Given the Democratic Party’s recent fiascos, I know I shouldn’t laugh, but I can’t help it. The North Carolina Republican Clown car is spilling out on the front pages of the News & Observer this morning.
It seems Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse shut down State Party Chair Hasan Harnett’s email account. Woodhouse claims it was a security concern. Harnett claims it was racism.
According to the N&O, Harnett wrote Woodhouse, “I mean seriously, is this some form of ritual or hazing you would put the first black chairman of the NCGOP State Party through? Or is it because I am not white enough for you? You keep pushing the limits. I guess time will only tell what your real plot and schemes are all about against me.”
I think that email proved Woodhouse’s point. There’s certainly a security concern. The chair doesn’t have enough sense not air the NCGOP’s dirty laundry in public and that’s a threat to the party’s success—not that their presidential contest isn’t a greater one. Given the rhetoric coming from GOP presidential contenders, though, you can’t fault Harnett for a bit sensitive about racism.
Really, the Republican Party is going through the same conflict that plagued the Democratic Party a few years ago. Party activists want to push for more ideological purity and give more power to rank-and-file members, otherwise known as the Pitchfork Crowd. Elected officials and campaign professionals want the party to be less ideological and more of a vehicle for electing candidates.
The ideologues of both parties believe that elections are just about motivating the base and that their ideas have far more support than they actually do. The centrists realize that there is still a broad middle that doesn’t participate in party infighting and is more self-interested than ideological. They want to win those voters in November.
And that’s really what the fight at the NCGOP is all about.
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 >
I wonder if, someday, Mr. Harnett will wake up to the fact the “his” party has no room for him, no respect for him, no interest in him, and no use for him other than as a token black Republican. Certainly if he showed up at a Trump rally as the chair of the NC Republican Party, he’d be likely to be attacked, shouted down, and beaten before being thrown out as a suspected anti-Trump, Muslim, terrorist Black-Lives-Matter activist. And certainly if he shows up at the state or national GOP convention he’ll be among no more than a dozen dark-skinned people pretending to themselves that modern-day Republicanism is good for minorities.
Ah, well, maybe Clarence Thomas will have a kind word for him.
I could buy into the idea of a less ideological party IF the party did more to grow the number of voters, candidates up and down the ticket AND a cadre of precinct and campaign officials…..it’s unconscionable that we allow so many offices go unchallenged…..