The looming GOP disaster in North Carolina
Published July 23, 2016
by Gary Pearce, Democratic political strategist, published in The Charlotte Observer, July 22, 2016.
North Carolina Republicans this year will get to experience what we Democrats went through in so many presidential elections: how to avoid going down with the Titanic.
Because the S.S. Trump is going down, and it will be hard to avoid getting sucked into the vortex.
The Republican convention is officially a disaster. It didn’t rescue Trump from the trouble he had spun for himself in the primaries. It just made a bad situation worse.
The party is badly split, with the spectacle of Ted Cruz being booed off the stage overshadowing Mike Pence’s speech.
The GOP all week has looked like a party under the control of people who are so angry they are nearly unhinged. Their only strategy is to stoke our fears and hatreds.
And Trump has branded himself as the greatest narcissist ever in a profession chock-full of champion narcissists.
Now Republican candidates in North Carolina – from Pat McCrory and Richard Burr down – will spend the campaign trying to avoid Trump AND avoid making Trump’s supporters mad.
It’s hard. I know; been there, done that. In 1984, when Jim Hunt ran against Jesse Helms, Ronald Reagan got 62 percent of the vote in North Carolina. To beat Helms, we had to get one in five Reagan voters to vote for Hunt. We came close, but not close enough. Hunt got 48 percent.
It’s a lot harder to get people to split their tickets today. All politics isn’t local anymore. It’s national. How people vote for President pretty much predicts how they vote all down the ballot.
If Hillary wins North Carolina, even by the narrowest margin, McCrory and Burr will have a hard time surviving.
I tell my Republican friends: I feel your pain. But it’s nice to see the concrete shoes on your feet.
Gary Pearce is a veteran N.C. Democratic strategist writing on the 2016 conventions.
July 23, 2016 at 10:15 am
Richard L Bunce says:
Mr. Pearce trying to reassure his paying customers he knows what he is talking about...
July 23, 2016 at 10:21 am
Bruce Stanley says:
.......don't count your chickens
July 24, 2016 at 10:04 pm
Pat Kelley says:
As a long-time Unaffiliated voter in my 60s, I have never voted a straight ticket in national and state races. This year the Democratic candidates certainly have their negative aspects, but the Republican candidates have thus far proven far inferior ... what with all that hubris at the national level plus HB2 ignorance on the state scene. Sadly the once strong party of Lincoln no longer exists, and I will proudly pull the levers for Clinton/Kaine, Cooper, and Ross come November. I trust I will not be alone.
July 25, 2016 at 10:18 am
Richard L Bunce says:
Johnson/Weld 2016.
August 1, 2016 at 7:29 am
Pat Kelley says:
I have a good friend who's supporting the Libertarian ticket like you, Richard, and Gary Johnson seems like a viable candidate. He doesn't have a chance of course, but he's certainly a better choice than a tyrant like Trump.
August 2, 2016 at 10:12 am
Richard L Bunce says:
Oh but he does IF Mr. Trump can keep it close with Sec. Clinton so that neither get to 270 EC votes and IF Johnson/Weld can just win a few EC Electors by for instance winning Congressional District in Maine or Nebraska. That would give them EC Electors and Gov Johnson would finish third in the EC voting. Then the top three Presidential candidates out of the EC vote go to the new US House where the new Representatives vote, one vote per State.
