#nc-09: Even MORE DEM mischief in Robeson County

The hits just keep coming from my home county.  (My home folks don’t do much well.  But when it comes to screwing around with elections, some folks down there do world-class work.) 

We told you earlier about county commissioner Jerry Stephens and his sketchy get-out-the-vote PAC.  Stephens got paid about $14,000 from Democrat DA candidate Matt Scott in the general election.  Scott, of course, got money from the state Democrat Party which likely made its way into the hands of Stephens and others.

Stephens described the work of his group as “GOTV” – get out the vote — just like McRae Dowless, the guy in Bladen County getting all the media attention, did.

Well, we also found some similar, interesting items on the campaign finance report of Democrat state senate candidate John Campbell, who was also on the November ballot.  On one of his reports, he identifies Wixie Stephens — the wife of county commissioner Jerry Stephens — as his campaign’s “GOTV coordinator.” 

On October 31, Campbell reported a donation of $6,899.76 from the NC Senate Democratic Caucus — bringing his total from them for the cycle up to $33,660.56.   That’s an unusually large investment to send down to a candidate mired for nearly all of the campaign in “NO-chance-in-hell-for-victory” territory in the polls.

“Strategic consulting” is another code word used in the politics game, by what Dallas Woodhouse calls ‘paid political mercenaries’, to refer to get-out-the-vote, absentee ballot dissemination and collection and other activities just like McRae Dowless stands accused of doing.  Also, the practice of “hauling” — which involves driving around in vans, scooping people up, handing them marked sample ballots and taking them to the polls.  Haulers get paid for each “warm body” they get to the polls to vote.

On Campbell’s reports, he shows payments to THREE Robeson County politicians, among others, for “strategic consulting”:  Lumberton City Councilman John Cantey,  Lumberton City Councilman Chris Howard, and Robeson County Commissioner Jerry Stephens.

For Q2 and Q3,  Campbell reported paying out $18,000 for “strategic consulting’ to various local political figures — including $2,000 to himself.

Payments also went out to “field workers.”  These are the folks who were out there pushing absentee ballots on people and conducting the hauling, among other things.  Campbell’s reports show “field workers” getting paid a total of $2,975 between April 25 and May 8.

Everyone is so worked up about McRae Dowless and his two aides in Bladen County.  Meanwhile, in Robeson County, it appears we had a veritable army of mischief makers, funded by Democrat sources in DC and Raleigh, running around.