Lobbyist led cheerleading for Boles during primary
If Jamie Boles tries to tell you he’s “one of us” and is fighting “for the folks back home,” — don’t buy it. Lobbyists and operatives from Raleigh saved Tom McInnis’s skin two years ago, and they did it for Boles this time around.
Some of you may have received the Raleigh-generated “push-poll” on your home phones a few weeks ago. Flowery language was used to build up Boles, but his opponent — Southern Pines Police chief Bob Temme — earned a very negative-sounding descriptive phrase. The purpose? Push-polls are meant to drive up the favorable ratings of one candidate and drive down the favorables of the other. Of course, one could derive the conclusion that Temme was the intended victim of this call.
We got pro-Boles mailers from Raleigh-based interest groups in the weeks leading up to the big vote. One particularly nasty anti-Temme mailer was brought to us thanks, partially, to Tami Fitzgerald — the political establishment’s favorite Bible-thumper.
We even got word that House speaker Tim Moore was jetting into town to ensure Boles’s pockets got lined. (I’m sure lots of special interests followed him down from Raleigh.)
A well-known lobbyist has been needling me and my site with every criticism of Boles. I didn’t want to put his name out there. Frankly, he doesn’t deserve the publicity. (Though, I do respect the main organization he “works” for.)
Here’s an excerpt from the lobbyist’s last needling communique sent to me:
[…] Temme is a lame candidate who thought a 21st century campaign strategy was to post 8000 signs and do ads on WEEB. He had no business running while serving as a public employee. And he took cheap shots at Boles on his FB account. Hurry up and pick up your signs Bob. Sayonara!
This comes from somebody who doesn’t live in Moore County and isn’t even registered to vote here. Honestly, if you put the two CVs together, Temme’s background blows Boles’s away.
So, we’re about to enter our thirteenth year with a seat-warmer in the North Carolina House, doing little to nothing, at Tim Moore and David Lewis’s beck-and-call.
Jamie Boles may claim, with a straight face, that he represents us and works for us in Raleigh. But, in reality — he’s WHOLLY OWNED by this lobbyist and other guys like him.
Raleigh picks our “representation” every two years, and we let them get away with it.
Thank you for this post! Leadership in the House and the Senate are doing everything they can to keep true conservatives out of the General Assembly. The activity you observed is rampant in NC Republican politics. I hope you will investigate other races where leadership threatened various PACs to support their chosen candidates with buckets of cash to the detriment of the conservative challengers. I am so disgusted with what I saw that I am considering changing my party affiliation to unaffiliated so that I can work against “my” party. I find these leaders deplorable with what they’re doing. It looks like the only way we’re going to neutralize this cabal is to cause them lose power.
Since 2010, the GA has worked to insulate themselves from a conservative backlash through the following measures…
1. Ensuring that the NCGOP State Chairman élections are always rigged to ensure that one of their cabal keeps conservatives from controlling th e state party.
2. Setting up counterfeit NCGOPs via HB 373 to enable the GA leadership to bypass the POO and directly interfere with Primaries.
3, Lowering the threshold for winning an election to 30%. To ensure that well funded Establishment candidates like Boles are virtually unbeatable, especially when straw man candidates like Sandy Smith are deployed to split the vote against the rare well-funded conservative challenger.
I agree with you on 2 and 3, but Jim Womack came VERY close to winning the chairman race last year and we conservatives got Miriam Chu in as Vice-Chair. If Womack won a couple more counties east of I-95 he would be Chairman today.
The best solution for the Chairman’s Election is get rid of weighted voting. Replace it with who ever wins more counties wins the election.
Some people will say that even if Womack won last year, he would be voted out by the Central Committee and Executive Committee like Hassan Harnett was.
The solution for this is simple: elect more conservatives to District Chair slots and EC at large spots.
I will say though that Michael Whatley has done a good job so far.
Of course it was a group in Raleigh. Boles forgot where he got his start and he is not looking back. However he does keep our LE, EMS and fire department in his back pocket.
I know Bob Temme and he’s a good guy. My problem with both is that neither of them ever had to worry where their next paycheck comes from or making payroll. Temme is a lifelong government employee and Boles inherited a monopolistic business in a community with many customers, so to say. I left the NCGOP years ago when they thumbed their noses at grass roots conservatives.