Campaign 2024: New polling, new chief of staff, new lawyer.
Folks who knew about problems with Mark Robinson well before the March primary are now jumping from his state government and campaign staffs like the proverbial rats from a sinking ship. This pack of quitters could have saved this state and its voters some real grief and embarrassment by speaking up much earlier than they did — which was a matter of weeks before Election Day.
And just think — the Balanced Nutrition affair, the questionable application for and acceptance of paycheck protection loans, bushels of campaign finance complaints from the 2020 election, and the question of who paid for the ritzy beachfront vacation in Virginia Beach are all still sitting out there. All of those could have potential criminal implications. Yet, our lazy, in-the-tank Raleigh-based drive-by media and their leftist comrades want to focus on the lieutenant governor looking at dirty pictures and saying inappropriate things online sixteen years ago — none of which is illegal.
It’s OK to get offended at rude, crude speech. It’s OK to not hire or associate with someone who speaks rudely and crudely. But trying to ruin someone’s personal and business life over what they may or may not have said more than a decade ago? That takes us down a rat-hole I don’t think any of us really want to go down. (*Yep. That First Amendment is still there.*)
New Polling.
It appears Marist College has taken a gander at the campaign in North Carolina. They find Trump and Harris tied at 49 percent.
A total of 91 percent of respondents who picked Trump say they “strongly support” the former president. The poll finds Trump and Harris tied among independents. (Biden won that group by 4 points in 2020.)
Trump leads Harris among white voters 59-40 percent. Trump leads Harris 54-44 among men, while Harris leads Trump 54-45 among women.
This poll was taken from 9/19-9/24. (The CNN story on Robinson broke on 9/18.)
Marist says Stein leads Robinson 54-43 in the gubernatorial race.
The Fabrizio/Anzalone poll, released yesterday, was taken 9/11 to 9/17. It had Stein leading 52-42. The NYT/Siena poll — taken from 9/11 to 9/17 — had Stein leading 47-37. So, we have polling, right around the alleged CNN blockbuster, showing a net lead change for Stein of 1 point. Perhaps the CNN piece has yet to have the dramatic effect on the race that liberals and their drive-by media friends tell us it has.
New hires.
It appears that irreplaceable Robinson chief of staff Brian LiVecchi has been replaced. His deputy has been tapped to take his place.
It also appears Robinson has hired a DC-based lawyer with Trump ties to go after CNN. (If my memory serves me, this will be the fourth firm Mark Robinson has deployed during the campaign. Two for Balanced Nutrition, two for the campaign.)
Here’s what the new counsel had to tell Fox News:
[…] “Normally, something like this, an investigation, you know, run by the Department of Justice and the FBI would take months or years,” Binnall told Fox News Digital. “We can’t do that in this case because the voters need an answer before the election. And so we are going to move very quickly and still give them a very fulsome report.”
“He absolutely denies saying any of the things that are in the CNN piece,” Binnall said of Robinson. “What my investigation is going to do is we are going to follow the facts. We are going to investigate this strenuously. We are going to leave no stone unturned. We’re going to be very, very aggressive. And the citizens of North Carolina deserve nothing less than a full investigation of this matter, which is what we are going to do.
“One of the problems with these October surprise hype reporting pieces on someone is it doesn’t give you the full amount of time to fully respond, to show the voters that the allegations were just wrong and that the voters could end up being deceived,” Binnall said. “And so, for that reason, my team understands the importance of moving quickly – very, very quickly and decisively in order to get to the truth, in order to get to a point where we can have full accountability for the true facts of this case.” […]
It seems to me that if he is telling the truth that this stuff is not from him that he ought to take a polygraph and hold a press conference with the results. He could then demand that CNN’s sources take their own polygraph. Of course, if Mark is not telling the truth, this would not be such a good idea.
Robinson is a flawed candidate, but no other challenger against the absolutely awful Josh Stein is even in double digits. Robinson has been a huge disappointment at Lt. Gov. as he has repeatedly run away from key conservative issues and endorsed liberal Undocumented Democrats like Jim Perry. At best, Robinson would be a rehash of Pat McCrory, but Stein would be a rehash of Lenin. What an awful set of choices.
How about IF we follow “innocent until proven guilty”! Or better yet, let’s support our candidate.
Cry me a river, Reganite. The river is only getting bigger.