The gift that keeps on giving

Mark Robinson defines an incredibly flawed GOP ticket.

For Democrats, Mark Robinson is the gift that keeps on giving. For opposition researchers, he’s a dream job. Republicans have rallied around a man who embraces extreme positions on social issues, fails to pay taxes, and has a string of failed businesses. I realize I could be talking about Donald Trump, but still.

ABC reported yesterday that Robinson failed to pay his federal income taxes for five years in a row back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. About the same time, he filed for bankruptcy protection three, (yes, three,) times between 1998 and 2003. In his autobiography, Robinson claimed he and his wife opened an “extremely successful” daycare operation in 2000, but the business declared bankruptcy three years later. Robinson was also called out in 2022 for having delinquent automobile taxes in Guilford County. He has a long and consistent history of fiscal irresponsibility.

The ABC article points out Robinson’s hypocrisy. The lieutenant governor has blasted people for taking government assistance. According to the article, Robinson said on a podcast in 2019, "The very first person you should look to to take care of yourself should be you, and it's caused, really, the death in this country of responsibility." He never mentioned that the government repeatedly bailed him out when he was down on his luck .

Robinson has a pattern of hypocrisy. Before he and his wife were married, she became pregnant and had an abortion. Today, he’s for banning abortion for any reason. Robinson wants everybody but him to be held responsible for their actions.

On the one hand, Robinson argues that he should be given another chance because he learned from his mistakes. On the other, he wants to take away the same help for others that allowed him to get where he is today. It’s the epitome of pulling up the ladder behind him. He’s not offering anybody the same chances he was given.

The other lesson here is about vetting. Robinson had the same issues in 2020 that he has now. Back then, though, nobody was spending the money to unearth his troubled past or spending the money to publicize it. Candidates in down ballot races do not get the scrutiny of top-of-the-ticket candidates. Robinson’s election in 2020 was the result of an uninformed electorate.

Democrats should take note of that election. This year, Republicans have nominated an incredibly flawed group of candidates for council of state races. The GOP nominee for Superintendent of Public Instruction, Michele Morrow, is a conspiracy theorist who has no experience working with public education and has called public schools “socialist indoctrination centers.” Republican Congressman Dan Bishop, the GOP nominee for attorney general, supported a white supremacist web site, spread the Big Lie in the wake of the 2020 election, and was described as part of a group of “egotistical performance artists” in Congress who “won’t grow up” by the Wall Street Journal. The conservative N. C. Chamber calls GOP Commissioner of Labor nominee Luke Farley a “far-right candidate.” And over in the Supreme Court race, Judge Jefferson Griffin supported a decision that included in its reasoning that “life begins at conception.”

Democrats need to go after the GOP for nominating inexperienced extremists to run state government. The Chamber has said that right-wing populists threaten the state’s business climate. Robinson, Morrow, Bishop, and Farley might be in sync with the GOP base, but they are out of touch with mainstream North Carolinians. Voters need to know who these people are.

Robinson is the one who gets the most attention because he is running in the higher profile race, but Democrats need to let voters know that he is the norm, not the exception. Use his notoriety to shine a light on the extremism of those running with him. Brand the GOP as out of touch with North Carolina.