#NCGOP: All the way with A.J.?
Claude Pope isn’t running again for state chairman. All kinds of establishment types have fallen behind somebody named Craig Collins to replace him. Somebody named Hasan Harnett is also seeking the chairmanship. Of course, Carolyn Justice — a reformed (?) Richard Morgan groupie — is running again for vice-chairman. As you can imagine, there is a significant crowd of activists who are not thrilled with the current choices for the next generation of party leadership.
We reported in November about some talk on the street of 6th congressional district chairman — and former NC Secretary of State candidate — A.J. Daoud eyeing a run for state party chairman. A “Draft A.J.” page has suddenly showed up on Facebook.
March is the month for all of these county GOP conventions. If you want to have a say in the state chairman’s race, you need to go to your county convention and get appointed to represent the county at the state level.
There are a lot of activists who are excited about Hasan Harnett, who understands the essence of the platform is about limited government. What’s there not to like?
It would be helpful if maybe you could get him to come on this site to answer some questions. Personally, I have a concern about his RNC connections. RNC has not been friendly to conservatives these days. Also, his resume seems a bit thin, but then so does that of Collins. He is a candidate I would consider, but I need to know more about him.
Plus he needs to explain why in 2008 he voted in the Democrat primary not a Republican primary…. who vets this people. the liberals????
When did he register Republican? How was he registered before? Obviously not Republican if he voted in a Democrat primary.
We are having way too much of that. Our GOP House Speaker hiring a chief of staff with a history of voting in Democrat primaries, and now a candidate for state chairman?
“if the resolution for a closed primary that is circulating the county conventions is any clue… they are not looking for any votes from independents either.” Posted by Chris Weaver on March 10, 2015
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My county convention will be held this Saturday. Will the resolution for a closed primary be circulated at all county conventions?
Unaffiliateds as a whole are more liberal than registered Republicans, and as more Democrats switch to Unaffiliated that is becoming more so. The big champion of Unaffiliateds voting in GOP prtimaries the last time it came up was Skip Stam, who ranks as one of the most liberal members of the NC House according to the Civitas rating.
Raphael, my county convention will be held this Saturday. Do you know whether the resolution for a closed primary will be circulated at all county conventions?
I am not sure who is circulating it, but based on the fact that my county chairman has not mentioned it, I feel certain it did not get circulated to my county.
I don’t know what County you’re in but they are a few County Chairmen who are dead-set against closing the Primary. But I know of at least seven counties who have or will present a resolution in favor of closing the Republican Primary this month in time for the 2016 Primary.
Craig Collins knows NC by starting as a precinct chair, then a county chair, and now as a district chair. All fundamental in leading a state party. Craig also knows that the main job of the state chairman is to raise money and he is ready to get this started ASAP. Craig believes in accountability and transparency. I feel he will be a fantastic state chair.
Carolyn Justice is the choice for vice chair. She has served as a state legislator and is a straight on person. Craig and Carolyn will work together as a team; something we haven’t seen in this state in a long time.
You are starting to fill in the glaring absence of a political resume in the email that was sent out, and those details are helpful. However, if he was so good at raising money, why did he utterly fail to demonstrate that as a district chairman (as shown by 10th district GOP finance reports)? While the chairman has played a bigger role in raising money in recent times, calling that the position’s ”main job” shows a lack of understanding of the Plan of Organization and of the leadership role of the chairman. If that is what he mainly intends to do, the specific position responsible for raising money is the fNCGOP Finance Chairman, not the state chairman.
When you endorse Richard Morgan supporter Carolyn Justice and tie her to Collins, it makes Collins less appealing. The stench of Richard Morgan just does not wear off. Collins would have been a lot morecredible if he had not attached himself to Carolyn Justice or Dee Stewart.
Not only that, but I define the primary job of the State Chair to provide guidance, very public CONSERVATIVE guidance if necessary, to Republican officeholders who seem to be drifting steadily leftward since 2010. That’s not going to happen with this “team” as witness the endorsements they’ve racked up from those same officeholders.
Starting last year, there’s been firm pushback from the top of the NCGOP against the idea that the Party has a role in holding elected officials accountable to the platform. Robin Hayes stated in no uncertain terms at the last State ExComm meeting that he was in that the party should leave legislation to the legislators. The Meck GOP passed a rule prohibiting any resolutions which address legislation.
There’s a coordinated, concerted effort to stymie efforts by party activists to weigh in on matters of public policy, to prevent the party from holding anyone’s feet to the fire, ever.
There is a huge need to find a candidate to run against Carolyn Justice for Vice Chairman. She lacks party experience and lacks sound political judgment. Twice while I have been active in the GOP, a state vice chairman has served for a number of months as Acting Chairman when the state chairmen involved first took a leave of absence and then resigned. We need a vice chairman we can trust and who has party experience.
Justice’s lack of political judgment was dramatically shown when she backed the RIchard Morgan rebellioin against the GOP caucus in the NC House. This was not a split second mistake. Justice backed the Morgan rebellion over many months and even defended it in public including in the media. Morgan himself was thrown out of the party by overwhelming vote of the state GOP executive committee for what he did, and he and many of his legislative backers were defeated in primaries for doing it. What they did was extremely outrageous behavior, and those involved have shown such a lack of political judgement and indeed political integrity, that they should never be allowed to hold major party office.
According to all of Carolyn Justice’s political resumes, all of her ”experience” was in elected public office, not in party office, and those are two very different animals. She does not have the experience in party office to hold such a high position in the party structure.
If she had fullfilled her responsibilities, Justice would have gained some party experience. As a legislator for ten years, she automatically had a voting seat on the state GOP executive committee that would have given her party experience if she had attended meeting. However in those ten years, she failed to attend a single meeting, and has admitted that. What she did was to actually thumb her nose at hardworking party activists by going AWOL for ten years by skipping those meetings.
Unfortunately, Justice slipped in as vice chairman because she had an opponent last time who did not lift a finger to campaign prior to the meeting, and even then did not raise any of the issues swirling around Justice, so most of those voting had no idea of her Richard Morgan connections or her playing hookey from executive committee meetings for ten years.
We need to correct that at this convention.
I heard today from a Central Committee member that A. J. Daoud is definitely running for State Chairman. This is certainly a much more appealing choice than the others that are out there.
Boom
Yep I agree AJ wants the name ID. I heard the women on the central Cmte have shifted from Carolyn supporters to AJ supporters.
FWIW, my cousin is a County Chairman who mentioned that AJ showed up at their convention followed by a mysterious photographer who was taking copious shots. He said that it was intriguing since AJ didn’t say anything about running
AJ is running again for 6th district chair, the photographer is Mr. Piedad, the 6th district communications director. That being said, anything can happen and I’d support AJ for chair.