#NCSEN: Theaming up with Thom, and Piling On
If you want a good case study for why newspapers — especially those in Guilford County — are failing, check out Doug Clark’s nonsense in the pages of The Greensboro News & Record. He’s got a lot of anger and resentment bottled up — likely resulting from all those years in school where he got beat up and had his lunch money taken. He’s reliably leftist , and –interestingly — reliably in line with Theam Tillis’ talking points:
“Republican U.S. Senate candidate Greg Brannon is scheduled to defend himself in a civil court case next week against allegations he misled a pair of investors in a technology start-up, according to court documents,” WRAL’s Mark Binker reports.
Read the detailed story, and remember that a lawsuit can make any sort of allegation. Truth is another matter.
Yet, if this turns into enough trouble to drag Brannon down, it’s good news for Republicans.
How so? Because Brannon’s candidacy hurts that of Thom Tillis, the only Republican in the field who would have any chance of winning in November.
A tea party candidate will not defeat Democrat Kay Hagan.
This is the same state that sent and re-sent Jesse Helms to Washington for 30 years. The man has only been gone for two Senate terms. Mainstream media goons tried and tried to take Helms out. But he kept winning and kept laughing at them.
That whole spin about Tillis being “the only Republican in the field who would have any chance of winning in November” is laughable. The PPP polling ranked the primary field with Tillis pulling 19 percent and Brannon pulling 11 percent. There were 44 percent undecided. That lead means nothing. A total of 57 percent of respondents said they were unsure about Tillis. Roughly 75 percent said that about Brannon. It’s dishonest to paint those findings as a Tillis runaway. It shows a wide-open dogfight. Even the Democrat-leaning pollsters at PPP say that.
Tillis, speaker of the N.C. House of Representatives, is a little less conservative, although it’s questionable how much he actually would appeal to the moderate and independent voters who will determine the outcome.
It always surprises me when someone who’s never held any elective office can draw a following when he runs for a position as important as the U.S. Senate. How many people really know anything about him?
Let’s see. We have Lt. Gov. Dan Forest currently serving in his first elected position. Congressmen Richard Hudson, Mark Meadows, and George Holding are all serving their first terms in office — the first elected position for each. Mike McIntyre got elected to Congress in 1996 — in his first and only run for office. The voters gave him 18 years in DC, and the media gushed about his leadership and ability to work across the aisle.
Jim Hunt’s first run for office — which he won — was for Lt. governor. Jesse Helms’ only political experience, prior to winning the 1972 Senate race, was two terms on the Raleigh City Council from 1957-1961. Prior to his two decades (1954-1974) in the US Senate, Sam Ervin’s political career consisted of three non-consecutive terms in the NC House of Representatives (1922-24, 1924-26, and 1930-1932).
Thom Tillis had a term as a PTA president, and one 2-year term on The Cornelius Town Council before getting elected to the state legislature. He spent four years as a backbench Republican before getting elected Speaker. The PTA and the Town Council qualified him to run a chamber of the North Carolina General Assembly?
Apparently, political “experience” is not all that the media and the Tillis campaign think it’s cracked up to be.
How did John Edwards work out for us?
I guess we’re going to find out more about Brannon. It may not be what he’d want us to know.
Really? John Edwards? That guy was a slimeball well before he even thought about running for the Senate. You guys in the mainstream media followed him around all throughout his Senate and presidential campaigns — never bothering to ask who the blonde with the camera was.
The National Enquirer exposed his relationship with Miss Rielle — and you all rolled your eyes and chuckled. (As we all know, the Enquirer was the only media outlet that actually did its job in re: John Edwards. If the media — our alleged watchdogs — had actually done some hard reporting on Edwards during his 1998 campaign against Lauch Faircloth, instead of churning out sickeningly sweet items about the man and his kids, lil’ Johnny might not have ever made it to DC.)
In the end, Edwards was only found guilty of cheating on his cancer stricken wife. It’s funny how Clark and the gang view Edwards with disdain, after spending years upon years slobbering all over him.
As for finding out more about Brannon, Doug, why don’t you and your dwindling pool of minions in the newsroom help us out there? Of course — being all naive and such – we demand the truth.
(Oh, Doug. You can also search our archives for some stuff to report on regarding Tillis and Hagan. It’s clear your newsroom can’t handle the task all by their lonesome.)
Senator Jeff Tarte — a close friend and supporter of Thom Tillis — worked hard to get the legal filings in the Brannon lawsuit into the media. The mainstream media has dutifully reported the ugly details of the paperwork. Plaintiff’s lawyers are paid well to make filings look and sound as ugly as possible.
People familiar with the details of the Brannon case paint it as an ugly personal disagreement between former friends that has bubbled over into the public arena. It’s been going on for about a year. A hearing is scheduled for next week. Let’s allow the process to work.
Don’t blame Tarte- With the dwindling number of reporters in the newsrooms, some times they need help from their readers. Everyone new about Brannon’s being sued or anyone with a lexus/nexus account
Maybe Tarte needs to earn a primary from a conservative for his being an attack dog for the GOP left.
This reporter is moronic. Conservatives and non-politicians often make better candidates than opportunists of the center and politicians. For example the recent Rasmussen poll in the Kentucky Senate race shows establishment moderate Mitch McConnell tied with Democrat Allison Grimes, but Tea Party conservative businessman Matt Bevin, McConnell’s GOP primary opponent, leading Democrat Grimes by six percentage points,
Similarly, both Texas and Kentucky each have two GOP Senators, one of each being a Tea Party conservative and the other being an establishment moderate who is in the GOP leadership. In each case, the polling shows the Tea Party conservative’s favorable numbers are about thirty points higher than the establishment moderate in that state.
One wonders if their reporter is on the take from either Tilli$ or from Democrats who prefer to run against Tilli$ due to all the skeletons in his closet.
This could not have come at a worse time for Brannon and I feel it will knock him out of the race. The media will batter him even though this will help Thommy and hurt Hagan. The old guard will shy away from someone fighting a court case just like the old guard deserted poor Stevie LaRoque when he was dragged into court.
Brannon’s court case will get more attention than the Moral Monday cases, that’s for sure. He may even eclipse Chris Christie in publicity.
I think this is about as bad an omen for Brannon as when the center snapped that football over Peyton Manning’s head.
We ain’t in Kansas anymore.
LaRoque, an old Morganite, had a criminal case, while this one is civil. That is a huge difference. LaRoque was misusing public funds, which is another big difference. This is not a valid comparision. LaRoque was also a very close ally of Tilli$.
Even if the civil jury found for the plaintiffs, it would certainly go up on appeal, which would not likely be heard before election day. Most voters will give the benefit of the doubt when a case like that is still before the courts, and that is especially true when there are hugely important policy issues out there, like amnesty in the primary, and Obamacare in the general.
This surely will damage Brannon who I happen to like very much. However, I will be uncomfortable donating to his campaign until this is resolved. Like many others, I have become cynical and disillusioned about anyone’s virtue or integrity, as I am sure others have.
I do not think that it is a coincidence that FreedomWorks chose this time to endorse Brannon. They obviously had to know this was coming, and they got in there to help Brannon at a critical time.
FreedomWorks, as Brant pointed out is a game changer. They have massive resources which they are willing to deploy to help conservatives beat establishment dolts in GOP primaries, at which they have a good record of success. They have the ability to come in with outside advertising to eviscerate Tilli$ on the issues, and Tilli$ is very vulnerable there.
But, of course you never do know what juries will do, and lets say they find for the plaintiff in this civil suit. The subject matter of it does not impact average voters in any way, but it may create a bit of a sleaze factor. I would not expect that to do Tilli$ any good, because there is an old saying that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Tilli$ has a much bigger sleaze problem with using his office to help the bank that he is part owner of by killing the legislation to repeal the renewable energy mandate. Tilli$’ bank heavily invests in renewable energy. Unlike the case with Brannon, what Tilli$ does directly hits the pocket books of average voters by driving up their electric bills. I hope someone will pop an ethics complaint against Tilli$ on his bankster corruption.
I think a much bigger issue that is going to eviscerate Tilli$ as the primary campaign gets in gear will be amnesty for illegal aliens. Tilli$ told the Farm Bureau that he supports a ”pathway to citizenship” for illegal aliens, which are liberal buzzwords for amnesty. He has surrounded himself with Repubican sellouts on amnesty like Karl Rove, John Boehner, and Mitch McConnell. The GOP voter base is heavily opposed to amnesty, and when this word gets out, Tilli$ will be yesterday’s garbage. I am just waiting for the FreedomWorks ads to eviscerate Tilli$ on amnesty.
I certainly hope that conservatives will not get distracted by this little sideshow in court. There is so much more going on that is so much more important.
I stand firmly behind Dr. Brannon. I have a feeling this is nothing more than an investor not satisfied with his own decisions. There are always investors who want to be more than silent partners and are never satisfied. I believe the court will find Dr. Brannon did nothing wrong. Investing is always a risk.
When the Democrats start giving Republicans advice, should we consider it good advice? Somebodys pretty worried about this Brannon candidacy.
Noticed that. Its not like any of the other challengers are getting any attention.
The Brannon campaign evidently is doing very well and the timing of this for Brannon is no more than the Shumaker/Tillis campaign trying to divert attention from the upcoming Laroque courtroom drama. There is no credibility in the Greensboro, Raleigh, or Charlotte paper so why believe anything that they write. The Daily Haymaker has proven however to be informative.
Will Tillis come in to testify in the Laroque case. It will be great to see these papers make the connection between Tillis and Laroque. In Laroque’s own words Thom Tillis was his closest ally in the house. Even closer than Tillis’ssss married chief of staff who was having an affair with a married lobbyist in Tillis’ssss apartment in Raleigh. Even closer than his campaign consultant Paul Shumaker who was the advisor to the Morgan/Black shared speakership.
If you want to take a glance into the dark underworld that scumbag Tillis operates look no further than Netflix House of Cards series character Frank Underwood http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULwUzF1q5w4 Tillis has built a House of Cards that’s about to fall.
Evidently Shumaker and the Tillis goons got worried and rang up their friends in the media to get this piece out which should have a shelf life of only a few days. McClatchey and friends are content with a Tillis or Hagen win same net gain for the left and the establishment political class. Its about the political class and their co-opted media friends circling the wagons and protecting their own.
The ConstitutionalWar.org guy needs to hunt down consultant Paul Shumaker and shoot some video of him answering some questions. Amnesty for Illegals, married lobbyists/chief of staff apartment parties, Tillis’sss plan to “gut punch” school teachers. Did he actually advise Tillis to “gut punch” school teachers. Please post online when you have the Shumaker footage maybe campout at the end of his driveway and catch him on the way to work.