in the Money: Solar subsidy lobbyist lands BIG job at NCGOP
Those of us who were hoping for big things following the stunning results of the NCGOP state convention are not exactly doing cartwheels in response to the announced staff changes at NCGOP HQ in Raleigh. State run media has informed us that Kristen Laster, of Southern Strategies, has been named Finance Director for The North Carolina Republican Party.
We heard all about Kristen in a great Civitas exposé on a cabal of “conservatives” seeking to protect, grow and extend state subsidies f
or solar power in North Carolina. The Civitas piece tied her to a group of Republicans that includes uber-consultants Paul Shumaker and Dee Stewart, as well as her husband, business partner, fellow lobbyist and former NCGOP executive director Scott Laster. State run media tells us that Kristen will “head up fundraising full time” for the state party. (Um, Yay ? )
Oh, and speaking of Stewart — Katie Sullivan, an alumna of his consulting firm, The Stewart Group, has been named political director for the NCGOP.
The Executive Director is responsible for hiring lower staff. These types of hires indicate a need to get a new ED. The ED is hired by the Central Committee. That discussion needs to be had.
Some conservatives seemed happy with the existing ED, but these hires raise very serious questions, and it is clear a new ED is badly needed. A Dee Stewart hack as Political Director, and someone in bed with the radical environmentalists as Finance Director is just unacceptable.
I will certainly not contribute to the NCGOP when they hire staff of liberal Republians like this. Both of these hires are highly tainted. Why not just hire Moron Monday alumni if they want liberals?
They don’t care about your contributions, so long as they get the big $$ from the renewable lobby and others in the DC cartel.
You are probably right about that. We need to rebuilt a party that is based on principles, not prostitution, and if that does not work, it may get to the day, we need to move to a new political structure and abandon the GOP.
With this Finance Director, the NCGOP has prostituted itself by hiring someone who has just come off of a campaign AGAINST one of the principles set out in the NCGOP platform, and FOR the position of the Obama administration and that is just outrageous and unacceptable.
As long as this situation persists, we need to spread the word to give your political contributions to places other than the NCGOP. Give it directly to conservative candidates, to your county party if it is in good hands, or to reliable conservative groups.
Good riddance John if you want to leave the GOP. The party is being destroyed from within by folks like you all that are so closed minded to anything other than your way that people are fleeing right and left. Who cares who worked for who or who lobbied for who. People need to make a living and we all can’t be purist who sit behind a computer screen and bash others all day. My 2 cents and now I have to eat my lunch and go back to work.
GOP establishment guy are you supporting Hillary or Bernie?
This is not about any party member’s personal position. It is about the official party position on a major issue.
Green energy is a major Obama signature issue. He and his political network strongly support it. The North Carolina Republican Party, on the other hand, by overwhelming vote of its state delegates takes the opposite position on this consumer ripoff.
These two newly hired staffers took radical left money to work for the Obama position and against the official position of the North Carolina Republican Party on this major political issue. That should disqualify them from serving on the staff of said NC Republican Party. They have made their beds with Obama and the left and now need to go lie in them.
John Steed is 100% correct. Conservatives need to realize that one doesn’t have to have an R beside their name to be conservative. Reince Prebuis the National GOP Chair sold out Romney to the Democrats by allowing CNN & ABC and others to moderate the debates in 2012. That was so obvious and it played out exactly as we expected with Obama winning by a slim margin. The HELL with the national GOP and the establishment.. Just like John Boehner & Mitch McConnell they have no balls.Girly MEN!
Haven’t heard a peep out of the newly elected chairman at the NCGOP. No censuring of Thom Tillis, Richard Burr, Ellmers, Holding, etc. All these Rinos have violated the party platform. Business as usual at the NCGOP. Such a disappointment!
I guess you missed the new chairman’s press conference in Raleigh rebuking Bully Barber, eh? Or his op ed about the democrat party and the history of the KKK?
I did, in fact, miss the chairman’s response to the Bully Barber and so forth. Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate those issues. But, I would consider that low hanging fruit. I would prefer him to take a stand on the NC delegation and why haven’t they done anything they were elected to do. You remember stopping Obama. Defunding Obama Care. Why are they supporting John Boehner who has a 35 conservative review score. What about Renee Ellmers and her conservative review score of 50. What about Tillis and his Conservative Review score of 40. Most of the Republican delegation from NC scores D’S AND F’s (poor and failure).
I agree on all you’ve names but I think party chairs and vice chairs (as well as district) sometimes have to walk a fine line between rebuking an elected official and appearing to be endorsing their probably primary opponent, which is of course against the Plan of Organization. I would almost rather they stay mum until after the primaries next year that do that. I am back in my home state of VA after 9 years in NC and the chairs here ignore then plan and endorse constantly. Don’t like that at all. I will say that the current New Hanover GOP chair and the last one both rebuked a certain county commissioner for her liberal votes over the last year.
Is the Executive Director the one calling the shots and making the hires without the knowledge and consent of the new Leadership? Easy to explain why he’d do that if you keep in mind who his former employers were and what their objectives are to do to the real conservatives in the party.
This action taken just days ahead of the Central Committee meeting. Intentional and divisive. Hopefully the CC sees the writing on the wall and stops this BS.
What happens in this Central Committee meeting will tell us everything we need to know.
Well, the progressive cause wins again from our hard core environmental movement buying those two progressive Republican consultants Dee Stewart and Paul Shumaker. They do so much good work for the progressive cause. Now two of their people, who have themselves worked for the environmentalist cause for green energy, are placed in high positions within the GOP headquarters. Who would have thought progressives could have made so much progress in North Carolina when the state suffers under big Republican majorities? It looks like in the GOP there are a lot of people who only believe in one thing and that is money and how much of it they can get for themselves.
We were promised by that if we sold out daoud and voted for Harnett that we would not have stuff like this. Plus we were told that they would censure Burr, Tillis, elders, and all the rest of the rinos first central Cmte meeting. We were told Rufty & Sutter would be hired to make sure it was on the up and up. They are all liars and crooks we couldn’t even get williams in as legal council. I’m pissed Hasan has some questions to answer.
The executive director, not the state party chairman, made these hires. My sources tell me that Mr. Harnett was unaware of these hires.
Well I heard the finance director was recruited by the chair harnett solely. That came from a central Cmte member.
And another question is why is the vice chairman challenging the chairman in sat. Central Cmte meeting. Word is she has been calling central Cmte members all week seeking support her agenda.
The ED is not a dumb guy. He knew these hires went against the grain of what the delegates at the state convention voted for, Both of them have both establishment and liberalism stamped all over them. The timing just before a Central Committee meeting also smells.
I hope that Hasan and Michelle have their votes lined up because this is th establishment’s power play. If they get away with this, then the ED will be the defacto chairman from here on. The ED has also just made a power grab that just cannot be tolerated in the party structure. He needs to be put out to pasture.
If this is not dealt with now, then the party will have a mess on its hand.
I think the ED could have probably functioned with the current leadership, but this move shows he is playing games that just cannot be tolerated. Everyone involved know what Stewart and Shumaker are and they are poison to the grassroots.
Spot on. I nearly got my ears burned off when I asked my cousin, a County Chairman, about this. They’re normally better informed than I am but they’d been out of state on business when these hires went down. After my they ran out of cuss words, they explained to me that:
1. A couple of District Chairs who have brown matter where they should have gray matter, made a push to have the old regime’s ED retained by the new Chair, and of course, that’s what happened. And;
2. If they wanted this result, they could have supported Craig Collins, And:
3. They’re pretty much done with the State Party, will run their county Party as they see fit, and aren’t about to be bound by state rules that allow these corporate hacks to call the shots and themselves violate the rules without being called on it.
Never heard them say anything quite like that before, I was pretty much speechless.
NC13Libertarian – you are quite gullible and engage in way too much gossip. Suter/Rufty? Did you seriously want those two guarding the goods? Have you bumped your head? Wow.
VC & Chair are quite the pair. You might want to communicate with them directly though instead of getting your information at the beauty parlor.
They were seen sitting together amicably this morning during the scheduled training sessions. Amazing how these stories get started.
What we are seeing is a coup to neuter not just the chairman and vice chairman personally, but the party grassroots which took control of the party at the convention. The Executive Director is operating as point man, but he is surely politically savvy enough that he has key backers on the Central Committee who will defend his play. From past reports, I would suspect that the National Committeeman and National Committeewoman are two of the ringleaders.
The ED and his backers are likely to have counted their Central Committee votes and think they can get away with this. Two people with the political connections that would be the most obnoxious possible to the grassroots were deliberately chosen to fill key staff positions to make sure there was no doubt thw coup leaders were poking the grassroots in the eye on this one. This is a very intentional provocation.
There are only two options to stop this coup. One is to compel the ED to reverse these hirings. The second is to remove the ED himself. If the first is done, then the ED will have to be watched like a hawk from here on out, which will make things uncomfortable. If the Central Committee backs the coup, then the grassroots will need to work the Executive Committee to try to build a counter coup.
One other thing is clear. The grassroots need to replace the two establishment operatives sitting as national Committeeman and National Committeewoman when the offices comes up at next year’s convention. Not only will swinging those seats help swing the control of the committee, but they are ringleaders for the establishment and removing them will decapitate the establishment.
All of this is one of the reasons I prefered Daoud over Harnett. Harnett has not played in this league before, and I wonder about his skills to do so. He does not need to take a powder on this one, or all that the grassroots worked for will be lost..
Where is Daoud standing now? Is he helping Harnett? I would hope that he is supporting the grassroots and doing all he can to stop the ED as well.
Hell ya. UNITY TO WIN.
Yes from what I have heard Nix has the votes to remove Hasan in today’s central Cmte meeting
Nix remove Hasan??? What did I miss?
Do you mean remove Hasan or remove the ED? If the ED is removed, he brought it on himself.
Absolutely!!!
The ED needs to be replaced with someone that is actually concerned about Republicans in this state. He is currently doing all he can to hinder/ sabatoge the new chair/ v chair and it is ridiculous. Also, someone that has his level of contempt and disdain for the average Republican in this state is doing more to hurt the Republican Party than just about anything else ever could.
OK. Michele Nix & Daniel Rufty went to war for us. We had five votes to overturn the hiring to their 18 votes. Hasan clearly said he didn’t not authorize hirings, however evidence was presented that he was clearly fully involved in the hiring. Issue…… he bluntly lied to the central committee.