L’affaire Cotham: A few thoughts
I think it’s pretty clear that I’m not impressed with state Rep. Tricia Cotham. She rocketed to Raleigh over a decade ago thanks to her mother Pat’s powerful Democrat political machine in the Charlotte area. (Mama still sits on the Mecklenburg County board of commissioners.)
Her first tour of duty in Raleigh certainly did nothing to establish her as an intellectual giant. She posted a pretty typical leftist voting record. Young Cotham married pencil-neck Jerry Meek – a former state Democrat Party chairman. She was moving on up, just like George and Weezy.
Then came the announcement Cotham was leaving Jones Street to “spend more time with the family.” She reappeared on-screen briefly for a quixotic run in a Democrat primary for Congress, and then disappeared.
Cotham came back to Raleigh a changed woman — a new heavily Democrat district, and as a “single mother” (according to her press conference today).
She’s occasionally crossed the aisle to vote with Republicans, but still has racked up an overall VERY liberal voting record thus far in 2023.
Sooooooo, what’s really going on with the party switch?
The Homefront. The Cotham name currently appears to be mud with the dominant left wing of the Mecklenburg Democrat Party. Mama Cotham has had quite a few high-profile spats with local leftists in the Charlotte area. Funny thing, though. Mama Pat backed Bernie Sanders in 2016’s presidential primary. (Mama has stated publicly she has no plans to switch parties.)
The district. From what I’ve read and heard, Cotham currently represents a district that is strongly Democrat — supporting Dems more than 60 percent of the time. So, Tricia’s reelection prospects as a Republican — short of a fantabulous piece of redistricting — look slim to none.
Ambitions. Since it appears the carriage in this Cinderella story turns back into a pumpkin around May 2024, you have to wonder if there is a piece to this story we haven’t been fed yet. Someone passed along an item from social media that got my political spidey-sense tingling:
Hmmm. Ambitions of a move to DPI back in 2012. That made sense.
She has work experience in the public schools. The DPI job is on the ballot again in 2024. Catherine Truitt, the GOP incumbent, has two strikes against her. One, her embrace of some liberal policies has made her unpopular with primary voters. Two, her political patron is Pat McCrory. McCrory is now on the outside looking-in. He doesn’t have the juice he possessed when he was living on Blount Street.
Perhaps the 2012 Cotham ambitions are being revived. Perhaps Cotham now realizes her political “bread” is now “buttered” on the right side of the aisle. Perhaps we will soon hear about Truitt’s newfound desire to “spend more time with the family” — á là Josh Dobson over at Labor. Perhaps we will see a GOP primary for DPI with Timmy & Phil’s Jones Street mafia lining up behind lil’ Tricia.
Switching parties NOW gives Tricia a year or so to rack up a voting record more palatable to the state’s primary voters.
Tricia is not a conservative, but neither is Truitt. But conservatism doesn’t matter to the NCGOPe. It’s all about control — simply having more guys and gals with a (R) by their name in key places when the music stops.
As usual, the media is giving you half the story. The NCGOPe has been using the excuse of being one vote short to explain the lack of conservative legislation coming out of Jones Street. If they were sincere, they’d pass good conservative bills 
and shove them down Governor Doofus’ throat. Make him veto that stuff. Use it against his comrades in the next election. As the Medicaid expansion votes showed, there are few to NO conservatives left in the House GOP caucus. Adding Tricia to the caucus is not going to change things.
Conservative leaders with backbone and cojones might actually shake things up. But where are we going to find any of those?
I wondered about this when I saw the initial report and the almost 10 percent disparity in the vote. She evidently was/is not planning on running again, and it made me wonder who made the offer and what that offer was. Time will tell, but I believe you’ve hit on it!
Money talks and BS walks…..especially in Raleigh. If you write a Bill that the Speaker doesn’t agree with…It doesn’t get heard. Simple and Sad. If leadership doesn’t like you…you are SOL. Moore’s mentor is Tillis. What do you expect? Whatley supports this crew too!
When I was in Raleigh, I was so fortunate. I served with the greats: Millis, Speciale, Pittman. I had senate backup with Cook, Sanderson and Bishop.
I see more and more RINOS in Raleigh today than ever before. Will the True Conservatives please STAND UP?
You were a great legislator when you represented the eastern end of my county. We need more like you, Bev..
The problem is that it is the local party organization that is supposed to recruir legislative candidates but a lazy state GOP has ceded that function to the Raleigh legislative leadership in recent years. We need legislators recruited by local Republicans who will listen to local Republicans, not legislators recruited by Raleigh who only listen to the power brokers in Raleigh. District and local parties can fill the gap even if the state party is sitting on its hands.
When I was a district chairman, the energy in legislative candidate recruitment was in the state party, the district parties, and the county parties. I worked with my county chairmen to recruit candidates and stayed in constant touch with state GOP HQ. Only when we identified a good prospect and the state chairman and I had talked with them, did the state chairman call the legislative leaders and sometimes Governor Martin to also call them. That is the way it is supposed to go.
A good example of the problem among our legislators is the Obamacare Medicaid expansion. Polls showed the Republican base was solidly against this liberal program. In my district, our congressional district Republican executive committee unanimously passed a resolution asking our legislators to vote against it but over half of them thumbed their noses at local party leadership back home. Too many have just quit caring about what the folks back home think and that is just wrong.