack was spotted at a Lee County polling station supporting RINO Mark Walker in a Republican primary. That does raise at least one troubling question about Womack.
Walker is a winner and doing an incredible job representing the people of the 6th District. He is smart, has solid conservative values, and stands his position firmly much like he recently did when he spoke out against the GOP health care bill a few weeks ago. We are looking forward not backwards. It’s time the GOP stop devouring each other and look ahead.
Chris- I know you cannot stomach the thought of me serving the state or the GOP in any capacity. I completely understand that perspective. As a life-long liberal democrat, and a detractor of our superb 6th District Congressman, Mark Walker, I totally get your opposition to me leading the NCGOP. But, if you want your opinion to resonate, try to be more issues-specific, rather than making ad hominem attacks that have no basis in truth.
oh snap!
When it comes to establishment hacks, Robin Hayes showed his true establishment colors by whom he invited to speak to the state convention in his earlier incarnation as state chairman. One was the king of the RINOs and one of the biggest conservative haters in the party, Karl Rove The other was Haley Barbour, a big time establishment lobbyist who has represented the government of Mexico on the issue of illegal immigration. Barbour and his nephew Henry were also the ones behind all of the dirty tricks against the conservative frontrunner in the 2014 Mississippi Senate primary.runoff. If you have forgotten what the viciously anti[conservative Barbours did then, here is a reminder from a major British newspaper:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2672565/The-worst-race-baiting-ads-Ive-seen-Radio-ads-Mississippi-senate-race-accused-tea-party-candidate-Ku-Klux-Klan-links-drove-black-Democrats-vote-against-REPUBLICAN-primary.html
Essentially, the Barbours used some very underhanded and dishonest measures to stampede black liberal Democrats to improperly vote in the GOP runoff to steal the nomination for the liberal establishment candidate.
Hanging with the likes of Rove and Barbour tells you a whole lot about Hayes and why he should NOT be chairman.
Why is the current administration of the state party advertising he is connected to anything with Dennis Hastert’s name?? Am I the only one that’s picked up on that?
Jim has been fighting the Progressive Agenda for years. He has vision and the ability to craft a message and plan to implement that vision. He will truly be the voice of the people if elected.
Actually it should be “an untruthful” not “a untruthful”. Spell check much?
Dear Chris Hardin,
About that comment on Jim Womack…Is he the real reason you went after Sherry as if she was “unethical” for having her kids in private school but wanted to be on LCSS board to help fix the woes of public education? Why don’t you give facts, not opinion, that Jim is an establishment hack? The Jim Womack I know is not. Quite the opposite. I should know. I am just like that. And trust me the establishment hate us. So looking forward to your Opinionless but factual reply.
Why do you think that? Where are you getting that information?
This totally makes it worth while to spend the money it takes to attend the convention to be able to vote for a quality person for chairman
Plus the party needs someone honorable to lead it into the future
Someone that understands asking for historical budget data is not a hysterical question
Can Jim Womack raise money? make no mistake that is the #1 job of the chairman
Fundraising doesn’t apparently matter too much. The party raised more under Hasan Harnett than it did under Robin Hayes in his previous tenure. Yet, Harnett got tossed. And replaced by a guy whose fundraising totals he beat.
According to the NCGOP Plan of Organization, raising money is the job of the Finance Chairman, not the State Chairman. The Plan does not even mention fundraising among the state chairman’s duties. Of course, everyone in the party structure should lend a hand on fundraising, including the State Chairman.
One of the duties of the State Chairman is to be the spokesman of the party such as at press conferences. Robin Hayes has been so inept at that, he has had to use Dallas Woodhouse as a fill in.
Robin Hayes did not support NC Commercial Fishermen! I like NC Seafood and I am from Coastal NC. Good Luck Jim Womack!
Robin Hayes was a major player in the attacks by the radical environmentalists on our commercial fishing industry. Hayes showed his true colors on that and they are NOT conservative. Hayes is an enemy of eastern North Carolina.
To make matter worse, Hayes sandbagged Governor McCrory by carrying water for his radical environmentalist friends, and in doing so cost McCrory thousands of votes in eastern North Carolina and probably the election. Hayes was the main conduit for appointments to the Marine Fisheries Commission from the environmentalist camp and he campaigned heavily with the governor’s office for them. Hayes supports liberal issues more than he supports the Republican Party and its candidates. I guess he gets that from his activity in the liberal Ripon Society.
Jim is a wonderful, Constitutional Conservative leader who will lead us in making the North Carolina GOP recognized state wide and nationally!
You have my full support from Moore County!
Thanks for standing up!
Womack sounds like he is just what the party needs. It is distressing to see the whole country trend conservative/republican except for NC.
It trends Dem due to feckless leadership and rutterless elected ones.
It’s going to take a whole new outlook to flip it right.
Right on!
Dallas needs to be fired or nothing will change. He is a weasel
Yeah, if that dude gets elected in how long until the next coup happens?
Considering the coup occurred because of the Evil people that make up the current central committee so this is why it is most important that honorable people get elected district chairs at this years district conventions so the central committee can be honorable again
but then the party needs an honorable Chairman if the problems at the central committee level get fixed
#NorthCarolinaRepublicansAgainstHayes
Don’t forget the offices on the Central Committee elected by the Executive Committee after the convention, six of them and three with votes. There should be grassroots conservatives nominated from the floor for all six. Throw the rascals out!
The traditional excom meeting on Sunday the weekend of the convention needs to be move to 20 or 30 days after the convention so when a change in leadership happens people can be properly vetted for these positions and proper elections can be held
The ex-com meeting after the convention 2 years ago is partly where everything started going wrong and plus it was held in a room that was not reserved long enough to accommodate the meeting in the first place
Some years ago, the NCGOP always held the ExCom meeting to elect the lesser officers weeks after the convention, and that worked well. In those days, the state chairman also did not stick his or her nose into the races for those offices. That also worked well to elect people whose primary loyalty was to the party as a whole rather than to a particular individual serving as chairman.
I concur with you that we need to pay more attention to who is serving in those positions, and doing it as an afterthought to the state convention just does not do it.
The biggest problem with the Executive Committee Meeting being held the day after the Convention is what time it starts. The meeting always starts TOO LATE on Sunday Morning. The start time is usually 10:30 or 11 AM and people are too anxious to get home aka getting and/or maintaining quorum is a problem (see Cherokee 2014). I say move the meeting up to 8 AM with an out time of noon. (provide donuts, juice and coffee for a small fee or suggested donation) and move the traditional Prayer Breakfast event to Fri/Sat Morning or even Thursday Night.
I’m very tired of fake conservatives (who think they’re superior to the rank and file) running the NC GOP from the top, down. The truth is they’re inferior because they are fake and not to be trusted. Robin Hayes is such a person. Dallas Woodhouse is another.
Jim Womack is a uniter. He really believes the things he says, and he works for them in a straightforward way. He stays calm under fire.
The NC GOP needs two assets. Money and boots on the ground. An abundance of either can compensate for the other; an abundance of boots reduces the need for money! The fake folks will never learn that. If enough conservatives will serve as delegates to the NC GOP Convention, we can demonstrate that by electing Jim Womack!
Love the comment. We have to ensure the momentum stirred from the last election cycle is continued and effectively utilized. People really are sick and tired of not being heard.
Wow!!!!! After suffering disillusionment from realizing that Red Hayes, with comrade Woodhouse, are uncovered engo freaks who lean on other RINOS, like Bell, and Dixon, to gut NC’S fishing industry, it is a breath of fresh air to think a true conservative would undertake this job. Fundraising? Hayes is so deep in special interest pockets, like SELC, and the RFA/CCA, that he gets a little dip when he needs it. Special interest, out of state, tainted dollar bills. Hayes, and Dallas cost the state two shoo-in reelection bids. The state needs to send a very loud and clear message! Shame these two charlatans into obscurity, and put Bell and Dixon on notice that non-conservative actions, or words, will be tolerated.
Just when I was about to give up on the NCGOP Jim Womack throws his name in the hat. Load up ma we are going to Raleigh to spend our Christmas money at the convention.
The convention is in wilmington this year so you might have to drive a little longer
Go Jim Womack!!! “Lean Right” I hope you make it to Wilmington!
I have been frustrated with the establishment mentality of NCGOP for a while……and wondered if it would ever change……Womack will get my vote and my wife’s vote……and I sincerely hope the Central Committee changes dramatically to a far more true conservative stance.
Franklin County 2nd Vice Chair
Jim Womack is a decorated officer and a gentleman, and I have had the privilege of working with him in Lee County for a couple of years now. It is my belief that, given the opportunity, Jim would be a highly effective bridge that could bring the GOP establishment in our state and the army of conservative Grassroots activists together into a real force to be reckoned with. Jim is one of the very few in our state party that has the creds to be acceptable to both. Some in Raleigh seem to have forgotten that we actually DO need the little people that make the phone calls and knock on doors and get things done year after year, and not just in election years. Jim has the respect of the Grassroots, and he got it the old fashioned way….he earned it. You better believe he has my vote!
Good Luck Jim! “Lean Right” I hope you make to Wilmington. #WeBackWomack
As part of the grassroots, (I’m sure that’s weed-grassroots, if you ask Robin & Dallas!), when Jim Womack storms the gates of Hell; I’ll be right there beside him! The man is one of the most courageous I have ever met, with intelligence and integrity to match!
When it comes to integrity and courage, one has to remember how Hayes managed to lose his Congressional seat. NAFTA was a huge issue in his district because it would devastate the local economy (which it did), and Hayes pledged to vote against it. When he got up to DC, however, Hayes listened to the K Street special interest lobbyists, broke his pledge to his voters back home, and voted for NAFTA. The next election, the voters threw him out of Congress over NAFTA.
Hayes broke his commitment to his voters, and did so at the urging of the special interest lobbyists. Is that what we want as a state chairman?