Campaign ’24: A job interview or ‘American Idol’ ?
As you review the array of names that has filed for office this year in North Carolina, ask yourself a simple question: How many of these people would I actually hire? For my small business? To run my small business? To watch my kids? To clean my house? To clean my yard?
In all honesty, I don’t see many. From Congress, to the General Assembly, to the state judiciary, to county-level offices, there are some very important offices that seriously impact our daily lives on the ballot in March and November. For important jobs like these, we should be applying intense levels of scrutiny to each candidate / applicant.
Unfortunately, way too many of us are using the same criteria to pick candidates for office that we do to pick a favorite on ‘American Idol.’ (But, hey, we DO appear to have a Ruben Studdard look-alike running for governor.). Former – and likely future – president Donald Trump mentioned Mark Robinson’s “great voice” during his endorsement speech for Robinson.
During his 2016 run, Trump took a polar-opposite position. He made a big deal out of his accomplishments and qualifications. The guy took a one million dollar inheritance from his dad and turned it into a multi-billion dollar global empire. That’s nothing to sneeze at.
Team Robinson likes to compare their guy to Trump. Granted, Robinson and Trump share a talent for saying things out loud from a speaker’s podium that agitate the radical left and the drive-by media. Beyond his on-stage hyperbole, things fall off dramatically for Robinson. In fact, there’s no THERE there.
Mark Robinson has been coasting along on that famous speech before the Greensboro City Council for years. It helped him into the lieutenant governor’s office, and his team is hoping it will carry him 
into the governor’s mansion. Since being sworn in as lieutenant governor, Robinson’s team has had him jetting across the country making speeches, selling books, and raising money for a 2024 gubernatorial run.
Robinson has had an abysmal attendance rate at committee meetings where his job description requires attendance. Despite his position as “president of the Senate,” Robinson has had little to no impact on what the legislature has been doing during the last four years. One would think a great orator would be out there using his talents to push a certain agenda.
Robinson’s own memoir recount his struggles as a fast-food restaurant management trainee and a daycare center worker. All kinds of public records out there detail multiple bankruptcies, unpaid debts, bad check charges, and at least one eviction.
Team Robinson shrugs that off, claiming that record makes him more relatable to average North Carolinians. I don’t know anyone with a.record comparable to that. Those I know who come close — I really am not interested in seeing them become governor.
Robinson himself has said that he’s no good at math, and that anyone who expects him to handle money is going to jail. Would you hire someone who said that to work at your small business? If not, WHY would you let them be your state’s governor?
Let’s not forget the current Robinson family business — wholly subsidized by the taxpayers. Filings for that business include incorrect information reported to the IRS and other accounting so screwed up that you can’t tell where the money went or who got paid what.
Robinson has boasted that he will not debate his opponents in the gubernatorial race. He and his team claim his lead in the polls justify this. From what I hear, this stonewalling about debates has a lot more to do with how far Robinson’s oratorical skills decline when he has to speak off-the-cuff without any rehearsal.
Bill Graham has built a successful law practice. He’s served well on a number of public and private 
boards. Though, his involvement in efforts to burden the people of North Carolina with alternative energy mandates that jack up their power bills is alarming. Despite the tough anti-China claims commercials make, there are a lot of Chinese-made solar panels that accompany those alternative energy mandates.
Dale Folwell has served the people of Forsyth County on their county board of education AND in 
the North Carolina House. He built a successful financial advisory business that served everyone from Joe Q. Public to country music celebrities. Former Gov. Pat McCrory tapped Folwell to fix the state’s beleaguered near-bankrupt unemployment insurance system. Folwell got that job done and won kudos from both sides of the aisle. During his two terms as state treasurer, he’s reformed the state retirement system and the state health plan so both are in their best shape in decades.
What about an actual agenda?
Our useless drive-by media ( and some campaigns) want to spend outrageous amounts of time on things like who “hates” “gays” or “women.”
How about addressing the fact that our tax burden in-state is the biggest it’s been since the Democrats last had a say in what happens at the General Assembly?
With some help from DC, our economy is in a precarious state. We STILL have one of the highest gas taxes in the nation, folks. What’s your plan to help North Carolina?
How about crippling and / or destroying DEI in our schools and government and places of employment?
Places like Oklahoma and Florida have already gone to war against DEI in their states. Meanwhile, our Republicans have helped implement it. DEI, despite the claims of its supporters, gins up bitter divisions and justifies discrimination.
Folks are gaining or being refused or awarded jobs, promotions, academic benefits, school admissions and the like based solely on their DNA and genetic makeup. That’s just WRONG.
How about stepping forward on homeland security issues where DC is lagging?
The feds have purchased a private school campus in Greensboro with the intent of packing it with all kinds of undocumented young crossers of the southern border. Outside of that boondoggle, the federal government has been dumping record numbers of undocumented, unaccompanied young people from south of the border in our state. Texas and Florida have been stepping forward on stuff like this. Why can’t we?
How about actually shrinking government?
Our state’s annual spending has grown by at least EIGHT BILLION DOLLARS since 2017. Our state bureaucracy is out of control in terms of how much resources it consumes each year. According to the CATO Institute, our regulatory burden is also spiraling out of control.
Instead of letting the stupid drive-by media drag us into stupidity about who loves gays more, let’s get office-seekers talking to us more about stuff like this.
If you truly care about what kind of future there will be for you and your family, THIS is the direction our elections need to go in. Don’t let the consultants and other political whores pull the wool over your eyes once again.
Robinson and Graham have NO agendas except for getting on their respective soapboxes and tell a select group of people what they want to hear. Folwell has a proven record. If people are smart, they will bypass the Robinson/Graham snake oil shows and support a proven leader in Dale Folwell.
A PAC out of Mecklenburg is taking this “treat it like a job applicaion” approach too seriously. They are asking candidates for three professional references, a resume and a high quality headshot.
Graham is wholly unacceptable. He is Greta Thunberg without the skirt, and joined at the hip with leftie RINO hack Paul Shumaker. He is pro-wind and solar and that makes him pro-China. Depending on wind and solar makes us more dependant on Red China for solar panels, wind turbines and their components than we ever have been on the Middle East for oil. Graham’s anti-China ads are lying through his teeth. If he is the nominee, I suspect a lot of conservatives will be voting Libertarian or just skipping the race.
Mark Robinson’s star has faded badly as he has fumbled with the Lt. Governor’s office. If he cannot hack it debating in a GOP primary, how is he going to hack it debating a Democrat? Robinson runs away from issues and has proven himself incompetent in hiring staff. Still, many of us will hold our nose and vote for him if he is the nominee, and keep our fingers crossed his screw ups will not be too bad. Like McCrory, if he somehow stumbles into office, he is likely to be a one-termer and not one we will be proud of.
Dale Folwell is the only “keeper” in the group, solid on issues and willing to speak out, as well as being a solid executive who understands that personnel is policy. He is not a flashy campaigner and does not have a top tier campaign organization and that worries me, but he is far and away our best shot of winning the governor’s office, and even more so, having a governor we can be proud of. And in truth, neither of his primary opponents have campaign staff that are worth a crap, either.
Andy Wells, after testing the waters did not file. He is a wind and solar goon, too, so I suspect he was pushed aside for Graham. The only saving grace about Wells was that Carter Wrenn was his consultant, and therefore there might be some conservative influence on him on some issues.