Those stompin’ mad Republicans we reported on a few weeks ago are back, and this time they’re garnering headlines across the state.
It began with a campaign that touched a nerve. The Carolina Stompers is a group of Buncombe County conservatives led by Chad Nesbitt, stepson of Asheville’s Democratic state Sen. Martin Nesbitt. Nesbitt (the Stomper, not the senator) organized a protest last week against the state’s Democratic Party because of the name of its annual Vance-Aycock fundraising dinner. Former N.C. Gov. Charles Brantley Aycock, for whom the event was named, was — “progressive” politics aside — a white supremacist. His racist rhetoric helped incite a murderous riot by white mobs in Wilmington in 1898 that both terrorized local blacks and overthrew local democracy.
Dredging up the painful past must have caused some one in Raleigh to shudder, as the public response from the Dems was something to the effect of “good point.” State Treasurer Richard Moore, who plans to run for governor next year, is now urging the party to change the name of the dinner, the Raleigh News & Observer reported today. “I can no longer defend naming a Democratic Party dinner after Gov. Aycock,” Moore was quoted as saying. “The tactics Aycock embraced — fear, hatred, and voter intimidation at the hands of a band of ‘red shirts’ — must be acknowledged and repudiated.”
The Stompers have since trumpeted victory and cancelled their protest. Their Web site now features a congratulatory word from Frances Rice, chairman of the National Black Republican Association (the same group that stirred some tensions last year with a radio ad that said Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican.)
But that was just round one. Since the fracas over the dinner, Jerry Meek, chairman of the state Democratic Party, has put this pachyderm in the cross-hairs. Meek filed a campaign finance complaint Sept. 26 against the Carolina Stompers, prompting the state Board of Elections to investigate whether they should be registered as a political committee.
“Who’s supporting this group, and why aren’t they obeying the law like every other political organization has to?” Meek wanted to know. (He was quoted in this Asheville Citizen-Times story.) State law requires any group that supports political candidates and spends money to register as a political committee.
The group’s member rankings include “Super Stompers,” who pay $35 a year, “Ultra Stompers,” who pay $100 a year, and “Mega Stompers,” who pay a whopping $500 a year, according to the Carolina Stompers Web site.
The Stompers air their criticism of the Vance-Aycock dinner in this this YouTube video.
— Rebecca Bowe, contributing editor
Looks like one of the Stompers own has revealed her true colors as a Republican.
City Council Candidate Selina Sullivan was arrested Wednesday night for writing a worthless check to her own Church!
Get this, her occupation: Accountant with Biltmore Farms.
Another example of a fine, honest, Republican!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iFmbrnhjt0
That URL will lead you to a Carolina Stompers add against Elaine Lite, their work in action.
My 2 Cents: If you’re going to be a group that opposes fear and hatred, how can you be such total assholes as to attack the entire Pagan faith? This add CLEARLY shows religious intolerance, and makes me not even want to dignify the stompers very existence. But I will, with this statement:
Screw those intolerant, hypocritical bastards.
And thank you Elaine for supporting that cause, although you don’t need a single ounce more of support from the MX audience (did anyone else write-in for any other candidate this week? and how did she get a 2 page article on her proposal last week – i thought the MX wasn’t covering individuals until after the primary? journalistic bias? *sigh*)
Since when do Democrats allow Republican thugs to tell our party what to name a dinner –or interfere in any of our party biznis?Oh, yeah, I forgot, we let them get away with this in the florida vote counting….. shame on us. Time to fight back against politico-terrorists.
Bush makes Aycock look like a good guy.
Go get ‘um, Jerry. Take them on and make them know what it’s like to be stomped back,
This is why I am an Independent.
WHY is it BOTH political parties have mascots (the donkey and the elephant) that are relatively placid herbivores? If I had a political party I would want an eagle or a lion or a saber-toothed tiger or maybe a Tyrannosaurus Rex as my symbol–I would want my symbol able to chase down and eat the symbol of any opposing political party and burp in delight afterwards. THAT’s how you win elections.
Eh?
I wonder just how many in this state ran from the Dem party and registered (R) when Lyndon Johnson got Civil Rights laws passed.
Did they leave the Dem party because suddenly the (R)s served better refreshments at their meetings? LOL I doubt it.
This sudden interest in the name of our dinner seems odd to me. Knowing how the (R)s operate, there’s a strategic goal behind this tactic. Maybe it’s the first push to turn local blacks against the Dems in ’08?
They ran a huge campaign to get as many public edifices and facilities as possible named for Ronald Reagan, showing how important the names of things are to them.
The current dinner brouhaha smells rank to me. I’d be watching to see what their next target is. One propaganda brick at a time, they will build a tall and wide wall and reasonable people will be wondering how they got completely walled out from any influence in our own government. Which, we know, is their goal.
Democrats tend to be too easy-going and not suspicious enough.
Why would either party be surprised at the tactics of the other in this current political climate? I’m not impresed with these antics by the Carolina Stompers…..but neither have I been impressed with the tactics of the local democrat party nor their staunch support of all things subsidized……