#ncpol: The Dems’ bottom-up assault on North Carolina
I had an interesting conversation with an Eastern North Carolina Democrat friend this past weekend. (Believe it or not, I DO have Democrat friends and acquaintances, especially in that neck of the woods.)
Anyone who follows the NCGOP and the RNC knows that they spend an inordinate amount of energy on the presidential, (U.S>) senatorial and gubernatorial races. Highly-important council of state and legislative races are often starved for cash and attention.
In 2008, the Obama campaign had paid operatives in just about every North Carolina county — building relationships and assisting local Democrats in getting elected to city and county and state legislative races.
My Eastern North Carolina pal tells me that 2008 number has practically DOUBLED this year. He tells me that, in his rural county alone, there are TWO paid operatives from DC acting as a liaison with the national and state Democrat parties, to grow local Democrat organizations and get more local Democrats elected.
Why bother? It’s Simple. This bottom-up approach builds a lot of local goodwill when the statewide and national candidates come calling. It also helps create a farm team of future candidates for congressional, legislative, and gubernatorial races. On the other side of the coin, there is very little cameraderie and teamwork among the GOP ranks in Raleigh and Charlotte and the rest of the state. It’s often as though there are no other races than governor, senator, or president on the ballot. (Of course, those races are where the big money — and the big jobs in Raleigh and DC — are.)
Most of the most-ignored races have a hell of a lot more impact on your everyday life than the presidential or congressional or 
gubernatorial contests. Your city and county officials have a direct impact on your wallet and your way of life EVERY SINGLE DAY. To an extent, so do your legislators. Yet, many of those races go unchallenged or are poorly funded or under-voted.
As we reported earlier, most all of the GOP council of state candidates are behind their Democrat opponents when it comes to fundraising. They are struggling for publicity as well.
Unless you have at least $5000 to burn, the gubernatorial, senatorial and presidential candidates will not have any time for you.
In the meantime, you could throw a few dollars to, or host an event for, any of — for instance — the following folks: Michael LaPaglia for Secretary of State, Mike Causey for Insurance Commissioner, or Buck Newton for Attorney General.
The Democrats and the Left have figured out how to build for the future. When will we on the right figure it out?
Mike Causey and Ed Goodwin would have been elected 4 years ago if Wake County Republucans knew there were other races on the ballot. At the time the only thing they were doing in the Wake County HQ was selling Romney signs. Not even a lick of information about the Council of State Candidates. 3 were on the ballot.
Three candidates for the Council of State were from Wake County.
Great post!
Like I have stated before. “We the people” have to “fight like the 3rd monkey on the ramp to Noah’S Arc.”
Dare County grassroots Republicans are ALL IN
Browny Douglas
DARE County GOP Chairman
Add Folwell, Forest, and Johnson to that list of who to send money, and votes , to.
The Republican Party in North Carolina used to pride itself in operating from the bottom-up in contrast to the Democrats who operated from the top down. Sadly, the GOP has lost that edge, and the recent dumping of the grassroots chairman, Hasan Harnett for a wimpy yes-man for the establishment is a good example. Our top-down oriented Central Committee is the heart of the problem. The problem of top-down clique in the GOP started with Bill Cobey’s chairmanship and it is interesting that all former those top-down state chairman always try to tell us who the new chairman should be. Screw them! The state chairman from the bottom-up days like Jack Hawke and Dave Flaherty and Frank Rouse never played that arrogant power game.
But it is worse than just the party organization. The legislative caucus try to preempt the local parties on who our legislative candidates should be, and that is terribly, terribly wrong. Our party Plan of Organization clearly says that legislative candidate recruitment belongs to the local parties, not the leadership power structure in Raleigh.
Similarly, the Washington, DC power brokers want to decide who our Congressional and Senatorial nominees will be. We used to decide that here in North Carolina. Eric Cantor spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy the 8th district nomination for his patsy Richard Hudson was just repulsive. We need to tell the despicable power brokers of the NRSC and NRCC to get stuffed when they want to monkey around in our business of who our nominees should be. John Boehner using his PAC’s to attack conservative GOP congressmen and prop up liberals like Renee Ellmers was also repulsive. The Paul Ryan – Leo McCarthy House leadership has been at it again this primary season and it stinks. They took down conservative incumbent Tim Huelscamp in Kansas and imposed a lobbyist who has been a major Democrat contributor and openly supported Obamacare as GOP nominee in an open GOP-leaning district in Florida. Ryan and McCarthy are just as big enemies of conservatives and of the grassroots as Nancy Pelosi is. They are just Boehner 2.0 and as evil as Boehner.
Mitch McConnell has vowed to ”crush them [conservatives] everywhere” and is still on that kick. A good example is the competitive Colorado Senate race where the GOP has one of two chances in the country to pick up a Democrat seat. A solid black conservative won the primary and McConnell’s recruit ran a miserable fourth in the primary. Now McConnell and his NRSC have pitched a tantrum and refuse to help the GOP nominee in the general election. Mitch McConnell is as big an enemy of conservatives as Harry Reid.
Republicans need to take our party back from an arrogant and out of control establishment and their stinking top-down politics. If not, we need to do like Canada fifteen or twenty years ago and shove them aside to build a new party of the right. One way or another, this top down garbage needs to go.
For the future of the party, Republicans need to take their elected representation back from ALEC.
It now appears that Hillary is outspending Trump 6-1 in North Carolina and this is filtering down to all the local races. The GOP Elites are raising big bucks for Hillary and cutting off funds for Trump and conservatives. Because of them, we face a potential disaster in NC on election day. Be prepared for the worst. And never forget and never forgive.
I am in complete agreement with you Mike Causey seat is critical if we are ever going to lower the restrictions on the health care industry. How are we going to get this message out? Talk is not action.