#ncpol: Communication breakdown
Here we are in the heat of campaign season. If you want to believe the drive-by media and the Democrats, the GOP-controlled legislature has spent the last two years, among other things, (1) taking grandma’s Medicare, (2) snatching our kids’ textbooks, and (3) banning birth control pills.
Of course, all of that is patently false and utterly ridiculous. But WHO is out there telling the low-information voters that? NCGOP chairman Claude Pope is on an extended golf vacation in Scotland. Gov. Pat’s PAC — Carolina Rising — is out there praising, specifically, Gov. Pat and Speaker Thom. No mention of a GOP majority on Jones Street that NEEDS to be reelected.
The state GOP is pretty much broke. The Tillis campaign — trailing in every recent poll — and the GOP establishment are preoccupied with talking about whether Kay Hagan showed up at a certain Armed Services Committee hearing earlier this year. (Their guy isn’t worried about public perceptions of the NCGA, apparently. After all, he’s not running for reelection to Jones Street.)
I’ve talked with a number of Jones Street honorables, currently out on the campaign trail, 
who say they are concerned the advertising bombardment in the US Senate race might bleed over into their races. They tell me they are hearing concerns from their supporters that NO ONE is out there publicly defending the record of the General Assembly from the leftist PR bombardment.
Sources tell me discussions will be underway this week in Raleigh to procure the services of PR professionals to focus on defending the Republican legislative majority’s record against the negative propaganda assault from the drive-bys and the Democrats.
Question about the Carolina Rising PAC – I can’t find an official statement of organization with the state board of elections nor the fec, only documents with the FEC are the massive expenditures they’ve made to Crossroads Media – no receipts showing from where all of that money has come. I am going to take a guess that federal rules are different and they don’t have to file an official statement of organization, or haven’t reached the time period in which they have to do so? Though it seems like when I inquired about this previously I was told that upon spending $1,000. or more on a federal race, one would have to file such a statement with the FEC. Anyway… My impression is that a North Carolina Americans for Prosperity leader started & runs the Carolina Rising PAC, can anyone provide more info/clarification on this? Also check out the huffpost & news/observer articles about NC AFP sending folks voter registration forms — addressed to their family pets, etc. I have a friend, not all that involved in politics but registered republican here in my town, who received the mailer from AFP. It was addressed to her father in law who died 25 years ago. He never lived at her address where she lives, she only moved there a couple of years ago, and his son does not have the same name or anything (i.e. this is not a case of a Sr./Jr. mix-up mistake), so it seems like some level of tracking down was necessary to get the mail to her. She was pretty baffled to have received such a thing, and it looked pretty official to her so she asked me if I knew anything about it. If I had seen dems doing this crap I would immediately think they’re trying to make it easy for folks to falsely register others, and I think many here would agree with me. If I’m not mistaken, that voter ID requirement doesn’t go into effect until 2016. Any clarification on these things would be appreciated.
Correct, voter ID goes into effect 2016
What’s taken our party, our candidates, our Gov, our Chair, etc., so flippin’ long to actually DO something? Why does mess like this… delayed response… happen every single election? Are the Repubs on some kind of brain numbing meds? Who the heck are they hiring for their PR and why? Why won’t Tillis or his “handlers” tell him the truth? Their spots are generic, bland, boring, and easily forgettable. They have no bite! I cannot believe he doesn’t realize that people need for him to confront KAY in his spots; call her on the erroneous “teacher” spots; say that it’s PUBLIC RECORD what THEY ALL did as a TEAM; put the control and cash back into the hands of our local school boards (and why), and that if people aren’t happy with the way things are run now, maybe they should show up to a few of their local board meetings and grill THEM! Geez, do I have to write the scripts for him? Couldn’t do much worse, that’s for sure!
This was all highly predictable, and I in fact commented numerous times on this and other sites about it during the primary and the run up to the primary. Given the massive deployment of resources in the ”Blueprint” smear campaign by the far left against the GOP legislature, and the way their allies in the liberal media took it up, and the fact that the NCGOP under ”Rippon Robin” Hayes did not do any effective pushback in the early stages when that would have done more good, it was sheer lunacy to run ANYONE out of the General Assembly as US Senate nominee this year. It was political malpractice of the worst order for Karl Rove to spend millions to buy the Senate nomination for the only candidate in the primary field who would be a sitting duck for an attack that the left had already organized and got lots of traction for.
Our legislators and others on the GOP ticket will likely be collateral damage for this horrendous mistake in running a US Senate nominee who draws lots of fire to them without any meaningful defense. But if our legislators had any brains, they should have thought about this before they went out endorsing Tillis. And Brannon, if he had had competent campaign staff should have explained how this was going to work to those very same legislators.
Nic, AFP was using the tossed party filter voter list info from the Democrats. When pet names are included, that’s shenanigans directly from the voter
“for the only candidate in the primary field who would be a sitting duck for an attack that the left had already organized and got lots of traction for.”
….I was telling anyone that would listen what the real purpose of Mortal Mondays…
You are spot on Raphael…
It looks like the Moral Monday demonstrations are going to be a key factor in Hagan’s reelection. I took them for a joke but their constant media coverage seems to have made people wake up to the agenda of the NC General Assembly. Tillis will be the victim of their assault. But you have to hand it to the Dems for using Rev. Barber and his band of followers. It was a cheap protest that got loads and loads of media coverage. If you had to pay for all that campaign advertising you would spend a fortune.
Meanwhile, the GOP’s answer to Moral Monday was……………………………?
Did they have a response? I can’t remember one.
That’s the whole problem. The NCGOP had no leadership when it counted and sat there like a deer in the headlights, even though Blueprint had leaked before it was even put into practice. That is incompetence of the worst order and it happened on the watch of Robin Hayes. Barber and his three ring circus are only part of the Blueprint scheme.
Then they should have had enough sense to give Mr. Big Boy Pants a Romper Room no-no about running for the Senate. After failing to launch in a pushback against Blueprint, running anyone out of the legislature for US Senate was just nuts and asking for a whupping. And even worse, asking to take down other parts of the ticket with him.