Campaign 2024: The Autopsy

I don’t know about you.  But — once you look past Trump’s win nationally and in North Carolina – there is not a whole hell of a lot for conservative and Republican voters to celebrate.

Democrats had a net gain of ONE seat on the ten-member Council of State.  State Republican $$$ got wasted on things like the Rockingham County board of commissioners race while Republicans in two winnable Council of State races (DPI, AG) got pounded with dishonest attack ad after attack ad.  (If you’re going to be little more than a glorified money-laundering operation, cycle that money through to everybody.)

Republicans lost their veto-proof majority in the state House. So, there will be a lot of groveling before Governor Josh.  Republican elected officials – i.e., Catherine Truitt and Thom Tillis — publicly bad-mouthed GOP candidates they didn’t like who were locked in general election battles with Democrats.

In DC, a lot of the same senators and congressmen who were in place for Trump and Biden will be back.  (I’m old enough to remember Thom Tillis telling Fox’s Tucker Carlson that we don’t need Trump’s border wall.) 

About 1/4 of Republicans in each body have quite dependably voted with Democrats on many issues.  It looks like there will be a 52-seat GOP majority in the 100 member Senate.  Things are still too close to call in the House.  Lots of room for double-crossing Trump there. 

Our state’s congressional delegation has been overrun with un-principled weaklings who recite portions of the GOP platform during campaign time, but forget about all that after the election when they return to Washington.  (All of our House Republicans – except one – vote to the left of other House Republicans.).

Our only conservative congressman got tricked into leaving DC and running for statewide office.  Despite promises he would be “take care of” by the Raleigh leadership, he got left hanging out there. 

Raleigh Republicans will attempt to claim credit for Trump’s win in North Carolina.  All of the calls I got — all of the mailers I got —  for Donald Trump came from out-of-state.   There was much more significant, hard work done for Trump outside the Raleigh beltline.  

Communication breakdown.   Republican forces could not hold a candle to the communications operation run by the lefties.  Far too many candidates were left hanging out there while lefty attack ads produced by lefty dark money beat them senseless.  Meanwhile, countless *consultants* were bagging six figure fees while their candidates got pulverized on-air.   On most nights, Dan Bishop got pounded on Fox News during every commercial break.

Democrats marketed a *ticket.* Republicans got attacked as *violent* and *extreme.* Never mind that the Democrat Labor commissioner nominee was an actual, literal rioter.  We heard next to nothing about it, and he ran a surprisingly respectable race. But the stupid news media bent over backwards crowing about *violent* suburban soccer mom Michele Morrow.   (Neither the Secret Service nor the FBI showed any concern over Morrow’s years-old comments.  If they’re not worried, I’m not worried.)

Mark Robinson, however, was a scandal with arms and legs.  We tried to warn everyone before the primary got started. Balanced Nutrition could quite possibly turn into a criminal situation.  (There are similar situations all over the country that have led to prosecutions.) Mishandling federal tax dollars is so much more serious than anything you could type into a stupid website.  

Robinson clammed up on the matter for way too long.  WRAL and The N&O sat on Balanced Nutrition in favor of all of the goodies they found on Robinson on social media.  Again, screenshotting social media posts is sooooooooo much easier than having to interpret and understand financial documents.  (I hear it can hurt *some* heads.  At least *sources* tell me so.) 

We weren’t the only people in the state who knew about the problems with Balanced Nutrition.  Didn’t Raleigh leaders have some responsibility to demand some answers from him – at least in exchange for their public support?

If Robinson had somehow been elected, the investigation into Balanced Nutrition would have been really embarrassing for the NCGOP and the state of North Carolina.

The lieutenant governor’s post is useless and of little to no importance.  The attorney general post was crucial. We had a good candidate who got – at best – mismanaged.  Winning that race could have evened the playing field in Raleigh over the next four years.

Our stupid, useless drive-by media:   School violence. Poor academic performance. DEI and CRT.  Outrageous gas and grocery prices.  Those are just some of the things nagging at voters’ everyday lives.

Reporters love to paint themselves as objective observers of the days events.  Then, they run to #ncpol on X and post nonsense like this:

These two geniuses fled the N&O newsroom to continue their mischief in the WRAL newsroom, in the tradition of *GIANTS* like Travis Fain and Laura Leslie.   These two guys have led the transformation of the age-old practice of reporting into screenshotting Facebook and X-feeds.  *Pure freaking laziness.* We can all troll Facebook and X on our own.  Why in the hell do we need these two clowns?

Randy Andy is a special kind of weenie.  (He loves to hop on Twitter / X and gloat over any and all misfortune besetting the GOP and / or its elected officials.)  Though, he has a gift for photography that has clearly elevated him to the esteemed post of The Capitol Press Corps’ selfie-queen. 

Specht’s ‘fact-checks’ almost exclusively smack Republicans. And they use leftist sources to *disprove* GOP talking points.  Many a GOP candidate got targeted with his scam.

The road ahead for the NCGOP.  Once again, the NCGOP election team underperforms and certain operatives receive a fiscal windfall.  We’ve had party bigwigs publicly bad-mouthing (and privately working against) certain Republican candidates they don’t like. Senator Phil Berger endorsed a Democrat judge running against a Republican lawyer.  We’ve also seen the state party doing a solid for Berger’s son and cronies in a local Rockingham County race.

All of the same people keep their state posts and keep reaping the rewards.  How much longer will grassroots folks outside the Raleigh beltline continue to tolerate this stuff? How much longer will folks continue to allow the GOP to be used as a certain clique’s private sandbox?

There’s no evidence of there being any interest in promoting principles or any kind of agenda.  It’s apparently all about preserving power for certain people and keeping the $$$ *gravy train* rolling for those same people.

With the loss of the veto-proof majority, there’s a ready-made and easily-available excuse for backing off of conservatism.  (*Gotta get something past Josh. Get stuff done.*) The honorables on Jones Street have demonstrated time and again they have no problem with doing just that.

Many other places across the country are celebrating great GOP electoral success.  For us, the much smaller Raleigh-based celebration is all about big paydays for certain people who have purposely screwed up great electoral opportunities.

At what point will enough be enough?