Craven GOP -Thom Tillis spat ends in Craven chairman’s resignation
There has been quite a bit of internal drama with Craven County’s Republicans during the last year. They’ve voted to censure state House speaker and US Senate candidate Thom Tillis for his efforts to meddle in area GOP primaries. Local party chairman Paul Hill — aided by state GOP officials — raised objections about this move. Local party leaders ordered that a letter of censure be sent to Tillis and the state party. Censure supporters on the ground in Craven County suggest that Hill balked at signing and mailing off the letter — a direct conflict with the instructions by the executive committee.
The perceived failure to comply with the censure vote — as well as other unrelated concerns about local party fundraising and operations management — led to some local party leaders bringing charges against Hill and moving for his removal from office.
Chairman Hill was allowed a hearing and afforded an opportunity to defend himself. But this week, Hill chose to resign his post as chairman of the Craven County GOP. By acclamation, longtime local activist Carl Mischka was voted in by the executive committee as Hill’s replacement.
A Craven GOP leader — who happens to be a friend of this site — tells me everyone is breathing a sigh of relief now that this is over:
“Our party treasury had dwindled down to four hundred dollars. There were local candidates in competitive races who were not getting the help they needed from the party. Things were realy bad. Paul’s refusal to abide by the party’s wishes in this whole Tillis thing was really the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m glad that he took this route and resigned. Things really could have blown up into something ugly if he had stayed on and tried to fight.”
My source offers up one sort of humorous anecdote:
“Not long after Paul’s resignation, a woman from the Tillis Senate campaign called one of our party officers — who had supported the move to censure Tillis — seeking help in finding a county party chairman for the Tillis Senate campaign. Our local party just about imploded, thanks to Thom Tillis. We voted to censure Tillis. And the Tillis campaign calls up looking for one of us to run his local campaign ???
If the Senate campaign is looking for someone in the county party to find a coordinator and they do not know what is going on, it is a sure sign of future blunders from the Tilis campaign in the future. It will be bad for him; but if he is the nominee it will be bad for all of us.
The call for Hill’s resignation went far beyond the Tillis affair. He was contentious, inept and unable to unite the group. Now Craven GOP will be able to get on with the work that needs to be done to elect responsible, accountable leaders. I hope other counties will follow our lead and purge their groups of those who consider themselves the ruling elite.
Thom Tillis needs to go. He should not be chosen as the Republican Party candidate for Senate against Hagen. There is not that much difference between them. If the Craven County GOP wants to find need strength and fresh active on the ground workers, they need to start to listen to the CCTA. Also, why does Tillis think the party should support one candidate over another in a party election? The party should not sown any favoritism in the primary.
Actually, if the party stands on principle, it should endorse the candidate that stands for the principles. Otherwise, RINOs have a free ride under an unprincipled Republican party stance. I believe the Republican Party should not only boycott Tillis but should campaign in support of Greg Brannon. Brannon is the HONEST, knowledgeable, principled and capable candidate. This is our chance to elect a great man to represent NC and all Americans. Let’s elect him, Republicans.
It seems to me that if the Tillis Campaign is looking for someone in Craven County to help run their campaign, they would be well served to call the Craven County Dem Hdqtrs.
Yours is a well thought out comment and true. Ditto. Since Tillis acts like a Democrat, let the Dems support him, and may he call himself what he acts like.