#ncga: The NC Republican Senatorial Committee and the SD-25 GOP primary
Remember those “affiliated party committees”?
They got rammed through Jones Street in response to the election of Hasan Harnett to the NCGOP chairmanship. *Can’t have the unwashed Tea Party hordes getting their hands on all that shakedown moolah!*
The GOP senators took all of their loot out of party HQ and put it into something called “The North Carolina Republican Senatorial Committee.”
Well, this group — which we were told would never, no way, no how meddle in primaries — has found itself in the middle of the Senate district 25 GOP primary race between senator Tom McInnis and challenger Michelle Lexo. McInnis’s district has been reconfigured to include GOP stronghold Moore County. Many Moore Countians — frustrated with being ignored for three terms by one Jerry Tillman — decided the county needs a senator of its own. Whispering Pines mayor Michelle Lexo was put forward. (Lexo’s husband, Jim, is part of Moore County GOP leadership.)
Well, over the last two weeks, these fliers from the North Carolina Republican Senatorial Committee promoting McInnis have been filling up local mailboxes. Raleigh Republicans so openly campaigning against a local GOP official whose husband is a local party official would appear to be quite a slap in the face. Unfortunately, the Moore County GOP is overrun with quite a few “Whatever DC or Raleigh wants” sycophants. So, I’m not quite sure how much of a fuss, if any, will be made. 
This whole thing will likely come as a surprise to those of you who donated to a Republican senator thinking that the money would be used against the liberal Democrat hordes.
This should be treated like an open seat. We in Moore County don’t know McInnis. He’s never represented us. This will be a Republican seat regardless of the outcome of May’s primary. Raleigh needs to back off and let US decide this.
Except of course, we all knew from day 1 that these PACs would be abused in this manner because House and Senate GOP leadership had been maneuvering in this direction even before Harnett was elected. Their objective? To be completely free of accountability to the Party. They thought they’d achieved that with flunkies hand chosen for the State Chairmanship, then Harnett came along. After they ousted him, they had their flunky leadership back in charge AND their PACs…a double stranglehold on the Party.
Berger is just like McConnell – interfering in our local primaries. No conservative should ever give anything to these corrupt Raleigh committees. Not to t he NRSC and not to Berger’s committee. Local Republicans need to choose our nominees, NOT the Raleigh swamp.
At the national level, conservative contributors have alternatives to help the good conservative candidates – the Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund. We need an equivalent here in NC to counter Berger’s establishment machine.
Someone needs to run down the postal permit Berger’s bunch is using. They may have their own regular bulk rate permit, which is more expensive, or they may be using the state party’s ultra-cheap permit which is only available to state political parties. If they are being allowed to use the latter, this also becomes NCGOPe involvement in primaries, which is a direct violation of the Plan of Organization. Maybe Woodhouse will come on and clarify that. Alternatively, someone can get the permit number off of a mailing and call the post office.
This utterly stinks. Berger must be sent a message by the defeat of McInnis. How many more primaries are they interfering in?
Hmmm! Dallas usually responds to questions about party operations. His silence here may be speaking volumes. This mailing may well have been done on the NCGOP cheap mailing permit.
This is disgusting. The citizens of Moore County (and every other county) should be left to make their own decisions. It makes me ashamed to be a Republican.
Most here have no clue how things operate. Each candidate reimburses the Caucus for their expenses for their incurred costs of mailings. Check it out, but don’t spread false information.
Whose mail permit are they using? If they are using the party’s with its special ultra-low mailing rate that no one but state and national parties can get, and that is not being offered to the other primary candidates, that is interfering in a primary.
Candidates using the party permit have to have a Raleigh return address, but most candidates would otherwise want a local return address.
Also, the use of the state committee name in the return address implies an endorsement,, which is improper.
If the party’s cheap mailing permit is made available to some candidates in a primary, it should be available to all. Otherwise the party is taking sides in primaries.
We need to find out, GUWonder
They are using the Senatorial Committee postage permit, which is and has been the the standard for sitting Senators to use.
Woodhouse’s failure to deny use of the party permit is suspicious, given the way he seems to come on to get his two cents in on everything else the party does that is mentioned on the DH. We do not even know who you are or if you have any knowledge of what is going on.
Also, if the Senatorial Committee is doing what you say and is making a campaign resource available to one class of primary candidate but not others, that constitutes taking sides in a primary, in and of itself. Putting the committee’s name on the mailer also smells of endorsement to the recipients. These committees need to STAY OUT OF PRIMARIES or grassroots Republicans need to stop giving them money..
The silence from Woodhouse on this matter is deatening.
Woodhouse comes on these boards to actively discuss typos in party press releases, but not a serious issue of misuse of party resources to back one primary candidate over another? If the party were not doing that, would not one expect Woodhouse to come on this site, as he so often does, and say that? All we get is crickets.
But this would hardly be the first time that Woodhouse has treated incumbent candidates very differently from non-incumbent candidates when it comes to access to party resources.
Disgusting! My checks are written to candidates only. Forget the Party leadership. Forget Foghorn Leghorn and his crew. Rank and file Republicans are very unhappy with this dirty story. Now to support Michelle Lexo means that we have to fight the corrupt Raleigh elite also. So be it.
Hmmm! Our boy Dallas is still MIA on this issue. Must have hit pretty close to the mark. There is a point where a lack of denials from someone known for coming on this site with denials on other things becomes tantamount to an admission.
Cat got your tongue, Dallas, or do you just not want to admit the NCGOPe is interfering in local primaries?