Ch-Ch-Ch-Chaaaaaaaaanges (at the top of NCGOP?)
It’s not unusual for heads to roll in an organization after an abysmal performance. Sports teams. political campaigns. corporations. It happens a lot.
Conservatives have been griping, with good reason, for some time about the management of the North Carolina Republican Party. Until this year. their complaints were ignored by the country-clubbers who have a stranglehold on the party machinery.
And then November happened. Mecklenburg and Wake counties — where most of those country clubbers reside — pretty much lost ALL of their elected Republican representation. Wheels apparently started turning. Light bulbs went off over certain heads. (*Maybe those wingnuts had a point about Robin Hayes and Dallas Woodhouse and Michele Nix.*)
Now, you have an unusual alliance of Tea Party grassroots types and Establishment types sharpening their claws and setting their sights on Robin, Dallas, and Michele.
Nix is already putting out word that she is not running for another term as vice-chairman. She’s got her sights set on replacing Walter Jones in Congress.
Word is also hot and heavy out there that Hayes and Woodhouse are negotiating exit strategies — early resignations from their posts in exchange for sweet new jobs with the Republican National Convention organizational team for Charlotte in 2020.
We’re hearing of one prominent conservative, and one prominent country-clubber looking at replacing Nix.
A name we’re hearing a lot is Dan Barry, the Union County GOP chairman. An exploratory committee is being formed for the purpose of drafting him to run for NCGOP chairman. In the case of an early Hayes departure, there are some talking of getting him installed on an interim basis to finish Hayes’s current term.
I had a chance to speak with a NCGOP player who is quite familiar with Barry and his thinking on the current status of the state party. My source told me that Barry is not thrilled with the idea of running against Hayes. If Barry did run, my source said, he would prefer to seek it as an open seat.
I asked this source what we might see different under chairman Barry from what we’ve seen under Hayes-Woodhouse:
“For far too long, the party organization has been top-down. The staff in Raleigh telling the central and executive committees what they’re done after the fact.
Dan, I think would like to see more of a bottom-up approach and more transparency. An executive and central committee setting policy and strategy and a party staff executing the strategy and policy the committees approved.”
My source said a Barry-led party apparatus would likely seriously revamp and improve communications and fundraising at the party level.
My source admits that it would be a stretch to describe Barry as a Tea Party-style conservative, but said Barry would give conservatives a level of respect within the party they haven’t seen in some time:
“In Dan’s view, involvement in the party is not about settling scores. Want to settle a score? Go put your name on the ballot.
Dan’s opinion is that there has been too much bloodshed among Republicans fighting each other when we should be communicating a substantive message to the voters and training our fire on the other side to prevent the damage they want to do to our state and country.”
If Grandpa steps down then the executive committee should require who ever they elect to finish his term should not be allowed to run for the full term at the next state convention. If what you write ends up being true then I would call this a set up cause has this not happened a few times in the past with a chairman stepping down so the excom chosen replacement can come in as current chairman to be elected to a full term
Agree Changes needed!
Since the ruling dynasty took power with the election of another former congressman with no grassroots political experience in the party organization, Bill Cobey, the resulting political dynasty has frequently had an incumbent resign early, so the crown prince could be substituted before the convention and then run as an incumbent for reelection.
The scenario laid out smells an awful lot like that well worn strategy, and we should be very suspicious of it. In his first term, this is the very way that Hayes himself was inserted. Fetzer resigned early before his term was over, and crown prince Hayes was inserted so he could run as an incumbent at the convention.
If we are confronted with this again, conservatives should be very wary and looking for a different candidate.
yep once again you validate my understanding and my concerns
No matter how this situation plays out, the reality of our situation is we must recognize that the real problem is that the political power base in Raleigh Charlotte, Durham and possibly other metro areas lays with the Democrats. We must come to terms with the fact that we must learn how to run a government correctly with emphasis on providing needed service to all people in NC in the Urban/Metro/Rural counties and MPOs. Until we truly learn to run a bureaucracy we will never regain control of the future of NC. Today we lost Sheriffs, Congressional Represenatives and we lost in uncontrollable spending that does not serve the teachers, students or communities. I advise who ever becomes our leaders first learn the realities of living in a Progressive station like Washington or New York or California. Like it or not, we are our own worst enemy when we alienate the voting population and the bureaucracy leaders. This is not the time to cut each other’s throat and it’s time for leadership to prepare the path for true leadership for the future success of OUR party.C2nRDU
The reason we lost in the urban areas is we pissed on our base. Our legislative leadership took leftwing positions on a variety of topics from Obama’s green energy crusade to the Gaystapo’s war on bathroom privacy. The GOP legislators most prone to jump on those leftwing causes were in the urban areas, and they got their comeupance when Christian voters stayed home in 2018. That is the lesson we need to learn from the 2018 disaster. Trying to just run Democrat policy more efficiently is a path to disaster.
The only person that won in Mecklenburg that will be sent back to Raleigh was the one person that stayed conservative the other meck liberals with R’s after their name got voted out
The Republican party need to go as far away as it can from progressive values and return to being a champion for the Judeo Christian moral ethic of this nations founding fathers
I just wished they would stop holding all their big fancy meetings on Sundays. Heard a lot about that.
If Dan Berry were a true conservative and a true grassroots guy, he would not be “reluctant” to run against Hayes. He would be chomping at the bit to do so. This is a huge red flag.
The rumor of Berry running for chairman was going around at the last state convention, and it was a rumor of his running to be Hayes’ successor, NOT his challenger.
The little insider group that has manipulated our party leadership for years is not just going to go away. We need to identify who their candidate is and then run someone against him or her.
He was sending unsolicited emails last convention using the mail chimp not sure how he got his email list or how he got access to a mailing lists that other past people were running for office were not allowed to have. He clearly needs to answer how he got his mailing list
To avoid the unfairness of ramrodding in someone as a temporary chairman to give them an unfair leg up in running at the convention, if Hayes resigns early, there should be a temporary chairman elected until the convention who does not run for reelection. Common sense says that the vice chairman should be elevated as long as they do not run for chairman. That might give Mrs. Nix another credential to run for Congress, but more importantly, it would make the state convention chairman’s race more fair and open.
Dan Who? Not know out East. I hear from Wake GOP that donors will flee with another unknown Chairman. I understand from Meck Activist that Dan Who never got his shoes dirty! Nix will be Robins replacement. She told every womens club in the state.
When Dan Barry ran for congress he did alright with fundraising so I’m sure whatever donors he loses in Wake he would make up for with donors from the Mecklenburg area.
Dan Berry would be a great leader for NCGOP