Talk about friends in low places. (Ewwww.)
Chapel Hill Republican Bradford Paisley Briner IV was already a tough pill to swallow. Most of his campaign thus far has involved trashing incumbent Republican treasurer Dale Folwell. Briner has been a Republican for all of ten minutes. (He actually took the Democrat ballot in 2020.)
Briner has spent much of his time in North Carolina apparently sleeping through meetings of UNC’s governing board while DEI and riots have ravaged state campuses.
Passionate endorsements of Briner by McClatchy vehicles in Raleigh and Charlotte are just two more middle-fingers aimed at the GOP base whose arms are already being twisted to vote for this horrid candidate.
Briner has spoken openly about bringing Wall Street vultures back inside the state retirement plan. Folwell played it safe with the retirement plan because he knew those investments were part of a lot of good people’s futures. Briner wants to show his Wall Street buddies some love and re-introduce a lot more risk — and bigger commissions — to the game.
Briner is one of three people helping Obama fan, gun-grabber and soft drink regulator Michael Bloomberg manage his money. Briner’s boss and co-worker is Steven Rattner, the manager of Obama’s takeover of the Detroit auto industry. Rattner is a big fan of investing in Red China and instituting carbon taxes. He’s also big on Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) — basically a credit rating that evaluates and rewards individuals and companies on how well in-line they are with leftist political preferences.
Rattner also got caught up in a pay-to-play scandal involving the NY state pension plan. If everything falls into place on November 5, Rattner’s protege will be quite close to the North Carolina state retirement plan.
Folks, we truly have two horrid choices for treasurer this year. Trust me folks, we will miss Dale Folwell.
I have known, and admired, Dale Folwell for a dozen years and have found him to be the most principled and ethical elected official I have ever worked with. His decisions have benefitted those retirees for whom he has been the keeper of the public purse since straightening out the money borrowed from DC during the hay days of extended unemployment and other benefits paid out by bad mandates. The State of NC will be poorer without him in state management, I will miss his work and personal ethics. Thank you, Treasurer and Public Servant Folwell.
I was booed when I questioned him at a Republican club meeting in Wake County a few weeks ago. I pointed out that “you voted Democrat and you are demonizing Dale so what is the difference if I vote Democrat”. He denied he voted Democrat. Of course his voter record says different. I will say this for him, he did talk to me afterwards. There is a reason why he is a multi millionaire. Saw him a week later and did not want to try to connect with me.
I will point out his speech between the 2 different Republican club meetings were different. Probably because Folwell was at the second meeting.
What really irks me is not that he double speaks and lied about his past voting habits is that when I pointed it out to those at the first meeting they really did not care.
However they care how I voted.
Briner and his buddy Boliek both get zeros from the gun rights groups. They are both Undocumented Democrats who should not be running as Republicans. Briners ties to Bloomberg and his ilk are positvely disqualifying, and endorsement by far left newspaper just adds to that. An endoresemnt by the Charlotte Observer or Raleigh News and Observer are aking to an endorsement from the Daily Worker or Pravda. They are both poster boys for why we need to change the law back ro require candidates to receive an actual majority to become the nominee. They are examples of what dregs you get with a 30% or 40% threshold.
I never vote for Democrats, but this pair seems to be a bridge too far. I don’t know if I could hold my nose long enough to vote for either. It was a major insult to real conservatives when this pair tried to pass themselves off as conservative in the primary. That brands both as liars. They were both, by far, the worst choices in their primaries.
I left that race alone when I voted. And the one with the Boliek fellow, too. We’re gonna be getting garbage of the political variety no matter who wins in both cases, perhaps, but I don’t have to put my stamp on it. I’m not shy about leaving a race blank if I (1) have no opinion, (2) only have one choice, or (3) don’t like either. A lot of down ballot races end up with just one candidate for me. Not sure about the rest of you, but I intensely dislike that and I will not rubber stamp a candidate who has no opposition. The way I see it, you aren’t really running if you have no opposition.
I did not vote for Briner, Boliek or Robinson. They don’t deserve my vote. You know what? It felt really good to vote my conscience, instead of bulking under the pressure to pick the “lesser of two evils”.