A really bad trade in the works
It’s no secret in state politics that congressman Dan Bishop is seriously looking at giving up his safe seat in DC for the attorney general’s office in Raleigh. In DC, Bishop has been nothing short of an irritant to the party establishment and ‘aisle-crossers.’ He’s been making a lot of helpful noise about January 6th and the Deep State weaponization of government. Bishop was a key player in the drama during the speaker’s race earlier this year.
Bishop, a former NC House member and senator, got a lot of help from the party establishment in making the jump to DC in 2019. It’s as though some folks in Raleigh wanted him to cease being their “problem” and become DC’s problem.
The attorney general’s office is coming open in 2024, thanks to incumbent 
Josh Stein’s campaign for governor. Former legislator and state courts official Tom Murry (R) is already campaigning for the post. Murry strikes us as quite capable and competent and a committed conservative.
No candidate has emerged on the Democrat side. People are talking about congressman Jeff Jackson, Wake DA Lorrin Freeman, Wake County senator Sydney Batch, and Guilford DA Avery Crump.
Bishop, should he make the leap to the AG race, would clearly become the 800-lbs. gorilla in the field. He’s developed quite a following in the conservative community.
Right now, Bishop is the ONLY bright spot for conservatives in North Carolina’s congressional delegation. Our state has over-stocked its congressional delegation with RINOs and unprincipled leadership butt-kissers focused primarily on pleasing Kevin McCarthy. Bishop has been the outlier since he arrived.
We, at this site, believe Bishop has found his true political calling in DC. We’d like to see him keep fighting in the US House and — quite possibly – in the US Senate after 2026.
All indications are that the NCGOPe is ready to take advantage of Bishop’s departure from DC. State senator Todd Johnson of Union County, a close ally of political consultant Dee Stewart, is being strongly promoted as a Republican candidate for the 8th district congressional seat – once it comes open. (Johnson has become famous recently for his employment of a legislative assistant known for rude and hostile treatment of women in the legislative building as well as religious conservative activists seeking to lobby Johnson.)
One thing we don’t need is one more NCGOPe politician in DC with undying loyalty to Stewart and Paul Shumaker.
Dan Bishop is currently on his way to becoming a national leader for conservatives. He has the potential to finish the job ended way too early by Mark Meadows.
If he makes the jump to Raleigh, he’s likely to disappear into obscurity like so many attorney generals have in recent years (Easley and Cooper being exceptions).
The people I’m hearing cheer loudest for Bishop to make the jump are folks close to Phil Berger and Shumaker and Stewart. Not a lot of good conservatives.
Tom Murry has the potential to be a great AG that conservatives could take pride in. The party establishment is not going to help him. It’s up to us.
I don’t know Senator Johnson, but I do know his LA. His LA worked for Tucker before Johnson got there. I think it is a stretch to say he is rude to anyone. Ask Luddy what he thinks about him, they are pretty good friends from what I hear. He does not kiss the rear of the activists, if that is what you mean. Those folks can be pretty pushy. It is funny to read your comments about Johnson. He serves, or served, on the Helms Center Board and those folks aren’t exactly liberal. He seems to be pretty well thought of at the GA and can work with others members to get things done. That is part of getting anything done down there. We can’t have all knuckle draggers down there. Those districts are all different. I haven’t hear about him possibly going to congress, but that makes sense because I did hear the Club for Growth Guy was in town last week. The members are getting tired and grumpy. Not many bills moving and budget is being dragged out.
Johnson voted for the Green New Deal, the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, and gambling, as well as the special interest giveaway to Blue Cross. His voting record is NOT conservative, These are NOT the kind of things that taxpayers want done. It is pandering to the special interests and the liberals.
Dan Bishop is a great conservative and he does not need to prematurely abandon his seat to this leadership brown noser. Johnson In another two years, Bishop can get positioned to take on Tillis and a real conservative can be found to succeed him in the House. Johnson has been nothing but a leadership ass kisser in the NC Senate and would be the same in Congress.
You are a one trick pony….First, there has NEVER been a piece of legislation that passed the US CONGRESS or the NCGA named the Green New Deal. That is your made up AOC bull to try to whip conservatives into a frenzy.
Second, the guy who handled that piece of legislation, cradle to grave, was Senator Paul Newton, the former President of Duke Energy. We worked on big deal in the House for months, but it had too many clean energy concessions because of John Szoka. The key for all of the folks in the House and and Senate was the Senator Newton stipulated the Utilities commission had to use the “LEAST COST” alternative. The lease cost alternative will NEVER been green energy. It was a win, *IF* the utilities commission follows the law.
Bishop got really bold after he felt like he was leaving congress.
It is funny to ready who you blame for things on this message board. You clearly don’t have any connections to anyone at the general assembly who pays attention to much. I have noticed the folks you praise, and they are all terribly really bad lawmakers. They might be fun to listen to at a fish stew in the sticks, but they get ZERO done. I have news for you – you don’t own the Republican brand. I can tell you our younger generation thinks folks like you are actually NOT conservative. People with thoughts like yours want to use government to tell other conservatives how to live. That is not conservative. Conservatives don’t want government making their choices for them.
Is that you, Dee?
Of course, they did not admit what it was, but HB951 is the EU’s “Green Deal” on steroids.. I note you describe yourself as part of a “we” that worked on that excrement sandwich. That would likely fit if you were Dee or Shu.
Here is a good synopsis of what happened on HB951, and it is a sordid story of betrayal of the Republican grassroots. https://www.beaufortcountynow.com/post/48970/ncs-green-new-deal-the-anatomy-of-a-betrayal.html
Yeah, “woke” energy monopoly Duke Energy (they are all-in of far left ESG) was one of the special initerests working in the shadows on this screw job on electric ratepayers, and it was no surprise that former Duke Energy exec Paul Newton was there prostituting for his old company.. As the Australian media has been reporting lately, what green energy has done to the energy market there is to 1) send customers’ electric bills to the moon, and 2) greatly increased the profits of electric utilities. And heck, just days ago, the Swedish government announced it was scraping its green energy targets and moving to rely on nuclear because wind and solar are “unstable”. https://redstate.com/mike_miller/2023/06/25/sweden-shocks-europe-abandons-unstable-green-energy-agenda-returns-to-nuclear-power-n766866 This is what you globalists are trying to push on North Carolina.
But there are lots of other issues we could talk about Johnson on. Care to discuss the Obamacare Medicaid expansion where he also voted to sell us out, for example? In your mind, caving in to the Democrats and the left on policy seems to be “getting things done” but they are NOT the type of things Republican voters want to see done.
One thing I would love to see done is to end Duke Energy’s electric monopoly and allow competition among electric providers. You know, good ole’ free enterprise.
Let me address one other thing in your response. That “least cost” provision in the bill is a meaningless smokescreen. Why? Because the main operative part of the bill requires a 70% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030 (the EU Green Deal is only 50%) and doing that means eliminating one of the cheapest ways to make electricity, which is coal. Anything that replaces coal will HAVE to be more expensive. And then, another part of the deal allows Duke Energy to gouge electric cusromers for the writeoff due to the premature closure of its coal plants by billing them for it. HB951 conveniently makes it a lot easier for energy monopoly Duke to raise its rates.
Many of our nominally Republican senators were tone deaf when consumers – both residential and business – spoke out at the public hearing on this bill that they could not afford the higher electric rates it will bring.
Lets look at what happened in the State of South Australia when the Labour Party decided to ditch coal as the main source of its electricity and replace it with sunshine and breezes. When they started, South Australia had the cheapest residential electric rates in the world and had never had a blackout. After 16 years of changing to wind and solar, and blowing up all the coal power stations, they had the most expensive residential electric rates in the world, their first statewide blackout, and rolling blackouts becoming a common occurence as wind and solar are intermittant sources of power that are not suitable for baseload. On the political level, that led to a state-based new political party opposed to green energy winning three of the state’s federal Senate seats and the conservative coalition ousting Labour from state government. In the most recent state election, Labour declared it was “a referendum on green energy” and the voters responded by kicking them out of office. Unfortunately, Labour is following this same disastrous path elsewhere in Australia.
And, on to other issues, why don’t we talk about Johnson’s vote on that corrupt special interest deal for Blue Cross to play games with its reserves?
Dan Bishop seems to be the only voice in the US House that Republican activists have at the present time, now that Ted Budd has moved to the Senate and Walter Jones has died. The rest of the North Carolinians in Congress are too often yes-men for weak-kneed Speaker McCarthy, who sold us out on the debt increase legislation. Losing him to running for Attorney General would leave us with no one in the US House.
The huge crowd response that Bishop got at the state Republican convention, which even exceeded that of Mark Robinson, and far exceeded that of other congressmen was telling. Re;publican activists want Dan Bishop to keep fighting for us in Congress, until he is ready to take out Thom Tillis in the 2024 Senate primary. We have too many weak kneed sell outs. Dan Bishop is a breath of fresh air.
I want Bishop to replace Tillis.
A long time friend that knew Danny Boy during his UNC days told me a while back that he was a first class tool even back then. Who knew that would be a selling point in todays republican party?
I’ve known Dan well for 30 years. You won’t find a more thoughtful, principled, hard working person. You and your friend have no idea what you are saying.
I hope Dan Bishop reads this. I hope he will stay in Congress where we need him. There are few enough genuine conservatives there. We need his strong voice and leadership going forward. As for Todd Johnson, I have considered him a friend. If he voted for HB 951 in 2021, that is deeply disappointing, and I was not sure he had. I consider the passage of that bill an act of treason against the people of this State and nation. So Dan, please stay where you are. We will just have to work very hard to take the Governor’s office and the AT office away from the communists otherwise. I’m not sure who would be best for AG. We need to give that more thought. For Governor, I am all in for Dale Folwell. However, as much as I want Dab Bishop to stay in Congress, I will vote for him at any opportunity.
Of course, I meant AG, not AT.