NC-02: Amnesty IS the elephant in the room
US House Speaker John Boehner says he’s ready to get amnesty done, and it appears Renee Ellmers wants to help. Boehner and Ellmers have done something akin to dumping chum in a shark tank — injecting a very controversial issue into a race in a relatively safe GOP district with a Republican incumbent.
Big business types across the state and the nation have been pressuring Ellmers and other Republicans in Congress to support amnesty. Many Tea Partiers are hoping that she’ll be as aggressive and enthusiastic about passing amnesty as she was about repealing ObamaCare.
She has a low-budget, lesser-known primary opponent in radio host and economics professor Frank Roche. Re-election in this district should be a cakewalk for a GOP incumbent. But Ellmers’ embrace of House leaders — and her support of their positions on ObamaCare, the debt ceiling, federal spending, and amnesty — have helped add a lot of drama to a race that really shouldn’t have had any. The fiscally-conservative Club For Growth has identified Ellmers as having the second most-liberal voting record among North Carolina’s Republicans in Congress.
Adding to those problems has been her low level of public visibility in the district. 
Roche has been ginning up a lot of enthusiasm among district residents for his criticisms of the amnesty deal being pushed by congressional Republican leaders. He’s been endorsed by anti-amnesty groups like NC Listen and ALIPAC. Roche has compensated for his small campaign treasury by implementing a grassroots campaign strategy dominated by town hall meetings.
Democrats actually have an interesting primary here in the district — headlined by former state commerce secretary Keith Crisco and pop music star Clay Aiken. The national Democrat Party has actually identified this year’s 2nd district race as ‘competitive.’
In 2010, Ellmers rode enthusiastic Tea Party support to eke out an upset victory in a Democrat-leaning district over incumbent Democrat Bob Etheridge. Since then, her relationship with grassroots conservatives has eroded dramatically.
It can be argued that Ellmers won in 2010 because (1) her name was not Bob, and (2) she was not on video trying to choke two kids on a sidewalk in broad daylight. This year, a case could be made that the winner pulls out the victory in the 2nd district because their name is NOT Renee.
Renee Ellmers is an undocumented Democrat. In claiming to be a Republican, she is as phony as a three peso bill. The only candidate in the 2nd district who is worth voting for at any point in 2014 is Frank Roche.
Not a huge fan of Roche, but he would be an improvement over Ellmers. I think Ellmers gets the prize for the fastest ever conversion from a popular, non-establishment outsider to a tone-deaf, establishment insider.
I think Ellmers was “co-opted”, as Trent Lott’s famously said, within a VERY short time of entering Congress. Just ~two months into her first term, she came to a town hall type event and did not take any questions or discuss issues with constituents. Instead, she was all about telling the people in the room the Republican leadership’s plans.
It was clear even at that time that she was not only smitten with being in DC, as if she could not believe her good luck in winning her election, but that she was totally on board with leadership. These past 3 years have only solidified this opinion.
Yes, Mr. Roche is a radio host and economics Professor. He is also extremely bright, focused, and a man of his word. He is a true conservative who understands the issues and will not march to the beat of the establishment drums. It is time for Ms. Ellmers to go, to say she has disappointed her constituents is an understatement.
Frank Roche is a very worthy Tea Party candidate.
See: http://www.FrankRocheForCongress.com
This article which was posted on another site shows why it is essential that Republican primary voters defeat all of our pro-amnesty incumbents and deny nomination to other pro-amnesty candidates.
http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/05/amnesty-is-a-vote-killer-for-gop-says-washpo-poll/
This Washington Post poll shows supporting amnesty to be toxic to GOP candidates as to getting elected in the general election this year.
Of course, longer term it changes the demographics to make the GOP a permanent minority as America degenerates into a third world socialist banana republic. Look at the polling on issues as to illegal aliens. They are much more oriented in favor of big government than our own citizens, and will swell the ranks of those clamoring for more welfare handouts.
Renee Ellmers is one pro-amnesty incumbent who needs to go, and Thom Tilli$ is a pro-amnesty candidate who needs to be stopped from getting a nomination.
AMERICANS ARE RECOGNIZING THAT IMMIGRATION IS EVERY ISSUE!
Any form of amnesty (legalization, work permits, path to citizenship, DACA) for 20-30 million, together with massive increases in legal immigration, guest workers and chain migration would severely degrade and irreversibly destroy most aspects of life in this country……….the rule of law, U.S. sovereignty, jobs/employment, taxes, entitlements, healthcare, schools, the ability of the poor to be employed and climb the ladder out of poverty, our childrens’ futures, our two-party system, and preserving a free, constitutional republic.
Americans are coming to understand this. There is no undoing the damage that would be done by the kind of amnesty/immigration plan embodied by the Gang of 8 or Boehner’s draft principles.