Union Thugs Trying to Rough Up Dan Forest
You can get a really good sense of where things stand during the last month of an election cycle. In a close race, the candidate feeling the most endangered tends to get more aggressive in attacking their opponent.
Linda Coleman, the Democrat nominee for lieutenant governor, was — until recently — head of the state government personnel office. So, you would think she might have a pretty amicable relationship with the State Employees Association of North Carolina (SEANC). In fact, The N&O’s John Frank points out that SEANC loves Coleman so much that they have raised and spent TEN TIMES MORE on Coleman than Coleman has raised and spent herself.
The media also does not like to point out the fact that SEANC has established rather cozy relations with The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) — Obama’s purple-shirted stormtroopers. (SEANC’s logo describes the group as SEIU local 2008.) During the Obama era, SEIU has established a reputation as enforcers for Obama against The Tea Party. Its immediate past president has spoken publicly and rather lovingly about Marxism.
SEANC / SEIU has come out swinging with an ad claiming that GOP lieutenant governor nominee Dan Forest is in favor of blocking women from getting cancer screenings. They apparently came to this conclusion based on Forest’s opposition to state government funding of Planned Parenthood.
(Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger, who spoke frequently on the record about wanting to introduce abortion and “birth control” as a means of culling the population of black and mentally-ill Americans.) Planned Parenthood spends millions and millions a year on campaign contributions to politicians — usually Democrats — who keep the tax dollar spigot open and flowing.
Forest, the Republican candidate, was not amused by the union’s attack:
Forest’s campaign said the candidate’s father and grandfather died of cancer, and that Myrick, who is leaving Congress at the end of the year, is a breast cancer survivor. Myrick sponsored a bill that became law that provided Medicaid coverage for mammograms and pap smears for low-income women.
“To say that Dan Forest is against cancer screenings for women is pathetic, shameful, ignorant and disrespectful to Dan and his family for all they have lost to the disease,” Forest campaign manager Hal Weatherman wrote in an email, adding, “Dan is supportive of all his mother’s legislative efforts to fight cancer, and he hopes to follow in her footsteps in fighting the disease.”
[…]The ad goes on to shower praise upon Coleman, a former state personnel director and ex-legislator from Knightdale. The 55,000-member association said it is spending $200,000 to run the ad that started Thursday on cable television systems. The amount is more than what Coleman or Forest has spent airing ads in the general election so far.
[…]
SEANC /SEIU is continuing the attack. (This time they’ve enlisted The N&O’s Craig Jarvis to provide transcription services.) The union is apparently outraged that the Forest campaign is reportedly sending fundraising emails to state employees.
(I wish The N&O had been this active in 1995 when I uncovered an aide in Governor Hunt’s office explicitly telling prospective state employees that they and their families needed to cough up four-figures to the Hunt campaign.)
Of course, Jarvis’s story offers up no names of — or quotes from — any of these outraged state employees. If this did happen, how did Forest get the email addresses? I DO know that people who enter their email addresses on Forest’s web site to receive news updates also occasionally get fundraising pleas.
If you give your email address to a political campaign, don’t be surprised if they try to contact you seeking money or votes.
It’s unusual to see the lieutenant governor race getting so heated. But, this year, the GOP is on track to take the top two posts on the ballot — president and governor. This seat is the highest ranking post the left still has a shot at.
The Forest camp ought to be feeling pretty good. If you’re being attacked this late in the game, the other side clearly views you as a serious threat.
This race presents a real dilemma for me. The Democrat candidate is just so awful, a radical leftist joined at the hip with the worst elements of big labor. Yet, I have a hard time holding my nose for our GOP candidate because he has wrapped himself around one of the most obnoxious establishment mouthpieces of this campaign, Mike Huckabee, who has stridently endorsed just about every establishment hack who was running in a primary against a major Tea Party candidate. Huckabee is Mr. Anti-Tea Party of 2012 and he absolutely repulses me for that reason. I have a hard time supporting any candidate who trots him out as often as Forest does. I amd still conflicted about whether to even vote in this race.
Forest seems to have convinced many Tea Party people that he is for them while also convincing the establishment that he is really in their camp. If he wins, I guess we will find out after the election who he really is.
I can say after spending time with Dan Forest over the last 16 – 18 months and having known his campaign manager, Hal Weatherman, for several years that they are both gentlemen of high integrity. I’m going to be proud to cast my vote for Dan and ALL of the Republican Council of State candidates on the ballot with him. We need to understand that alot of the really bad governance that we in the Tar Heel State have suffered under for decades is because of the bad decisions made by the past Councils of State and we must break the chains.
I’m with Guy Smith. both Dan & hal are the kind of folks we need in Raleigh. I’m proud to be able to call them my friends along with most of the State council. I didn’t get active until just before the last election but I have met most of the candidates I’m voting for.My church calls me the Ploitican & I’m proud to be active cause I’m 77yrs old. Go President Romney/Ryan Team.