Where NCGOP’s failure to challenge Roy Cooper reelection comes back to haunt us
With the decision by The Supreme Court the other day, ObamaCare is coming at us full speed ahead (barring courageous action by our members of Congress.)
The legislation makes a lot of totalitarian demands on state governments. Many states — like Virginia and South Carolina — are talking about mounting challenges to the law.
You do that through your Attorney General. Unfortunately, we have Roy Cooper who has been an outspoken fan of just about everything to come out of Barack Hussein Obama’s mouth.
If we had a Republican candidate nominated to face Cooper in November, we could put some pressure on Cooper to do the right thing — what the great majority of the people in this state WANT. But ol’ Roy is unopposed for reelection this year — and is likely doing a lot of relaxing during this campaign season.
Couple Cooper’s pro-Obama positions with the chaotic state of the SBI, and you could have a heck of a platform to run on in what looks like a great GOP year.
Unfortunately, North Carolina will be sitting on the sidelines while other states fight valiantly to save their residents from the tyranny of ObamaCare.
Thanks, Robin and Wayne.
The real question is why this office was left unopposed? Was it just gross incompetence by our state GOP leadership or was there some hidden agenda at work? Either way, it is an absolute disgrace and Hayes and King should never again be elected to serve in any capacity in the party.
We have consistently run candidates for this office for many decades, and now when we have a real opening for the first time, with the scandal-plagued SBI, our party gives the Democrat hack incumbent a free pass? Something reeks here, especially given all of the manipulation that was afoot with other Council of State offices by the leaders in Raleigh.
The technique of filing a place holder if there is not a candidate ready to go has been known and practiced by NCGOP for many years. Someone files before the deadline, and then when a real candidate is found, the placeholder withdraws and the state executive committee nominates him as the replacement. Why was this not done?
Our party leaders responsible, and that appears to be King and Hayes, need to be grilled in detail about how this fiasco occurred by the State Executive Committee.
We need to oust the inbred self-perpetuating clique that has run our state party since Cobey was elected chairman
Why could we not institute an aggressive write-in campaign?? Do we have to “just settle?”
Good analysis, Raphael. I concur. The inability to field a candidate against Cooper is the NC GOP’s biggest failing. What the hell were they thinking (or not thinking)?
There is some interesting material on other sites on this matter.
As to hidden agendas behind leaving this race unopposed, there are at least two versions:
1) That the legislative leadership (unspedified as to which house or both) preferred to leave a Democrat as AG to discourage some of the Tea Party oriented legislators from wanting to push nullification, and they prevailed on the NCGOP leadership to leave this seat unopposed. This theory comes from RLC sources.
2) That one of the NCGOP connected political consultants who has friends on both sides of the aisle was hired by Cooper or allies of Cooper to run interferance with NCGOP to see that the seat was unopposed. Tht particular consultant was not mentioned (but it can be narrowed down easily enough) and whether the NCGOP willingly cooperated or was blindsided is also not mentioned.
One other allegation mentioned on another site I remember reading at the time but discounted it then. Now I wonder.
There was a report that an unnamed prospective candidate for AG was specifically discouraged from running by NCGOP. This was reported soon after filing closed but did not make sense to me at the time. However, since then we have seen some things with the State Auditors race that shed a different light on things. Greg Dority has acknowledged that NCGOP asked him not to seek a runoff for that office, and thereafter Fern Shubest, who ran third came out and revealed that NCGOP sources had tried to get her not to run at all. NCGOP was clearly pressing candidates not to run in the State Auditor’s race. Did they do it in the AG’s race as well? It would be interesting to know the name of that prospective candidate so someone could ask.
This is so disappointing for me as a Republican. We have squandered such a great opportunity. Also, it makes me wonder how serious our party leadership is about opposing ObamaCare in North Carolina. This makes me think that our present party leadership is content to manage socialism rather than stand against it. As a conservative, constitutionalist, and as a citizen, this is a bitter disappointment.