John Bradford.(NOPE.) For State Treasurer? (HELL NOPE.)
No, thank you.
As 2024 approaches, an awful lot of folks are acting on their big – some would say oversized – political ambitions.
The Raleigh political establishment has thrown up a trial balloon about state Rep. John Bradford running to succeed state treasurer Dale Folwell – who is running for governor in 2024. (Regardless of how the election goes, Folwell would serve out as treasurer at least until the end of 2024.)
Some of you may not know Bradford. He’s a big-time 
Thom Tillis stooge. He does what he’s told by The Deceitful One himself. Bradford was Thom Tillis’ handpicked favorite to fill his NC House seat when he, um, graduated to DC.
Many of you may not remember that Bradford aided and abetted the parachuting of Raleigh resident Catherine Whiteford into Cabarrus County to meddle in the open House seat race there in 2022. (She did not survive the primary. Many observers credit her, Bradford, and the Raleigh establishment with handing the seat over to Democrat Diamond Staton-Williams.)
It will be impossible to replace Dale Folwell in the treasurer’s office. He’s done a magnificent job there during his two terms. But we can certainly do better than trying to hold the treasurer seat for the GOP by nominating a Tillis stooge and leadership groupie.
Thanks to term limits and political ambitions, NEARLY HALF of the seats on the Council of State will have no incumbent in 2024. There is an opportunity to substantially remake senior state government leadership in 2024.
The Thom Tillis – Paul Shumaker-Phil Berger-Tim Moore cabal is certainly smelling an opportunity to expand its hold on the NCGOP. The cabal already has a puppet in the party chairman’s seat.
The governor’s race is already looking crowded. Dale Folwell is in, and Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and former congressman Mark Walker are expected to soon join him. There are also smoking hot rumors that agriculture commissioner Steve Troxler and Tillis himself are mulling the race over. It only takes 30 percent of the vote to win the nomination.
Berger’s political team already has a foothold within Robinson’s campaign operation. So, either a Troxler, Robinson, or Tillis victory would be seen as good for the cabal.
Two legislators are seeking the labor commissioner seat. Ben Moss and Jon Hardister are the most prominent candidates here. Hardister, currently the House majority whip, would be seen as a loyal ally to the cabal — especially to Moore, his current boss.
Hal Weatherman would be the cabal’s man in the Lt. Gov’s race. He owes his very livelihood to the shot-callers in the aforementioned cabal. Granted, the office has little in the way of political power. But it’s another vote on the always important Council of State.
A trio or quartet in the AG’s race. The cabal has three good chances to win this seat. State senator Danny Britt is reportedly eyeing a run. (He’d be at the beck-and-call of Messrs. Blaine and Berger.) Ray Starling, lead attorney for the NC Chamber and a former Tillis advisor, would also benefit the cabal. And then there’s Tillis pal Andrew Murray.
The only good choice for conservatives and the rest of Real North Carolina is Tom Murry.
While all of this jockeying is going on for these seats, two very good pick-up opportunities are being woefully neglected. State auditor Beth Wood’s ongoing legal troubles and scandal as well as Elaine Marshall’s radical politics make those two seats very attractive for some GOP offense. *But apparently, it’s much more fun to fall into a circular firing squad and squander great opportunities — just like in year’s past.*
A bill has been filed to required that the State Auditor be a CPA. If that bill passes, it will knock out two Republicans who are already aggressively campaigning for the seat. It’s a stupid bill. The Auditor doesn’t actually audit. It’s a management position. The Auditor hires CPAs. How many CPAs want to risk their careers by running against an entrenched Democrat in Raleigh knowing that even if they win, they will take a pay cut? It’s another case of Republicans shooting themselves in the foot.
What we can’t have in 2024 is a slate of candidates that all come from the Tillis Tree! That would spell disaster for NC & a blue wave from the top to the bottom of the ballot!
We need to be smart and highly strategic in EVERY race! We must vote for the most conservative candidate that can WIN in November 2024. It is really that simple. The primaries are shaping up to be a bloodbath for the GOP & it truly worries me that votes will split during the primary and we will end up with a slate of council of state candidates that can’t defeat the Dems! No one wants to wake up to President Biden, Governor Stein and AG Jackson.
as candidates, they answer questions as conservatives; once elected, they govern as communists because they know that there is no recall or other mechanism to remove them from elected office
Bradford is a liberal, voting for the Roy Cooper position on radical gender ideology (repeal of HB2), the Green New Deal (HB951), and Obamacare Medicaid expansion. Three major strikes, and this liberal is O-U-T. He is also a brownnoser for Big Medicine. If this Tillis Turkey is the nominee, then conservatives should just skip over that race on the ballot. There is not a dime’s worth of difference between Bradford and a Democrat.
At one time I might have opposed a bill requiring that the State Auditor be a CPA. I think licensing has been overdone. But now, having seen the games played in Republican primaries by the Democrats and their Republican accomplices, I support the bill.
The Constitution requires that the Attorney General be a licensed attorney because the job requires specialized knowledge. So does the job of State Auditor. You can’t require that either official be honest (too bad), but voters should at least demand some degree of competence to do the job.
State law requires audits of any number of state enterprises be done by CPAs because they have demonstrated knowledge of how to do an audit and there is a licensing board that attempts to maintain ethical standards. Why would anyone, other than those who profit from bad government, want to elect a State Auditor who has no idea how to do an audit to supervise auditors?
I don’t know how many CPAs would want to run for Auditor, but I did in 2012. It was an eye-opening experience. When asked to run at the beginning of filing, I declined. I didn’t need a job and hoped a qualified candidate would file. But after seeing who had filed as of the day before filing closed, I changed my mind.
At the time I filed, the day before filing closed, there were several candidates filed who were not CPAs. I didn’t know them. I wasn’t sure any of them had any idea of how to actually do an audit, much less supervise a large group of auditors covering a state as large as North Carolina, but the fact that they seemed poorly prepared to look for fraud was not what persuaded me to file.
Since most of the candidates appeared unqualified, I thought I might support the only CPA who had filed. I didn’t know him either, but it didn’t take much research to realize that he was running in the wrong primary. He was a CPA, but the R beside his name didn’t convince me he was a Republican.
The only CPA who had filed to run in the Republican primary in 2012 was, in my opinion, far worse than the non-CPA candidates or Beth Woods. And I could just see the Democrats (and/or their RINO accomplices) dropping a last-minute mailing urging people to vote for that CPA and saying “Vote for the only qualified candidate in the primary – the only CPA in the primary. You can’t beat Beth Woods with someone who lacks the credentials to do the job.”
Apparently, Roy Cooper’s dislike of Beth Woods was so great that the Democrats actually ran a poorly disguised Democrat in the Republican Primary. Sure, the Democrat had recently re-registered as a Republican, claiming as his home a boat on Water Street in the marina in Oriental. But you didn’t have to look back far to find his voting record as a Democrat with a Harnett County address.
And a Harnett County address makes a lot more sense than Pamlico County since he had recently worked as an auditor for the State Board of Elections in Raleigh. Do the names Larry Leake or Gary Bartlett ring any bells? The SBOE under their leadership wasn’t known for hiring Republicans. But this CPA was so close to Cooper, Leake and Bartlett that he had worked for the State Board of Elections. I did not want a Cooper Democrat elected Auditor when Cooper was running unopposed for Attorney General. (And WHY was Cooper running unopposed???)
Not so oddly, living at the same address in Harnett County was someone closely associated with Roy Cooper who consistently votes in the Democrat primary and now works for the state “Ethics” Commission. (I put the word in quotes because ever since they handled a complaint against Pryor Gibson by saying there wasn’t a rule against lying but he better not do it again, I’ve had a problem taking them seriously. For more on that story, and more entertaining examples of Mr. Gibson’s unethical behavior, do a Daily Haymaker search on my name and Pryor Gibson.)
Even more interesting, the GOP establishment apparently saw no problem with the Vice Chair of the NC Republican Party engaging in party disloyalty to get me out of the race. (A search on my name on the Daily Haymaker will give you part of that story.)
The part that was not covered was that I waited until I heard that Robin Hayes was planning to hand the Chairmanship of the NCGOP over to his Vice Chair and wrote a letter to the then Executive Director of the NCGOP, Scott Laster, accusing that Vice Chair of “party disloyalty” and copied Robin Hayes on the letter. I wrote to Laster because he actually told me that the attempt to get me to drop out of the party primary was party disloyalty when I called him to ask for his help in identifying who was behind the attempt.
So far as I know, the letter was never shared with the Executive Committee or the Central Committee by either gentleman, but it served its purpose. The baton was not passed.
And since nothing ever happened, I hand-delivered a copy of the letter to Dallas Woodhouse at the State Convention in Wilmington, telling him that since he was now Executive Director, I wanted to be sure he knew about the letter. I also asked him to remind Robin Hayes that I was not so patiently waiting for action on the complaint. The public had a right to know the whole story.
I’m still waiting for action on the complaint, but that’s not a surprise.
I suspect most readers of the Daily Haymaker can guess the reason I was asked to drop out of the primary for Auditor, since interference in Republican primaries is now a frequent topic. The fact that the recent race for Speaker in the US House of Representative revealed only one Congressman from NC even thought bills in Congress should be read before being voted on makes it clear how poorly voters have been served by that interference.
The real question is how I could discover the Democrat ties of the only CPA running in the Republican primary for Auditor in 2012 in less than an hour while the Republican leadership not only failed to recruit qualified candidates but apparently failed to vet the candidates who chose to run? Or did some party leaders know and support Cooper’s candidate and that was why I was encouraged to drop out? Did they prefer a Democrat to a real Constitution supporting Republican? Or were they just clueless?
Incidentally, the Republican candidate for Auditor in 2016 was a former FBI agent who also worked for the State Board of Elections. Small world, no? Heck of a coincidence? Not! Or at least not in my opinion.