The Battle For The Soul Of The North Carolina Republican Party

North Carolina is currently reflecting the battle going on in America for the soul of the Republican party. The establishment is pushing their agenda, and the grass roots are screaming to be heard. There is a reason that the two leading candidates are not the choice of the people regarded as Republican leaders. The grass roots are angry. They have been sending Republicans to Washington for a number of years now only to be brokenhearted about what the people they send do. There is very little difference between the Republican and Democratic parties right now, and Americans are looking for an alternative to both.

In North Carolina the battle is reflected in the treatment of the Republican State Chairman. Hasan Harnett who was elected last year at the state convention. He was not the choice of the establishment Republicans in the party. Hasan is a conservative, as is his vice-chairman, Michele Nix. Lately he has been locked out of his email and evidently his office. The Central Committee of the North Carolina Republican Party has not treated him well.

The Daily Haymaker has posted a number of articles on the events.

One article reports:

Leaders of two of the largest, most active Tea Party organizations have issued releases announcing their intention to protest at the NCGOP 2nd congressional district meeting in Sanford on Saturday, April 9.

Moore Tea Citizens and the Asheville Tea Party issued the following statement:

[…] It has been very obvious from the moment of Mr. Harnett’s election at the 2015 State Convention, that the Central Committee has been highly displeased that their establishment insider candidate, endorsed by Governor McCrory, Senators Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, was not the choice of the GOP base.

Conversely, The GOP party members who elected Mr. Harnett are not at all pleased with the NCGOP Central Committee for their non-transparent, secretive tactics thwarting Chairman Harnett attempts to be successful. These tactics include: denying him access to NCGOP headquarters, his email account, and false accusations of hacking the website.

The grassroots support for Chairman Harnett is based in his Conservative credentials and relationship with his GOP constituents. The grassroots contend that neither has been embraced by the party establishment elites.

The NCGOP war on the grassroots has also gained much media attention in both state and national news outlets such as The Wall Street Journal. This ‘rift’ has even caught the attention of talk show host Rush Limbaugh. If this is not resolved, it has the potential of damaging the outcome of our general elections in November.

[…]Liberty loving citizens who refuse to sit down, and shut up, please join us to support NCGOP Chairman Hasan Harnett. Chairman Harnett is a fine man and Patriot. He does not deserve this treatment from NCGOP party elites whose only interest is to protect their power, not represent WE THE PEOPLE.

Come and join the many so together we make a difference.

Another article in The Daily Haymaker reports:

If you’re a regular reader of this site, you are pretty well caught up on the details of the NCGOP saga.  Well, beleaguered party chairman Hasan Harnett has emerged from his bunker to rally his supporters and fire off a few volleys at his Central Committee foes: 

I understand the concerns about having a conflict with district conventions, but my main premise for pushing forward was to put the divisive infighting behind us so we can move forward in beating Democrats in the fall. Consequently, I am canceling the Executive Committee meeting on April 9th and am asking that you not sign the petitions to call for a special meeting on April 30th.

Likewise, I am a volunteer Chairman and must work for a living to provide for my family. The NCGOP staff was already notified on January 27th of my schedule. I am traveling out of the country on business starting April 23rd thru May 1st (see the date and time stamp below). The only Saturdays in April I am available are 4/2, 4/9, and 4/16 of which all of these dates have district conventions. Due to scheduling constraints, we should not have our next Executive Committee meeting until after the State Convention.

It is also apparent that the Central Committee is attempting to schedule an April 30th Executive Committee meeting. The sole premise of the Central Committee’s petition for the April 30th meeting is to remove your State Chairman during an election year. Who likes junk mail? The statements in the letter you received are nothing more than bald faced lies. Furthermore, the claims in that letter have no factual basis whatsoever and is why most of you have placed these petition letters in either your recycle bin or underneath your junk mail. If you already signed it, please email me requesting your signature be removed from the petition, and I will make sure it is eliminated. For anyone still contemplating, I urge you not to sign the petition for the April 30th Executive Committee meeting.

Instead, let us focus our energies on the ongoing District Conventions and upcoming State Convention. We are moving on because there really is no time to waste. We have an exciting year ahead of us and today is a new day. While there are a number of issues to address, I believe we can find the appropriate solutions together.

All of your feedback is greatly appreciated. Feel free to call, email or text me should you have additional thoughts.

Respectfully,

Hasan

This is a good move on Harnett’s part.  It frees up folks who were interested in giving the scheming Cotten gals an old-fashioned piece of their mind. 

And from a friend who attended a recent District Republican Committee Meeting:

I believe the National Convention outcome is behind the hoopla to remove Hasan. At the moment, Hasan gets to pick a slate of 30 Delegates and 30 Alternates. Presuming that we have a brokered convention in Cleveland, for whom those delegates vote could make a huge difference in the outcome. I suspect Hasan would pick people who support Cruz or Trump (I don’t know which), and the RNC has a huge problem with both of those people. Therefore, I believe it is the RNC and their state power brokers who originally backed Craig Collins for Chairman of the NC GOP who are behind all of this unrest.

A lot is at stake with the election of delegates to the National Convention. There is much behind the scenes jockeying to have delegates at the Convention who will support certain candidates, ESPECIALLY IF IT IS A “BROKERED” OR “CONTESTED ” ONE. The power players have their claws out.

We need to thwart this scheme, and hold to the will of the body!

NOW THAT I HAVE STATED WHAT I BELIEVE IS THE REAL PROBLEM, here are the concerns Constitutional Conservatives should have about how the District Convention was conducted. The folks who are constantly calling for party unity at all costs, the “Establishment Republicans,” are well versed in techniques to use in procedures to get their way. First, they know that Convention attendees are in many cases not committed enough to devote a great deal of time to do the Convention’s business. Many come to rally the party, hear speeches, meet candidates, have a good time, etc. Therefore, the first tactic is always to put off hearing the business they want to thwart until folks are getting anxious to go home, and then call for a count of attendance to check to see if the meeting still has a quorum. Thankfully, this tactic was not working last Saturday.

What did work was to keep moving for amendments to the motion to adopt the resolution requesting an investigation of the NCGOP Central Committee – to keep stirring in minutia – until people tired of the controversy and wanted to get this over so we could elect delegates and go home. When this point was reached, there were the usual calls for party unity, etc. (The irony is that the folks calling for unity tended to be firmly in the group that caused the dis-unity in the first place.)

I would like to restate that the people calling for unity are the people who have undercut Chairman Harnett since he was elected. It is difficult to respect their calls for unity when they are refusing to back their duly elected chairman. If the Republican party wants to be a viable party in the future, they need to do some serious housecleaning. If you want to be a Democrat, join the Democratic party. If you want to be a Republican, respect the grass roots–they are the ones who usually do the work.