Former Helms aide front-runner for top DC post w/ Sen-elect Tillis?
That’s what I am hearing from some pretty well-plugged in folks. I am hearing that John Mashburn, a former legislative counsel to the late Senator Jesse Helms, is the favorite to run Thom Tillis’s US Senate operation.
John’s current role is executive director of The Carleson Center for Public Policy – a DC think tank promoting Reaganite public policy positions. He’s also been in a leadership role with The American Civil Rights Union — whose major supporters include former US attorney general Ed Meese and long-time RNC delegate and conservative stalwart Morton Blackwell. Mashburn did the lawyer thing with Womble Carlyle and served as a Hill staffer on the House and Senate side. He’s an alumnus of both NC State AND Carolina.
I encountered John in the late 80s and early 90s while I was working in Helms’s DC office and finishing up my undergrad work at GW. John was one of Helms’s more aggressive senior advisers. If my memory serves me correctly, John was the point man on Helms’s highly-publicized fight to defund The National Endowment of The Arts.
The guy I knew back then would seem to be more comfortable with someone like Ted Cruz than with Thom Tillis. (Granted, it has been nearly 25 years since I’ve encountered or communicated with Mashburn.)
Hopefully, I haven’t killed John’s chances of landing this opportunity. We have not been big fans of the senator-elect. I am not so sure that an endorsement from this site would be a PLUS with Thom T.
Naming Mashburn as Tillis’s right-hand man would be a positive overture to those on the right who are still wary of ‘Mr. 48 percent.’ Mashburn is highly-experienced in the ways of Washington — on and off the Hill. He has strong ties to the conservative movement — especially the religious right. Let’s hope this pans out.
I feel that in time North Carolinians will realize what a true gem we have in Senator Thom Tillis, a statesman who will move North Carolina and our nation forward.
After our betrayal in the cromnibus by way too many NC reps, I hope Thom knows how dispirited so many of us are and will truly represent NC and our conservative principles.
That’s it, keep the money coming suckers. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, it will be better tomorrow, hold your nose, just one more time, c’mon Charlie Brown I’ll hold the football for you, just one more time, hold your nose, lesser of the two evils, vote for the lesser of the two evils, tomorrow, just one more time, this time we really really really mean it we’re going to change, just one more time. Thanks for the MAHHH-JARRR-AAHHH-TEEEE Suckers! Catch ya’ nexxxt time! Until then keep doing the same it works well for us!!!
I agree… but I cant think of a reason or indication that he cares.
In the House Tillis mostly represented the special interests, not conservative citizens. I fear we are in for the same in the US Senate for the next 6 years.
I know little of Mr. Mashburn but it seems the last thing the GOP needs is to harken back to a Helms legacy.
Hmm, why doesnt Rove and the Chamber of Commerce just run Tillis directly?
I kid, I kid… kinda. 🙂
Since Tillis would not know what a political principle was if one jumped up and bit him, someone well grounded in principles might well have some positive influence on his voting record. However, I suspect that every time the US Chamber of Commerce or other special interests or Mitch ”Kentucky Kickback” McConnell or their pimps call on Tillis, then the rent boy will come running, no matter what a staffer in his office thinks.
Tillis is on the judiciary committee with Vitter and Perdue.
Jeff Sessions and Vitter are great in opposing amnesty. As bad as the judiciary is Vitter is the best addition that could have happened.
Tillis probably going to push another amnesty bill. Hopefully it eventually fails but Burr has to take votes on it.