I had to take a break there right after the primary. It's not that blogging is incredibly stressful, but politics was my life for that last week. I was literally scheduling time during my days to do post entries. It sort of took over.
I'm pretty upset that my voice post that I did during the McCrory victory party didn't take. I thought I told it to post publicly, but it posted privately instead. Anyway, for those of you that don't keep up with NC politics, Pat McCrory won the Republican nomination, so he'll be running against Bev Perdue in the November election. He's already ahead in the polls :)
The primary night party was the first actual victory party I've ever been to. I've worked on plenty of campaigns, but I always seem to get sick -- like really REALLY sick -- pretty much the day of the election. During the primary season in 2004, the doctor couldn't even tell what I had. I remember she told me, "Well, it looks like the flu -- but it's not." And it lasted for pretty much two weeks after the primary. That November, I was so sick the night BEFORE the election that the guy I was dating at the time actually called my mother to have her pick me up at his apartment because I was so insistent on driving to Reidsville the next morning to vote and he knew there was no way I could drive safely. I made her drive me back to Victory 2004 headquarters after voting that morning so I could spend my day calling people to remind them to vote. I actually think I fell asleep a few times while making those calls. As soon as I got back to my apartment, I passed out. I missed the actual election results as well as the party, but kept me updated via text messages, so everytime I woke up after having a nightmare that Kerry had won, I could just check my phone and go back to sleep in peace (believe it or not, this happened at least three times throughout the night).
Luckily, I avoided all that this year. I made it out with no more than just a really nasty sunburn (don't even TALK to me about my tan line right now) and a bit of a hangover the morning after. I had been a little concerned as the primary date loomed closer that it wouldn't go quite as smoothly as it did, and I asked several of my politically active friends what it's like to be at a victory party that doesn't result in a victory. Fortunately for me, my first victory party WAS a victory party.
We took Guilford County, the county that I was focusing on, by almost 20%. The Guilford County volunteer coordinator kept me updated throughout the night to Guilford's numbers, and when he gave me the final results, I told him, "I'm going to take full credit for this." He laughed and said that I could if I wanted to, because he was just glad that we had done it.
I began my political hiatus the day following the primary, as you can tell by my lack of blogging. I didn't even bother to publicize my accidentally-private final voice post (nor did I even listen to it). I was just -- DONE.
I'm gearing up for November though. I'm going to be getting a blog that's solely political to redirect my ncpoliticalnerd.com address to. Any tips? I see that a lot of people are using WordPress now, so I guess I'll look into that. If anyone has any other outlets that they think are particularly good, I'd appreciate some insight on those as well.
Also, I got a new video camera for my birthday, so I'll be getting into the YouTube scene like I've been wanting to do for the past year or so. Matt and I went around UNCG this weekend, and I took some video of all the crap taxpayers are wasting their money on right now, and I think they turned out really well (the videos, not the stupid crap taxpayers are paying for). I'm attempting to figure out my new "movie-maker" software right now, so I'll post some of my work after I clean it up :)
I'm looking forward to this upcoming campaign season. I think I'm ready. And I think North Carolina is going to see its first Republican governor in 15 years.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
You know, I can't remember the last time I woke up at 5:45. I'm sure my boss wonders why I can get up early to vote, but I can't seem to ever get to work on time.
I've never waited so long to vote in R-vegas. In fact, I've never waited. It's usually in and out in 10 minutes or less. Today, however, I spent a good 30 minutes standing there.
I have a story from 6:30 this morning that totally made my day. I got a text from a fellow Rockingham County-er asking for one good reason why he should vote for Pat McCrory over Fred Smith. This is Fred Smth country up here (as I was reminded while putting up my lone McCrory sign amid all the Smith ones), so I jumped at the opportunity. I told him plain and simple, both are conservative, both have good ideas, but Smith can't beat the Dems. I cited the poll that showed McCrory only a few points behind the Dem candidates and Smith almost 20 behind. A few minutes later, he responded:
"That's what I was looking for. Fred, as much as I like him, can't beat Perdue or Moore. And that's why I'll be voting McCrory today."
W00T.
I'm about to go "work the poll" (as LK likes to say) in Bur-Mil, and then it's off to Charlotte for the victory (I hope) party. I'll prolly be doing a voice post later on today just to touch base. VOTE!
(Ron Paul and Pat McCrory *sigh*... the dream ticket!)
Well, Fred Smith can just hang it up. I'm done with him, and I know lots of other NC Republicans are as well.
Remember my voice post last week where I told you that Pat McCrory finally responded to Fred Smith's unwarranted and false attacks? For those of you that didn't listen to it, the McCrory response ad points out that McCrory attempted to have the Republican candidates sign a contract to uphold Ronald Reagan's "11th commandment", which is not to attack other Republicans -- and Fred Smith refused to sign. The ad then goes on to point out the inaccuracies in Fred Smith's attach ads.
The very next day, Fred Smith released ANOTHER attack ad against McCrory, accusing him of breaking his promise to not attack the other Republican candidates! So what -- it's ok for Fred to tell half-truths about McCrory, but when McCrory attempts to set the record straight and defend himself, he's ATTACKING Fred Smith?
I think that was the first time that I realized that there was no way in hell I would be voting for Fred Smith in November if he wins the nomination. God, I hate Beverly Perdue, and what she's done in her campaign is dirty, but I simply cannot support a man that gets so desperate when things are not going his way. I've been saying for a while now that Smith doesn't have the appeal to win in a general election, but he just lost another Republican in me.
It's more that just the man himself. It's the people in and around his campaign. They are apparently just as bitter as he is, and rather than argue his virtues, they prefer to rely on their anger. I first realized this several weeks ago at the Civitas Leadership Institute in Greensboro. I had woken up early on a Saturday morning to man the Pat McCrory for Governor booth, and was the only one at the booth for several hours. During that time, I was approached by three Fred Smith fans who felt the need to attack me for supporting McCrory. They all came at different intervals, two of them pulling random things out of McCrory's record from the 90's, and one just incoherently screaming at me (I think he thought I was Pat McCrory) for not visiting Dare County. Oh, and they were all about 135 years old.
With the first two, the most I could do was tell them what McCrory's stance on the issues are NOW, and explain that the things that have happened in Charlotte over the last few years are not always within the mayor's control. Afterall, it is a majority-Democratic city, and while McCrory does have the veto power, there are usually enough votes to override him. When one guy continued to press me for why McCrory had said one specific thing over 10 years ago, I finally had to shrug and tell him, "Sir, I'm not Pat McCrory, I've really never heard that until now, so I can't answer for it." His snappy come-back? "Well, you ARE working his table!"
The last guy was my favorite. He stood several feet away from the table, like he was afraid I was going to snap and come after him, and loudly proclaimed that he was NOT voting for Pat McCrory because McCrory had not been to his county -- Dare County, over on the eastern part of the state. "Fred Smith has been to Dare County FOUR TIMES over the past year, and Pat McCrory hasn't been at all!"
Would this be a good time to mention that Fred Smith, who probably has more money than everyone in Dare County put together, owns a vacation home there? Could that be the reason he's visited four times in the past year? Maybe?
I didn't know that little tidbit until later on in the day, so I couldn't use that against the Dare County crazy man, but I did point out that Fred Smith has been campaigning for governor for about two years, where as McCrory only recently entered the race. I also pointed out that during his extensive campaigning, Smith has been the most absent senator in the NC legislature, whereas McCrory insists on continuing to do his job properly while running for governor. Did this man care? I think you know the answer to that question. He literally yelled at me for another five minutes before wandering away. Most of the room was staring at me at this point, and one person in the crowd piped up, "Well, McCrory's been to my county, so I guess I don't have any reason to argue with you."
I'd also like to point out that after someone showed up to help me with the booth around noon, no one else came by to fight. Could it have something to do with the fact that these old men saw a young girl working the booth all alone and figured it would be easier to fight with her than later on when I was joined by a male? I could make a lot of assumptions here.
Add to this all the crap I've put up with from Smith fans on local blogs who never really debate my point that Smith is not the electable gubernatorial candidate -- the majority of the rebuttals I receive are, "McCrory's a RINO!" or "Smith is a REAL conservative who will beat the Democrats in November!" Really? Is that why the polls show Perdue and Moore at about 20 points ahead of Smith, whereas they only lead McCrory by a few points? I mean, if these people could just give me some proof for why they believe what they do, I might give them some credit every now and then, but they can't do it.
Oh, and how about good ole Nathan Tabor. Nathan Tabor ran an unsuccessful campaign for a local US House seat several years back, and I worked for the campaign that defeated him in the primary (although we lost to the eventual winner, Virginia Foxx, in the run-off). A couple years ago, he was spamming local blogs (including mine) with crap about how NC needed a TRUE conservative like -- who else -- Fred Smith. About a month ago, I noticed a blog called "The Conservative Voice" which had several inflammatory stories about McCrory, including one that he had pulled ahead in the polls using deception. I signed up for the site solely so that I could post comments to the anti-McCrory entries, and who else should send me a welcome email but Nathan Tabor. A few more clicks of the mouse tells me that Tabor is currently working as a political consultant to Fred Smith. So are Smith's campaign dollars funding inflammatory articles about Pat McCrory via this pseudo-real website? It sure appears that way.
And now, the yard signs. A friend of mine had been putting McCrory signs around High Point and Jamestown, and had reported back to me that someone was replacing all of her signs with Fred Smith signs (including the signs in her OWN YARD!) I had hoped that maybe this was just some local bitter Smith fan at work, but I was wrong. This weekend, I went to Charlotte and rode around with one of the campaign's volunteers, and he pointed out that every McCrory sign he had put up over the past week was gone and replaced with a Smith sign. The sure makes it sound like it's not just one local nutjob, but something that's going on throughout the entire campaign.
No, Fred's bitter campaigning style does not sit well with me, and regardless of what happens, I will not be voting for him in November. I know that there will be some Republicans that disagree with me, and some that join me, but I really don't care either way. If McCrory doesn't win on Tuesday, I'll be finding myself a nice Libertarian to work for, and you Smith fans can all rest easy knowing that you lost one of your most hard-working and passionate Republican volunteers.
And if Fred's dirty politicking doesn't give me enough reason to not vote for him, I stumbled across these YouTube videos last night. I asked all around the campaign to see if I could find out who made them, but no one seems to know. They're not pro-McCrory at all, just anti-Smith. They make some very good points.
The Rhinoceros Times, Greensboro's token conservative newspaper, endorsed Fred Smith today. That was not a surprise -- everyone saw it coming. What WAS surprising was the article that accompanied the endorsement:
"The nod here goes to Fred Smith, who is much more conservative than McCrory, who is a get-the-job-done and get-reelected type of politician."
As with EVERY OTHER "RINO" ATTACK ON MCCRORY, no one ever really explains what it is about Pat McCrory that is so liberal. Okay, so at least once in every debate I've ever seen, Fred Smith has had to mention that he thinks there should be an amendment banning gay marriage, and McCrory has simply not brought the issue up. Is that it? Is that what makes Smith the "true conservative" -- the fact that he wants to interfere in the separation between church and state in a blatant display of bigotry?
I digress.
I find it amusing that not only does the Rhino Times compare the "conservatism" of the two candidates, but McCrory is suddenly a bad guy for "getting the job done" and getting re-elected. Getting stuff done is bad? Working across party lines for the good of the state is bad? Getting elected is somehow... BAD?
The Rhino Times needs to look at the polls. McCrory is the "get-elected" candidate for the Republicans, which is what we need. In a recent Rasmussen survey, McCrory only trailed Bev Perdue by 3 points and Richard Moore by 2. That's compared to Fred Smith who lost to Perdue by 18 points and Moore by 11.
Let's continue with the article:
"[Fred Smith] knows a lot about how small businesses are being regulated to death and has done a good job in the state Senate trying to hold the line as a conservative, which hasn't been very easy the past couple of terms."
The article is right about one thing -- Fred Smith knows how to get a small company off the ground. Step one -- purchase a company on the brink of bankruptcy... step two -- get elected to state legislature and ensure that your company handles as many state projects as possible.
And finally:
"It's simply a fact that it takes a good amount of money to run statewide races. It doesn't matter how qualified a candidate is; if he or she can't raise money, it is nearly impossible to get the word out."
Oh what do you know -- it just came out this week that McCrory raised $1.2 million during the first few months of this year. Compare that to Smith's $885,000... $500,000 of which came from PERSONAL LOANS. That's right -- McCrory is the only gubernatorial candidate that has not supplemented his campaign with personal loans, and he's still the one that raised the most money.
He also hasn't wasted that money on state-wide bbq, which perhaps speaks to his fiscal conservatism?
Not that I'm particularly worried about the Rhino Times endorsements... after all, they endorsed Alan Keyes for President. Yes, this election. No, I'm not kidding.
There's no doubt about it -- Pat McCrory is the Republican candidate that can and will win against the Democrats. Whenever I bring this up to Fred Smith fans, their response is, "Fred Smith will beat the Democrats because everyone's tired of the Raleigh Democrats." Well, that's not what the polls are saying... and were we not all tired of the Democrats back in 2004? What about 2000? Our state historically votes Democrats into state office, and that's just a fact... not a trend.
I really can't stress this point enough. If you're tired of the Raleigh Democrats, if the thought of Governor Bev Perdue scares the crap out of you, you'll vote for the Republican that actually has a shot at bringing change to Raleigh... and that Republican is Pat McCrory.
