NC-03: Army SF vet sets his sights on Greg Murphy in GOP US House primary
If you take a look at Tony Cowden’s website and other social media, he comes off like an action movie hero. It sounds like he’s done some impressive things in his life.
However, his latest challenge involves bringing congressman Greg Murphy back home from Washington, DC.
Check out this excerpt from Cowden’s campaign Facebook page:
Walter Jones represented the 3rd district in Washington for so long because he always did what he said. His word was his bond. Jones passed away and Greg Murphy was one of 17 candidates who sought to replace him.
Former congressman Mark Meadows and current Rep. Jim Jordan campaigned hard for Murphy. Murphy hugged up to those guys during the campaign and promised to join their Freedom Caucus team. Many folks I’ve heard from in the 3rd tell me the support from Meadows and Jordan made the difference in their vote FOR Murphy. As soon as Murphy made it to Washington, he abandoned Jordan and The Freedom Caucus and hugged up to Kevin McCarthy (RINO-CA) — the supreme leader of the same ‘Swamp’ that Murphy verbally trashed in his first run for Congress.
Cowden’s bio and website make him look tailor-made for The House Freedom Caucus. I don’t see him having to work too hard to convince the voters of his bona fides.
Somebody out there is putting in a solid effort to get Special Forces vets to run for Congress. (I believe at least one of those organizations is right here in Moore County.) Murphy may find himself up against a national movement this primary season — as well as his angry constituents.
Murphy’s NC House record was a tip off in case anyone bothered to look and unfortunately, too many were fooled. Don’t expect this to be a two way race, Murphy’s establishment friends will get one or more vote splitting alternative candidates in there. The GOP NC house and Senate caucuses screwed us all by dropping the primary win threshold down to 30%.
You’re right about this not being a two-way race. I see where Tony Cowden has been joined by three others in opposition to Greg Murphy in the Republican primary: Eric Earhart, Brian Friend, and George Papastrat.
That 30% threshold was nothing but an incumbent protection plan for primaries and is rotten to the core. The swampy GOP “leadership” in the legislature crammed it through by corruptly abusing a technique known as a “committee substitute” . They rewrote the bill at the very last minute before sending it to the floor, deliberately blindsiding the GOP activists who want open primaries, not rigged pro-incumbent primaries. This is just one of many reasons the Republican base needs a complete and total turnover of leadership in both the House and Senate.
That same corrupt use of “committee substitutes” to blindside the party base has been used for lots of things that the leadership knows the party base has no desire for. They used it to repeal the popular bathroom privacy bill HB2. They used it to create the corrupt alternative party committees. They used it to pass Biden’s energy agenda, HB951, also known as NC’s Green New Deal in the last session. Committee substitutes do not give GOP activists time to communicate to legislators their displeasure with what the swampy “leadership” is doing. Using this process is spitting in the eye of the grassroots.
The 30% threshold not only screws conservatives in legislative races, but it also makes it easier for swamp creatures like Burr, Tillis, and McCrory to capture statewide nominations.
Murphy is a good guy. He will get re-elected…. I live in the district … he has broad support and is well liked. Thats the report from a local.
I’m a local and I disagree. YOu should read my emails to him. LIKED, not by me. NOT drinking the NC or National GOP kool-aide and their horrid records and their sit on their A*** candor. NC has been UNDER a SOE for 2Y, crickets. National GOP have ALLOWED this country to be destroyed and crickets….AND, somehow, Murphy and ‘all the rest’ think we will run to the polls in 2022 and 2024 and pull the R lever just because there is a R behind their name. Well, the R for me stands for RUN the other way. DONE with this worthless, wreckless, do-nothing attitudes.
Representation is not about whether someone is a ‘good guy’, it’s about whether they are representing you the way you would expect them to. What has he done to fight the problems we currently have? Did he put in a bill to open the pipelines, or to curtail any of the Illegitimate Presidents Executive Orders? We need people who will stand up to those trying to destroy this country from the inside! We need people willing to go toe to toe with the leftists and their politically correct nonsense! We need fighters! If that does not sound like our incumbent, let’s look at the alternatives. We the People.
Right. This guy is an accommodationist for the Interests That Be. No way does he measure up to the high standards set by Jesse Helms for a conservative officeholder. But to GOP primary voters, I say, if you like what you’re getting, keep voting the way you have, for the likes of this pretender. Kevin McCarthy doesn’t deserve another shot at the Speakership after he screwed up in 2016 and neither does his flunky Murphy.
Activists around the 3rd district I talk to are mixed on Murphy. Some are comfortable with him and will support him again, but many see his voting record as passable but not great and are either open to a new candidate or pushing for a new candidate. As has been mentioned above, in the state legislature, Murphy was known as an establishment guy, but he has been trying to craft a more conservative image in Congress. He has someone from Breitbart that puts quotes from him regularly on their site. Murphy has ambitions for higher office and that leads him to cozy up to the establishment leadership while trying to make himself look conservative to the voters. As Mike Speciale points out he is not a fighter in Congress at a time we desperately need fighters. He is far from achieving the loyalty from grassroots voters that Walter Jones used to have. Beating an incumbent is never easy unless they have screwed up on something really major, but Murphy is not yet entrenched and a well run and well financed campaign could conceivably beat him.