Reading the writing on the wall
I’ve heard a lot about the political prowess of state Rep. David Lewis. Like Kenny Rogers sang “You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away, know when to run.”
Lewis’s announcement that he was not seeking re-election to his RNC post was a clear example of Lewis reading the writing on the wall and realizing it was time to lay down his cards and leave the game.
Some have suggested he was leaving to clear a path for another establishment candidate. If that were the case, why would he make the announcement on a Friday — a day on which you typically break news you want buried? Also, if that were the case, this new establishment candidate would have likely been introduced shortly after the announcement.
There was a very aggressive effort to hit him with a ‘no confidence’ vote at a recent NCGOP leadership meeting. A cabal of legislators and hardcore party kool-aid drinkers saved his neck that time.
But the reelection fight for the RNC post would be different. It would be at the state convention, and would be wide open to the paying delegates. You know, the same folks who elected Hasan Harnett over Lewis’s endorsed choice last year. It’s pretty clear — given the current state of affairs within the NCGOP — that the long knives of the grassroots would be out for Lewis. The votes are not likely to be there for him this time.
Lewis’s House colleague, Mark Brody, has already thrown his hat in the ring for the RNC race. I am also hearing about one or two more, non-elected Tea Party types being bandied about as potential candidates for the post.
This is positive news. Let’s hope the new RNC committeeman is one who is more loyal and responsive to the outside-the-beltline average North Carolinians than to the DC-Raleigh cartel.
Glen Bradley challenged Lewis at the 2008 convention and got about 1/3 of the vote even than. Nobody knew who Bradley was back then. There has always been a section of the party ready to overturn the established order but getting the additional votes didn’t appear possible until the election of Hasan last year.
I think it’s clear the $90 admission fee is an attempt to keep control by the OG. Maybe it’ll be their Waterloo.
Hopefully, that will make people mad enough to show up and throw the rascals out. The amount of that fee shows the complete bad faith of the Central Committee cabal. It is not about raising money. It is about suppressing the vote.
What we really need is a conservitive republican woman to step up and run for national committee women …… any brave convervitive women in the state will to run?
Id love to see Pattie Curran run for this!
she is busy running for congress right ? Who else ?
Absolutely right! Ada Fisher has become one of the worst establishment hacks on the Central Committee. She needs to go. I hope we will see her retirement letter hard on the heels of that from Lewis.
After the last national convention there was an effort from the grassroots and conservatives on the RNC to change a heavy handed rule that the Romney people had put in at the convention. The NCGOP state executive committee passed a resolution instructing our RNC reps to back the conservative effort to change the rule back to what it was before the convention. Lewis ducked the RNC meeting. Fisher went and voted with the establishment against the conservatives. She came home and claimed she had voted with the conservatives but a video of the vote showed she was lying. Several district executive committees demanded that the Central Committee investigate and take action. Claude Pope appointed a committee but then swept the matter under the rug and nothing was ever done. Fisher richly deserves to be voted out of office for that act of treachery.
Rumor is that Zan Bunn may run for Committeewoman, but she is a major leader in the present Central Committee cabal and would be as bad as Fisher. We need a conservative grassroots choice.
We need a conservative grassroots choice.???? so who could this be ??? and are they willing ??? The count down to the overpriced convention has already started
“Fisher richly deserves to be voted out of office for that act of treachery.”
Betrayal it was, to be sure, but the more legal reason to send her packing is that it was an act of insubordination to the Executive Committee.
There are YouTube videos of that vote in Tampa on the rules, and it’s clear Paliamentary rules were run roughshod by Priebus and Boehner. I was so disgusted with it – I think that was the beginning of the end for me as a participant in the GOP.
The executive committee instructed Ada Fisher to vote to fix it, but she defected to the establishment side, and then lied about it. She needs to be GONE.
Mark Brody is running. See Ad above.
Mark Brody a good man. However suggesting Lewis who has stymied ya’ll time and time again in running from you is ridiculous. I’m not arguing the substance oh either yours or his stance. Just saying a little humility by ya’ll might work.
I did not support the effort to oust David Lewis at the Executive Committee meeting because I did not think it was the right way to handle the situation, and I knew it would not work. I always believed that the proper way to handle the situation, if people wanted him out, was to run someone against him at this year’s convention and vote him out. I’m not saying whether I thought it needed to be done. I will just say I am the one who nominated him at the convention in 2012, and I would not do it again. I feel the same way about what is being done to Hasan. Trying to force him out with a no confidence vote or forcing him to resign is not the right way to handle the situation. If people want him out, let them elect someone in his place next year. As for me, I support Hasan, and I believe if he had been given a chance, if the power mongers had really tried to work with him, instead of trying to undermine him from before he was even elected, none of this brawl would be happening now. It is an unfortunate and embarrassing spectacle that is not helping the Party at all. When Claude Pope was elected chairman, I don’t know of any of us treating him with this kind of disrespect and refusal to cooperate with him.