A lot of North Carolina Republicans woke up Sunday morning to find that their new state party chair is an African-American man with a Muslim sounding name. Hasan Harnett of Harrisburg beat establishment candidate Craig Collins for a two-year term that includes next year’s presidential, gubernatorial, and US Senate contests. All North Carolinians should see Harnett’s victory as a sign of the progress we’ve made in race relations. I just wonder how long it will be before the GOP asks to see his birth certificate.
Harnett’s victory was a victory for the grassroots of the Republican Party. His chief opponent, Collins, had the endorsement of the Gov. Pat McCrory, US Senators Thom Tillis and Richard Burr, state Senate President Pro-Tem Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore. As Harnett supporter and once-perennial candidate Vernon Robinson put it, “The whole idea of this massive intervention in the leadership by the powers that be was a mistake.”
In other words, the highest ranking elected officials in the Republican Party and the state should keep their noses out of party business. I mean, really, what do they know about politics anyhow? They’ve only been winning campaigns and running the Republican Revolution.
Democrats faced a similar situation a decade ago. In the wake of the 2004 election, Democratic activists emboldened by Howard Dean’s renegade presidential campaign, rejected the choice of Gov. Mike Easley and the Democratic leadership and instead elected Jerry Meek. Fortunately for Democrats, Meek was a talented organizer whose main beef with the establishment was over strategy and tactics, not ideology. He understood that the role of the party was to elect Democrats, not enforce party orthodoxy.
However, Meek’s victory shifted the power within the state party structure from top elected officials to grassroots activists. Within a few years, a more ideological strain of Democratic activists elected, and protected, far less talented state chairs. They left the party apparatus in a shambles and embarrassed the party nationally.
Republicans are about to find out what kind of rebel they have in Harnett. He appears to have been supported by ideological purists and has limited campaign experience. Maybe he can bridge the gap between the activists and the elected officials who supported his opponent. Maybe he’ll embarrass his party. One thing’s for sure, though, he’ll have a hard time embarrassing the state more than the Republicans in the General Assembly already have.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Many of you have commented on Jerry Meek’s election from the perspective of what was happening at the level of the state party. At that time, I was a representative to the Democratic State Executive Committee from Burke County, and I was one of the most fervent supporters of Jerry. Why?
Whenever our county Democratic Party looked for advice, support, or communication of any sort from state Democratic headquarters, we were subjected to what I call “the Raleigh sneer.” Imagine a curled-up lip and the quip, “And you’re from WHERE?”
Supporting Jerry Meek was our way of telling state headquarters to go to h***. Jerry visited Burke County several times, and he actually listened without treating us like a bunch of country bumpkins. Jerry’s said that the experience in Cumberland County was the opposite of ours–their problem was that the people from party headquarters in Raleigh were coming down and attempting to dictate who would be officers as far down as the precinct level. In our case, the party headquarters just didn’t seem to give a d*** as to what we did as long as we sent money.
There’s a lesson to be learned here by anyone who is attempting to rebuild the Party.
Hasan Harnett is another Michael Steele. Look for him on MSNBC, Fox News or CNN shortly. The modern GOP is the KKK without the sheets.
The comparison with Jerry Meek’s election lacks a few pertinent facts.
Jerry Meek first ran for State Chair in 2003 against incumbent Barbara Allen. Barbara Allen was the clear establishment choice. In 2002, a lot of money was poured into the larger urban areas for last minute GOTV efforts in an effort to help US Senate candidate Erskine Bowles. Local party organizations were not consulted prior to this last minute infusion of cash. Not only did this well-funded last-minute effort not result in a Democratic Senate victory but the GOTV efforts were so poorly organized that local county parties ended up spending a lot of their time cleaning up the mess caused by well-funded consulting organizations who flew into town in the final days before the election. The local activists who were left to clean up the mess were not happy. Jerry probably had the grassroots votes to win the chairmanship in 2003 but instead agreed to run for First Vice Chair and support Barbara Allen’s candidacy for Chair. He spent two years as First Vice Chair working on grassroots initiatives with the NCDP.
When Jerry ran again for Chair in 2005, his grassroots supporters expected that his willingness to work with both the “establishment” and the “grassroots” would be rewarded by a clear shot at the Chairmanship. That was not the case. The only elected official to publicly support Jerry’s candidacy for Chair was the late, great Commissioner of Insurance Jim Long. Senator John Edwards and other elected officials publicly endorsed Jerry’s opponent Ed Turlington. Jerry won in a close election in 2005. Jerry then went on to spend a lot of time over the next two years reaching out to those who had initially opposed his candidacy, and was unopposed when he ran again in 2007.
The only similarities between the election of Jerry Meek and Hasan Harnett is that both ran against their party’s “establishment”. The underlying issues, however, are more important. Jerry mounted a successful challenge because Democratic activists had witnessed first-hand the expensive bungling of the party’s GOTV efforts. He demonstrated a willingness to work with anyone and everyone to fix those structural issues, as evidenced by the fact that he bowed out of the Chair’s race in 2003 and served as First Vice Chair instead. The election of Hasan Harnett appears to be the result of an idealogical split within the Republican Party rather than an effort to fix structural issues.
Are we any better off in the NCDP now that the established have taken over the party? Please enlighten me if we are. At least when Voller was Chair we had a functioning Council of Review and a Blue Ballot strategy that worked. I wonder if we’ll be back here December of 2016, still blaming Randy Voller in yet another failed election cycle.
I read with interest Mr. Mills comment and then Mr. Voller’s comment. The difference between the two was polar.
Mr. Mills happily assigned blame for the problems of the NCDP to Mr. Voller alone without taking into account the years of dissention within the NCDP and more importantly how the minorities were summarily marginalized and ignored. The NCDP also threw spanners and wrenches into the mix to keep the minority caucuses divided so as to prevent any one or all of them from wielding any power or having say-so in the party apparatus. The only faces of color were those willing to yield to the status quo. Those of us who were not were called “trouble makers” and invited to leave the party if we could not simply say “yassa”.
Mr. Voller on the other hand laid out a historical perspective of what went wrong with the NCDP. As any rational human being will tell you nothing – absolutely nothing – happens overnight. It takes years, sometimes centuries for the pot to boil over.
Well the pot has boiled over. Unless the NCDP and the DNC wake up to this realization I am afraid we are in for a tough 2016 battle. Grass roots is where it is at. Ignore us at your peril.
Thomas, I think your analysis is interesting and you are correct to highlight the fact that the NCGOP has elected an African-American Chair to lead the organization over the next two years. Especially considering that he managed the campaign for Vince Coakley in 12th Congressional District against Alma Adams. The 12th is a fertile blue area, but requires time and investment and get out the vote and a GOP Chairman from that area could certainly narrow margins in a presidential year.
The rest of of your analysis suffers from some conflation and a failure to provide context.
Jerry Meek did a good job and came along at a unique time with a 2005 to 2007 cycle that included a growing national discontent with President Bush and GOP policies followed by a 2007 to 2009 cycle that had an open presidential election with our side including former US Senator, VP candidate and NC resident, John Edwards, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. and future president, Barack Obama, as well as others which included New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and progressive icon Dennis Kunich.
The apparatus pulled together by OFA certainly helped Democrats in 2008 and pushed State Senator Kay Hagan to victory over a very unliked incumbent Senator Libby Dole.
In addition, Lt. Governor, Bev Perdue, was pushing to become the first female Governor which helped as well.
When Jerry Meek decided to step down in 2009 a grass roots candidate was not elected.
From my understanding, David Young, a longtime county commissioner in Buncombe County, was apparently the choice of Governor Perdue and her allies in and around the party. (It is also my understanding that former Senate candidate, Jim Neal, was in the mix for a brief period as well and David Parker may have been in the mix, too.)
The current problems for Democrats and the NCDP began with that cycle, which started with the take over of the Wake County School Board in 2009 by a more conservative and ideological driven group of Republicans followed by an utter failure by the party and its team in the 2010 general election.
If you want to assign blame, then start with electoral and campaign forensic work before, during and after 2010.
In addition, although you are a Walter Dalton man and I admire Walter for his work and advocacy, if the primary result of 2008 had been different and Hampton Dellinger had emerged victorious, I contend that in 2012 we would have been in a better position to beat McCrory head-to-head with a seasoned and younger incumbent. (The 2008 primary was an interesting 4 man race with Dalton receiving 45.73%, Dellinger at 33.58%. Smathers at 13.73% and Besse at 6.96%.)
Finally, I stand by our results in 2013 and 2014.
We stopped the extreme drop-off from the top of the ticket to judicial races by gaining 7% over 2012, we won all 3 supreme court races and 2 out 3 races for appellate court and counties that implemented the “blue ballot” program showed results that were approximate 5% better than those who did not do the training and run the program.
We did this without the benefit of millions of dollars of tax check-off funds that were available to previous administrations and without the benefit of controlling either the legislature and/or the governor’s mansion.
So if you want to claim that I am an “embarrassment” for stating that the GOP was raping our state and country with their policies and legislation so be it.
I know what the intent of the comment was and I know its context.
And I have had two more years to watch the extreme GOP program play out in North Carolina and America since that speech on May 3, 2013 in Greensboro.
So I ask if they (ALEC, Americans for Prosperity, the extreme elements of the GOP and their funders) are not pillaging and plundering our country with their game plan and its execution then what are they doing?
Mr. Voller I wouldn’t take Thomas’ comment too personally. Mr. Parker’s “friendly punch in the man-parts” press conference regarding the former ED of the party was much more of an embarassment to both the party and the chairman’s position than anything you did during your tenure as chair.
Matt,
Thank you, I do not take it personally and I personally like Thomas and enjoy reading his posts and I those of John and others who post on this site.
My background is history so context if always important to me when I an evaluating qualitative and quantitative information.
I am an adult and I am comfortable taking responsibility for the successes, failures and near misses of my tenure and I hope that the NCDP takes to heart what we learned in an era that combined no control in Raleigh with the loss of an important annual funding source.
Furthermore I am a proponent of “Move to Amend” and firmly believe that our democracy from the local, state to federal level has been distorted across the political spectrum in the post-Citizens United and McCutcheon world that we now operate under. (The SCOTUS did us no favors with those rulings.)
I sincerely hope that the active members in the NCDP, NCGOP and the Libertarian Party prevail upon our NCGA to find a way to reinstate the tax check off funding that came to all parties from the simple and elegant tax check off option.
Non-profits can ill afford to lose millions of dollars that flowed annually to their coffers and enabled them to function effectively for their constituents and instead of enhancing freedom and liberty with this “reform” the NCGA has instead made all political parties in North Carolina more subservient to big donors and less likely to lead and build a better North Carolina for all citizens.
I agree with Randy Voller about this issue. I don’t think I know him personally. If we do know each other, I apologize, my memory is not so good. I don’t think he was electorally or politically savvy, but I agree with him on a number of issues. In my old age I’ve become less of a political cut throat and more ideologically inclined. I’ve always been for fairness, regardless of whom I worked for. Politics is no longer my profession, so now I’m free to do and say what I think and feel. I think Randy does the same and unfortunately for him was doing it as a profession.
He may have stumbled some on the political side (I had great hopes he could heal the wounds in the Party), but after witnessing his presentation on winning local elections at a Progressive Dems (PDNC) meeting a few years ago, his “electoral” creds are better than most.
I agree that NCGOP is plundering the state – destroying environment, education, the middle class, etc. I’m absolutely astonished with what NCGOP is getting away with here. And I STILL CANNOT BELIEVE Thom Tillis is NC Senator. He ran an inept campaign – and won.
What are Democrats doing to counter the powerful NCGOP forces? That’s what I’m not seeing right now. We desperately need to reach the middle and persuade them their interests lie with the Democratic policies – not Republican. What is the Democratic message? How is it being delivered? How are we attempting to reach the middle? I don’t see that. And trust me, I wish I did.
The entity doing the most and the best to counter the “powerful NCGOP forces” is the NCGOP itself. Their intolerant and mean-spirited agenda is burdening their own efforts to capture the votes of those the center as well as the growing number of unaffiliateds in NC. Too bad there is not a coherent message and widely agreed-upon plan within the NCDP to help things along….
We agree! The time is ripe for the attack by NCDP… and the party is strangely invisible.
Oh a very astute observation by Someone from Main Street. The only message I have heard from the Democrats is “we’re not Republicans”. Oi Vey y’all – that is no way to win elections. Stand for something – that will excite the people.
“One thing’s for sure, though. He’ll have a hard time embarrassing the state more than the Republicans in the General Assembly already have.”
Near-perfect ending line, Thomas. I simply would have used the word “Neo-Cons” instead of “Republicans.” Today’s NC Republican Party bears little resemblance to the party that gave us Lincoln, Eisenhower, or even Reagan.
Reminds me of what the late, great, Molly Ivins once said about how amusing it was to cover Republican gatherings, listen to them rail against affirmative action, and then promptly and eagerly elect the one African American in attendance to some sort of leadership position.
This represents “diversity” about as much as Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court or Michael Steele as Republican Chairman or Ben Carson as presidential candidate.
This is by far the weirdest state in the country. The Democrats have no muscle or presence and the Tea Party grassroots organization says no to NCGOP party leaders’ choice.
Hasan Harnett is apparently extremely conservative – at least that’s what I’m reading. Wondering how he’ll work with the white boy network. (I’m remembering how well NCGOP played up the race card during the whole voting restrictions debate: http://bit.ly/1gJSDYt – it’s not like NCGOP wants black people to vote…)
Is this the same NCGOP that greatly increased the number of minority-majority statehouse districts throughout the State? If so, they’re very schizophrenic.
I would be more helpful to the right if Hasan were a candidate in an election – the republicans need to embrace a more diverse demographic which would then in turn alter there platform to something more reasonable and helpful to our country. We all have to move forward, not backward whether we are Dems or Repubs. This current backwards motion serves nearly no one.
What republikans know about running campaigns and winning is how to rig elections without getting caught! We need voting machine paper trails right now today and once we have those there’d be nary a republikan in office after the next series of elections
you are right there, we need to look at the real issue of ‘ELECTION FRAUD’ it has already been proven that the machines can be hacked with a smart-phones in the parking lot.and the signs of tampering are system crash.not to mention the 40,000 voter registrations that vanished right after McCrory got in office. they are in court on that now.