#NCSEN: ”Did I say ‘unelectable’? I meant UN-Baptist.”
I wanted to be wrong about Mark Harris. My first thought — when the Charlotte pastor filed for US Senate — was that he was a plant, a stalking horse, to help split the conservative vote to Thom Tillis’ benefit. My suspicions were heightened when I noticed his campaign, and its supporters, spending an inordinate amount of time criticizing Greg Brannon and basically ignoring Tillis. It didn’t help either to see Robin Hayes — a longtime Tillis crony — serving as Harris’ campaign chairman.
I had a chance to meet and interview Harris. After talking with him a few hours, I began to second-guess myself. Harris portrayed himself as genuinely having a lot of the same concerns we, here, have had about the House speaker: lobbyist love, pay-to-play, UNC Board of Governors, watering down / derailing good conservative legislation.
The Charlotte pastor soon doubled down on his comments to me by ramping up his criticism of Tillis — questioning the man’s ethics and electability. Now comes word that Harris is appearing with Susan Tillis — wife of Thom — at a general election campaign event in Winston-Salem. 
Huh? How does that work? One day you’re telling us this man is lacking a moral or ethical compass and is unelectable, and the next day you’re telling us we need to VOTE FOR THE MAN ???
I know. I can just hear all of the spin about being a “good party man.” But the guy kinda painted himself into a corner with his hard-nosed criticism of Tillis.
What this appears to say about Mark Harris is that he will say whatever is convenient for him at that moment, and palatable to the audience in front of him. Those are character traits that are less-than-desirable in government leaders AND pastors.
Amen!
“Huh? How does that work? One day you’re telling us this man is lacking a moral or ethical compass and is unelectable, and the next day you’re telling us we need to VOTE FOR THE MAN ???”
How does that work?
I think it is called politics.
Funny that the Harris supporters are now saying it’s all the Brannon supporters that ruined the race , though seems to me it might have been the guy who came in 3rd that did that.
What ruined the race were the outside interlopers – Rove, the NRSC, and the US Chamber of Corruption – meddling in our primary. Tilli$ is bought and paid for by those out of state interlopers. Of course, Hagan meddling in it to try to get Tillis as an opponent, also stunk.
Don’t forget the other interlopers: FreedomWorks and Patriot Citizens Fund.
Seems that several of the candidates were getting funding and endorsements from outside the state. I do not recall any of the candidates refusing endorsements or checks from the interlopers.
One candidate’s interloper is another candidate’s foe unless the interloper lopes over to his or her corner. Then they are patriots who understand the Constitution.
I don’t beleive FreedomWorks bought any ads. I wish they had in order to counter Boss Hog Rove’s barrage of ads and the Chamber of Corruption’s barrage of ads. That Patriot Front turned out to be a democrat front, sort of like the ”Americans for a Conservative Direction” that was run by liberal Obama Democrat billionaire Mark Zuckerburg and spent big to back Ellmers.
Out of state supporters giving a check to a candidate is one thing. Running a massive campaign for them like Karl-Marx Rove did is another thing entirely.
Tillis is more the Rove nominee for US Senate than the Republican nominee.
Oh come on, that’s the primary process. After the primary it’s called party unity. Hint: that’s how we win elections. The dems can do it, so should we. I am also very tired of voting for the lesser of 1 evils. McCain and Romney were my last choices for president. But Obyeme is much, much worse.
Should Harris disengage now? Or does he think perhaps that Tillis is better than Hagan? And wouldn’t it be nice to say goodbye to Harry Reid being front and center all the time?
I wanted Brannon to win but I think 2 things hurt his chances of winning the primary: the civil law suit and voting for Ron Paul. I totally get why he did it but it would have come back to bite him in the general.
Tillis supporters putting out Harris signs was a dead give away. Just saying….
The man didn’t stand a chance. Anyone who thought he did, is completely out of touch with the state of things.
If indeed he is a bible believing, bible preaching preacher, there is only one place he needs to be. Its called the pulpit!
I have to admit that everytime I try to see tea party activists as more than just spoiled brats who get pissed they aren’t invited into decision making by GOP party leaders after they throw their little hissy fits and lose, my efforts to change my views as hampered by blog posts like this.
I agree with 90% of what all of the major GOP candidates for senate said their stands were…prolife, progrowth, anti-Obamacare, etc…….so glad we had so many good candidates running.
To answer your question regarding Rev. Harris as to why he would ask us to vote for Tillis…..it is because Rev. Harris knows that EVERYONE who is prolife, progrowth and antiObamacare needs to work to defeat Hagan who is antilife, antigrowth and PRO-Obamacare.
What is it about tea party people that they value an antiestablishment leadership style above a candidate’s actual stands on the positions? For the life of me, that approach is not only ill-advised by also self-defeating.
anyway, to each his or her own. Love the stands the Tea Party takes, don’t care much for their spokesmen or approach to politics.
You may have been observant at the debate, but clearly not elsewhere. Tillis is no conservative. He is a Big Government Republican, who, at best talks out of both sides of this mouth. I am not someone who showed up with the Tea Party, but a conservative Republican activist who was around many years before the Tea Party was ever thought of, and sound stands on issues are the key to my backing a candidate. I put conservative policy ahead of mere party labels and always have.
Where does Tillis really stand on Obamacare? Who knows? Tillis plays both sides. Yes, he says he is against Obamacare now, but in 2011, he used his clout as Speaker to push a bill through the NC House to create a state Obamacare exchange in North Carolina, and in 2012, Tillis held out with the Governor to try to keep their options open on the Obamacare Medicaid expansion until Berger and the Senate called their hand on it and made them go along with killing the expansion. Earlier this year, Tillis actually called Obamacare ”a great idea” in an interview.
Only naive fools believe what politicians say. Anyone who knows politics looks at what they do, and Tillis has done too many things on too many issues that scream loudly that he is not a conservative.
Tillis has a chance in this session of the legislature to actually DO a few things that would show a conservative bent to his policy. He could use his clout to get the Common Core repeal bill through and the Renewable Energy Mandate repeal bill adopted. Will he man up and do it? I guess we will see. His actions this session could give conservative voters reason to rally to him or to shun him. The ball is in Tillis’ court.
Oh, and ”pro growth”????? Mindlessly raising electric rates for consumers, both residential and business is as anti-growth as one can get, and yet Tillis has a record of supporting green boondoggles that do just that. Tillis was one of only a few Republicans to vote for Senate Bill 3 that created the Renewable Energy Mandate back when the Democrats were in control and pushed it through. As Speaker he used his clout to kill the Republican attempt to repeal it. Tillis may be in bed with the small clique of crony capitalists who benefit from this mandate, but it hurts most businesses that use electricity and virtually all consumers. What Tillis did is pro-boondoggle, not pro-business or pro-growth.
I am still watching Tillis to decide what to do. Having an R by his name is not enough. He has to demonstrate solid conservative policy, and that is what I am waiting for.
During the primary race, Harris repeatedly called into question Tillis’s character and judgement, and I think rightly so.
The fact that he now thinks that a man of such questionable character and judgment is worthy of support and to hold office…. that tells me quite a bit about Mr. Harris’s character and judgement too.
Just like with his comments on amnesty – he’s either being deceptive then, or he’s being deceptive now. Either way… I see no point in ever bothering to consider and place value on whatever Mr. Harris has to say.
You know, that is like Tillis’ comments on amnesty, when he told the NC Farm Bureau that he supports ”a pathway to citizenship” for illegal aliens (which IS amnesty) but then told conservatives he was ”against amnesty”. Was Tillis lying the first time or was he lying the second time?
Indeed! And that’s my problem with Tillis– I can’t believe anything he says! If he was a man of integrity, a man of his word, I would have no problem voting for him in spite of the fact that I disagree with him on several issues. I haven’t decided how I’ll vote yet, as I keep hoping Tillis will do something to redeem himself. I’m not holding my breath on that though.
Oh, I think he’s a man of his word… you apparently just have to write a big enough check first 🙂
They are both trying to have their cake and eat it too…. by using a narrow, technical definition of “amnesty” (that most people do not use), they’ve created a specific point to “pretend argue” against that mostly just exists in their own minds.
They’re rationalizing their deception, and frankly, just trying to fool people.
Raphael, get us a writein on the ballot for Dr. Greg Brannan, believe he would win in November
With 8 people in the primary it was always going to be a sideshow. The winner was always destined to face an uphill battle. Tillis may not win but he was the only viable candidate. The rest of the candidates only appealed to fringe groups and that was evidenced by the vote count.
You should never avoid the final vote count. The low information voters spoke. The high information voters spoke. The RINO’s spoke. Everyone got a chance to vote and Tillis was the clear winner. The rest of the field was just there for window dressing.
Are you listening to that self-centered bully and would-be party boss Karl-Marx Rove again? The guy who lost 10 or the 12 US Senate races he has been involved in?
The reality was reflected by the polls, which showed in Fall matchups, Tillis was the weakest candidate in the GOP field. Tillis is also the only one who will not be able to get traction with our best issue, Obamacare, due to his own record on the subject (shades of Romney).
The only place I know of that you can readily compare an issues oriented conservative campaign side by side with a namby-pamby Rove campaign in 2012 was North Dakota. That is due to their House seat being statewide at-large and both the House and Senate seats being open with no incumbent. The House nominee was a staunch conservative, backed by the Club for Growth, who ran on red meat conservative issues. He won handily. The Senate candidate was a Karl Rove backed establishment guy who talked about being bi-partisan and reaching across the aisle. He lost miserably. It seems to me that conservative issues work and wimpy moderates are losers.
??? So are you saying Rev. Mark Harris ran to defeat Dr. Brannon? That is crazy.
I would say that Dr. Brannon was the Candidate that got used. He was used by Paul INC. to build a Base for Rand in 2016. Thus why Paul INC. had him build a ground game with no BRAND ID for Dr. Brannon ie media buys. PAUL INC ran the campaign team. Ask Glenn Bradley he fully agrees that Paul INC used Dr. Brannon.
All Elections have negative outcomes. However we conservative republicans must UNITE to defeat Kay HAGAN…. We need to keep our Eye on the ball. We need to take the US Senate…
All this crazy talk over who won is nuts….. This Crazy talk is why Republicans lose to Democrats …. Maybe some of you want Hagan to win. Then you are a no better than a LIBERAL to me.
I hope to see many of you at the Sat RLC BBQ at the cabins in Cherokee!
This is all about CONSERVATIVES who believe in small government winning, not about who has an R by their name. Tillis is a long way from making the sale to conservatives on issues, and if he does not get with the program on that, many conservatives are not going to bother to vote for him in November. He has his chances in the legislative session. Lets see if he mans up or not. His witchhunt against Robert Brawley, who is ten times the man Tillis is, was not a good sign. Neither is his telling that radio interview that he did not intend to try to mend fences with conservatives.
Conservatives problem with Tillis has nothing to do with Brannon. It has everything to do with Tillis and his extremely lousy record. If he wants our votes, he is going to have to change his ways.
You are certainly jumping to unfounded conclusions! I have known Mark Harris for years, and if there was ever an honest, truthful man of his word, a small government Reagan conservative who loves his country, that would be Mark! I agree that having had RINO Robin Hayes in the mix was a bad idea; however, it was not a political underhanded ploy on Mark’s part. As for throwing his support behind Tillis now that he’s the Republican candidate, like him or not, the bigger picture is to WIN THE SEAT TO DEFEAT HAGAN, TO THROW HARRY REID OUT, AND CONTROL THE SENATE. Anyone who loses sight of that is not looking at the big picture. We have to win control of the Senate!!! So hold your nose, like the rest of us, and vote for Tillis whom we can throw out at the first opportunity. But please do not malign Mark Harris who is an honorable man! GOD BLESS AMERICA.
I’ll give your spin more credence when I see seven progressives running against one conservative in a Republican primary. Better yet, maybe when I see pigs fly.
Just a thought…
Maybe he doesn’t want Hagan to win.