Robin Hayes: “Mebbe it IS my fault.”
There sure is a lot of blame being passed around. A lot of finger-pointing.
Two weeks ago, during a speech in Raleigh, NCGOP chairman Robin Hayes said Pat McCrory’s loss in the gubernatorial race was ALL THE FAULT of McCrory and his people. (And NOT him.)
Got it? Well, after that, McCrory stepped out at a GOP event and endorsed Hayes’s bid for a full term as chairman. (Remember, Hayes was installed as a result of an establishment coup against a duly-elected Tea Party-aligned chairman. Who, by coincidence I’m sure, happened to be the first black person elected to the post.)
*Be sure to ask someone named Craig Collins about how much good endorsements by Pat McCrory do you in NCGOP chairman races. *
After the McCrory endorsement, Hayes changed his tune about the 2016 governor’s race. At the 3rd district race, he grumbled about how those damned Tea Party, grassroots types cost McCrory his reelection. *Oh what a difference two weeks can make. * (I wonder what the ol’ codger will be saying two weeks from NOW?)
The last year has been good to old man Hayes. The state GOP appears to have picked up the tab for the fuel for Hayes’s private plane. And now it appears the state party has paid for the production of a “Shareholder’s Report” allegedly meant to promote the party’s, um, “successes” over the last year or so. Right in the middle of a heated state party chairman’s race. Conveniently, as shown HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE, the “report” does an awful lot of promotion of Hayes himself. (Who needs Donald Trump when you have Dallas Woodhouse and his Grandpa?)
Jim Womack, Hayes’s opponent in the chairman’s race, is clearly not amused. Here he is in a statement released today:
[…] First, this self-aggrandizing report was sent to NCGOP members and prospective donors at the expense of the NCGOP. I’m sure Mr. Hayes believes it legal (even if unethical) to send such a report to members of the NCGOP just prior to the 2017 election.
In other words, he is using this party-funded mailer as free promotion of his meager accomplishments in the 2016 election cycle in hopes it helps him secure more votes for his re-election bid.Second, he entitled the brochure as a “Shareholder’s Report.” Noticeably absent in his addressees list were the vast majority of NCGOP shareholders- the ones Mr. Hayes discounts, but who delivered the votes he is taking credit for- grass roots Republicans. Some of them are already asking, “Where is my dividend !?!”Third, Mr. Hayes is crowing only about the races we won in 2016, failing to note Republicans lost control of two branches of government – Executive and Judicial – under his watch in 2016.Fourth, in a rare instance of goal-setting, Mr. Hayes brags about setting the objective of raising $750,000 this calendar year for the NCGOP.
Close examination of past odd-year fundraising indicates Mr. Hayes is seeking to raise $450,000 less than his predecessor did in 2003; $230,000 less than in 2005; $205,000 less than in 2007; $170,000 less than in 2009; $170,000 less than in 2011; $440,000 less than in 2013; and $390,000 less than in 2015. According to FEC Reports, one would have to go back 20 years to find an odd-year fundraising tally of $750,000 or less for the NCGOP.
I suppose Mr. Hayes is just trying to manage expectations for anticipated low fundraising performance in 2017. Maybe if we offered him some more jet fuel at party expense he could fly around the state collecting additional funds.As a side note- Mr. Hayes’ predecessor in 2015 was Mr. Hasan Harnett, who Hayes claims could not raise money and who was summarily fired from his job for alleged gross inefficiency. […]
Collins got a Consolation Prize for losing the Chairman’s race in 2015
http://www.gastongazette.com/article/20160304/NEWS/160309521
That Hayes campaign piece entitled ”Shareholders Report” is turning up in the mailboxes of delegates and alternates, including people who have not previously attended a convention and who have never given money to the NCGOPe. Postage is paid by the NC Republican Party non-profit bulk rate permit. Use of party money for a blatant campaign piece for Hayes is appallingly corrupt. This is Tammany Hall style politics. Hayes needs to apologize, pay the party back for this corrupt spending, and withdraw from the race.
This flagrant corruption and abuse of office by Hayes is far worse than anything the establishment ever accused Hasan Harnett of doing.
I do not know Mr. Womack. But I do know the likes of Woodhouse et al. I do know when Woodhouse was down plotting with the hacker–Ken Robol–and Ma Cottens son in law last year.
That being said revognize Harnett wasn’t the savior for our party. He should not be the line in the sand. If he is your losing the fight,
But don’t be hypocrites. If you want to be working in the party apparatus that’s fine and dandy. But I’ve seen on this site numerous times where you applaud people in leadership positions in the party for endorsing candidates in primaries yet ridicule those who do not endorse in primaries.
If you want to take the “power” of the party that’s ok. At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter. Go raise some money for your candidates!!
Why does trust fund multi-millionaire Robin Cannon Hayes think the people who contribute to the NCGOP should have to fund his campaign trips on his private plane and a campaign mailing for him from NCGOP ? Why does trust fund multi-millionaire Robin Cannon Hayes not pay for them himself instead of mooching off of NCGOP contributors? Do we need a rich boy cheapskate as our state chairman?
There is a serious problem here with a state chairman who requests such payments, with an executive director who submits them for payment, and with a treasurer who pays them. We can change the chairman at the convention, change the treasurer at the executive committee meeting after the convention, and change the executive director by getting enough decent people elected to the Central Committee to give him his walking papers.
One also wonders where they hid such items in the party budget? No wonder Hayes crammed the party budget down the Executive Committee’s throat without giving out paper copies for members to study or giving proper time to discuss the budget. What else did Hayes and Woodhouse hide in the budget? We need to clean house of this pack of scoundrels.
What is Robin Hayes’ salary from the NCGOP? If I remember correctly, it’s $0. So maybe that’s not a bad trade-off for fuel costs. In fact, he has never drawn a salary from the NCGOP while serving as chairman.
Paying for an incumbent chairman’s travel to campaign for reelection and for a very thinly disguised campaign mailing are unethical, immoral, and downright corrupt. We are not talking about plane trips back in the general election. We are talking about plane trips when Hayes was seeking reelection to the office of chairman.
With salaries in the NCGOP budget kept secret from the party bodies which are supposed to approve the budget, there is no way to tell if Hayes is getting a salary or not. Even if he were not, why should a mere figurehead get a salary? In his first term, Hayes was a figurehead with the real power exercised by Wayne King, who was vice chairman and royally screwed up the Attorney General and Secretary of State races in 2012. Now Hayes is the figurehead for Dallas Woodhouse.
Sorry. It was the State Auditor’s race, not Sec of State, that Wayne King royally screwed up while he was doing Robin Hayes job for him.