McCrory for Senate. (*SIGH*)
The worst kept secret in the world has now officially gone public. Former governor Pat McCrory has announced he’s running for US Senate in 2022. He joins former congressman Mark Walker on the race’s GOP side. (There has been some speculation that former congressman George Holding may jump in on the GOP side.) Congressman Ted Budd is reportedly planning to join the GOP field this week. Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, is still a possibility for entering the race.
Paul Shumaker. The McClatchy article announcing the McCrory campaign let slip. that GOPe favorite Paul Shumaker — the man who brought you Richard Burr, Thom Tillis, AND Robert Pittenger — is part of the McCrory Senate campaign. In the early 2000s, Shumaker helped lead a PAC that targeted conservative Republicans in the North Carolina House for defeat.
Trump “language.” It’s a typical Shumaker move to have his clients — regardless of how they feel about Trump — speak admirably of the former president and parrot his slogans such as “America First.” We found an article detailing a memo that explained why McCrory did not get an appointment to the Trump administration:
President Donald Trump considered former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory for a position in his administration, according to records obtained by Axios.
However, as with other potential nominees, those records show the Trump administration highlighted some “red flags.”
Potential appointment snags in the 10-page file on McCrory range from accusations of “favoritism toward Duke Energy” and having “thin skin,” to “comments critical of Trump.”
McCrory is one of dozens of Republican politicians and officials identified by the Trump transition team as potential suitors for top posts in the administration, Axios reported late Sunday. While some—such as former EPA leader Scott Pruitt and former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price — were appointed despite concerns and later resigned, McCrory wasn’t picked.
After losing a tight race to Democrat Roy Cooper in 2016, McCrory met with Trump’s transition team in New York City. And a source close to Trump’s team told the Charlotte Observer that it would “definitely” find a spot for McCrory.
But he was never appointed. McCrory, who now hosts a radio show and teaches a lecture series at UNC-Chapel Hill, didn’t immediately respond to an email or phone call on Monday morning.
Campaign web site: Launching a campaign website on the same day the campaign is announced may be indicative of possible campaign law violations. What’s even more curious is the sloppy, amateurish condition the site was in, as of 10:45 AM Wednesday. The site description that appears on the browser tab is “mccrorync-Ip”. That is supposed to be the information that Google and other search engines latch onto so that people can search for your site.
Most of the links on the home page don’t work. They all lead to a page entitled majoritystrategieshosting.com . Majority Strategies is a Florida-based consulting firm that real recently employed McCrory’s nephew, Patrick Sebastian.
The site does not contain ANY position papers and several photos do not load when you pull up the site.
Here’s the site’s sub-heading:
Washington elites could learn a thing or two from a proven conservative leader like Pat McCrory. It’s time to elect a senator who has risen above the rhetoric and delivered results for North Carolina. […]
Do all those appearances on DC-based “Meet The Press” earn McCrory membership in the Washington elite? And “a proven conservative leader”? How about all those times Mayor McCrory fought with Charlotte conservatives to push through tax increases and budget-busting spending?
How many times did then-Governor McCrory veto conservative legislation passed by the GOP-controlled legislature because it did not spend / regulate enough? How many overrides of his vetoes occurred? And what about the time he and then-Speaker Tillis sided openly against Senate leader Phil Berger to defeat Berger’s more conservative budget proposal?
Don’t let the aw-shucks demeanor, the winning smile, and sympathy for his 2016 loss cloud your judgement. Senator Pat McCrory will be a perfect complement to “gay rights activist” Thom Tillis and the retiring Richard Burr.
Can the GOP develop a vaccine to protect us from McCrory? Have we learned nothing from his disastrous days as governor? Why on earth would we want another RINO Richard Burr in the senate? Do the elites think the conservative grass roots are this stupid?
Obviously not. But here it goes again. Place as many R’s in the race as possible, end-game being the NCGOP’s ‘pick’, hand-select that appears to be Pat.
Of ALL the people living in NC, we have to keep choosing the same few? Seems keeping Lara Trump OUT is a big deal. Not that I’m promoting her, seems she frightens the NC swamp. Could it be the swamp doesn’t want DJT in NC campaigning for her, which he likely does? After all, who captured more votes in NC in 2016 and 2020? Wasn’t Pat. And all the anti-Mark rhetoric going to come back to haunt some folks. Massive campaign (behind the scenes) to destroy him.
So did he have to give up his radio show ? since he announced
Trump would not hire you.
Corporations will not hire you.
Colleges will not hire you.
Your long suit is going to movies.
You has no experience that would make you a good Senator for the State.
Go back to that radio job and enjoy the laughs.
You lost for a reason. And you will lose again.
Sorry.
Mr. McCrory lacks the critical male organs to take on the rotten evil core that runs the Dumbocrats these days. About the only ones who do are Dale Folwell and Mark Meadows.
The only sitting Governor of North Carolina voted out of office … EVER ! He should stick to a radio show. He’s got lots trouble with voters in ENC. Very thin skinned , a likable fellow , but very poor political skills. That’s what cost him being re-elected as Gov.
Well liked and promoted by radio owner, Hinton out of Greenville. That doesn’t mean he gets any pull in the east, but he will get massive air time. Hinton appointed to BOG during Pat’s tenure.
Worst Republican candidate to enter the race since Public Official “A”! Beasley or Jackson will be final Dem candidate, we need someone with real conservative street cred to beat them; McRino ain’t it!
I still think Anthony Foxx could get in.
Well I bet the democrat party is salivating over getting him to the race. All they gotta do is not put someone chasing tail up against him and it is a landslide for them.
McCrory has never done policy well. It started with his tax and spend record as mayor and followed into his wishy-washy policy approach to state government. We need a Senator who is rock solid on policy given what we face from the socialist Democrats, and neither McCrory nor Walker would fit that role.
McCrory never understood as governor that personnel IS policy. If you appoint the wrong people, your administration will go haywire and you will not be reelected. Unlike previous GOP governors Martin and Holshouser who appointed all Republicans, mostly political veterans, to the cabinet, McCrory appointed non-Republicans to half of his cabinet slots, and those Republicans he did appoint were mostly people who had no background working in the GOP trenches. While Martin and Holshouser kept close tabs from the governors office on other policy level positions in the departments, McCrory let his cabinet secretaries have free rein there with no oversight from the governors office.
Policy blunders were the product of this type of staff approach. The very first one happened just weeks into the administration when a liberal black female assistant secretary at DOT announced that “Dreamer” illegal aliens would be allowed to have NC drivers licenses. Her boss, the DOT secretary, who was registered Unaffiliated, apparently did not comprehend how this really irritated the party base. If the governor’s office was even told before it was released to the press, they were also clueless. Similar blunders followed throughout the administration, the most serious, the I-77 toll road fiasco that cost McCrory his job, which was spearheaded by a McCrory administration Democrat policy level appointee at DOT.
Please tell me this ain’t so. What conservative on his worst day would vote for McCrory even against a Democrat?
Good question, he’s alienated large GOP coalition voters including Confederate heritage voters, anti-toll road crusaders, back-stabbed social conservatives (HB2), commercial fisherfolks., etc.
He’s the fakest conservative there is other than his homeboy Thommy. A former county chairman acquaintance of mine once humorously observed to me that the last time McCrory gave a speech as Governor at the NCGOP convention, he counted McCrory using the word “conservative” 83 times throughout the speech. I guess he thought he needed to convince somebody.
McCrory has knuckled under to the “woke” cancel culture and that is something we do not need in a US Senator.. Of course, so has Mark Walker. Neither of them are fit candidates because neither of them has a backbone.
After Nikki Haley dissed the Confederate flag in South Carolina, Pat McCrory figured he had to do his own cancel culture stunt here. So without any demand on him, McCrory on his own made an announcement that he was going to get rid of the Sons of Confederate Veterans license plates. Of course, once Phil Berger publicly told McCrory that the State Senate would not support him on that, McCrory quietly folded. To this day, voters who care about their southern heritage will not vote for the northern-born McCrory who disrespects southern history.
Then there is McCrory’s cancel culture moves with Christians. It was hard to keep him on the straight and narrow on HB2 while he was in office, but after he left office, McCrory flipped to the LGBT side on that issue, siding with those who want to let men into womens locker rooms and bath rooms. McCrory now supports cancelling common decency and common sense.
Mark Walker is another cancel culture warrior, having voted for a bill to remove monuments of anyone who served the Confederacy from the US Capitol and for a bill to rename Fort Bragg and other military bases named for Confederate generals. Walker even voted to override President Trump’s veto of the latter bill. In supporting the “woke” cancel culture on those bills, Walker voted with Nancy Pelosi and against the majority of Republican congressmen.
Ted Budd, on the other hand has a consistent record of standing up against the wokesters of the cancel culture. He voted with President Trump to keep Fort Bragg as Fort Bragg, for example. Ted Budd has the sort of backbone we need in the Senate.
Did McCrory appoint Kim Westbrook Strach Exec Director of the SBOE?
Pat McCrory accomplished nothing on his own as Governor. He took credit for the ideas and accomplishments of the Republican led General Assembly, and with the support of previous Democrat Governors he sued his fellow Republicans in the Legislature! He sold out our Commercial Fishermen as well as the residents of the I77 Corridor. We had to override several of his vetoes, and he wouldn’t listen to the advice of anyone, to include his own ‘advisors’! He doesn’t need to be elected to anything!
I’m all in for Ted Budd. He has turned out to be an excellent Conservative Congressman. He was my congressman until they redrew the districts. While I know Mark Walker personally and like him, I fully agree with all the other comments. I worked on his original campaign and was disgusted with him when his first vote was for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. From that moment forward, I knew that D.C. would swallow him up. He turned out to be just another Republican to go along to get along. I was real disappointed.
My only concern for Ted Budd is his lack of statewide name recognition.
Someone did a smear piece on Ted Budd, and conned Big League Politics into running it. It was so nonsensical, it is amazing anyone fell for it, but First in Freedom Daily and the Beaufort Observer both republished it. The allegation was that Ted Budd was just running as a spoiler to split the conservatives to let McCrory have the nomination, giving up his congressional seat to do that, and aimed specifically at weakening Mark Robinson for 2024, even though Robinson was not even talking about running for Senate at the time. The unnamed sources for this smear were “people at the NCGOP”. Dallas Woodhouse was cited in other articles on the Senate race at FIFD.
Since the smear falsely tried to paint Walker as a conservative, the likely culprits are connected to his campaign, although the use of smears in campaigns is more a trademark of some of those around McCrory, Walker, who has been endorsed by big time RINO Paul Ryan is, of course, no conservative. The charge against Budd was nonsense, and part of the effort of those pushing the smear was in fact to split the conservative vote by getting Robinson in the race, and to damage both Budd and Robinson.
Ted Budd is a solid conservative and I would be proud to have him as a Senator, as I also would Lara Trump. Walker or McCrory? Not so much.