Democrat Dan McCready announces that he’s running for Congress again in the NC-09 special election.
“Our right to vote is our most sacred freedom as Americans … I am running in the special election to represent the people of the 9th District.” Via ABC pic.twitter.com/CzkSuT04Ym
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 22, 2019
Great news! Thanks to your efforts, @McCreadyForNC blasted through 50K followers — a day ahead of schedule! If you haven’t followed Dan yet, please do so now. And if you have some money to spare, please donate to his campaign and help the Democrats pick up another House seat!
— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) February 24, 2019
Per the local Charlotte Observer:
The new campaign in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District kicked off Friday with a rally by Democrat Dan McCready, hints from several would-be GOP candidates and silence from Republican Mark Harris.
The flurry of action came a day after the North Carolina State Board of Elections ordered a new election following a hearing that detailed election fraud in Bladen County.
It made its decision after Harris stunned the hearing with his own call for a new election, after insisting for weeks that he won the vote last fall and should be certified…
The primary campaign would be relatively short. Though no schedule has been set, elections officials said one scenario would be for a May primary, a June runoff if needed and an October general election. The same officials have proposed a May 14 primary in the 3rd District, vacant since the death of Republican U.S. Rep. Walter Jones…
Former Mecklenburg County commissioner Matthew Ridenhour, a Charlotte Republican who lost his seat in November, said he’s received texts and emails since Thursday urging him to run. He expects to decide within a few days. And Republican legislators could run for Congress in a special election without fear of losing their seats, which are not up until 2020.
Despite McCready’s headstart, the 9th District still leans Republican. No Democrat has represented it for decades and President Donald Trump carried the district by 11 points. But some Republicans said the election fraud and Harris’ ties to Dowless have hurt the party’s label in the 9th.
“We have some work to do to repair our brand, and I’m not sure the current folks in leadership know exactly how to do that,” said Shaheen. “In my opinion party leadership in Raleigh made a fatal mistake by jumping out in front and being so supportive when they didn’t have the whole story.”…
Between the messy failure of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity and the new State Court ruling on ‘racial gerrymandering’, it seems the GOP party leadership had a pretty good outline of the whole story — and since their guys were using those stolen votes to ‘win’ elections, they were just fine with that!
“You caught me cheating so let’s have a do-over” isn’t really the way this is supposed to work. Harris should withdraw himself entirely. https://t.co/nCAWsulqsx
— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) February 21, 2019
In three days I’ve gone from thinking that Mark Harris should have known better to thinking there’s reason to believe he may have been actively directing the vote-buying scheme. https://t.co/gNFwtWxcMf
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) February 21, 2019
And too many of the Media Village Idiots are treating the whole shameless theft as some kind of quaint Suthron folk saga — practically Absalom, Absalom!, but with fewer run-on sentences. The Washington Post, which should know better:
… It was a heart-wrenching drama between an evangelical minister, who badly wanted to serve in Congress, and his lawyer son, who came forward with evidence that contradicted his father’s testimony.
Republicans and Democrats agreed that something went right compared with how partisan conflict often plays out in the country’s hyper-polarized political environment…
The hearing had taken a dramatic turn the previous day, when Harris’s 29-year-old son John, an assistant U.S. attorney in Raleigh, took the stand and described conversations and emails with his father in 2017 in which he warned the elder Harris against hiring Dowless. John Harris believed Dowless had broken the law in a previous election.
Harris parried confidently about his son’s testimony, explaining that he hadn’t taken the advice seriously. “My son was still my son — 27 years old,” he said.
What Harris did not say is that he had told another son, Matthew, on the eve of John’s testimony that he did not think his emails with John would come up in the hearing. He did not know that John Harris had already turned over the emails. More important, it was a sign that his campaign may not have fully complied with the state board’s subpoena for documents and communications related to Dowless…
Harris faced potential legal jeopardy and a brutal cross-examination from Elias, a prominent and aggressive Democratic lawyer from Washington. The board’s lawyers asked Elias whether he would let Harris go if Harris also agreed to say that a new election was warranted.
Freedman mentioned Harris’s health problems — he was still recovering from a serious infection that had led to sepsis and two strokes. Freedman added that Harris’s medications had affected his memory on the stand…
Republican politicians have for years railed against the threat of voter fraud in the U.S.
But when a North Carolina election was overturned this week because of election fraud by a Republican political operative, the GOP was largely muted in its responsehttps://t.co/jMqft7w9uS
— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 23, 2019
The US Attorney in NC’s Eastern District was tipped off about the absentee ballot fraud scheme in #NC09 in 2017. He’s focused instead on rooting out extremely rare, usually mistaken instances of non-citizen voting. My story on Bobby Higdon: https://t.co/RVKFU4l1i8
— Allegra Kirkland (@allegrakirkland) February 22, 2019
On the Road and In Your Backyard
Cermet
Proof yet again, that the rethug party has only one goal – power. They are determined to create a country ruled by an elite that keeps the willing rube’s in their place doing as their betters command. So ends democracy if these liars, thieves and low life’s succeed.
r€nato
seems to me that every single donor and volunteer to McCready should have cause to sue Harris and whoever else was in on this shit. All that money and effort wasted by GOP election fraud; now they have to do it all over again.
Ladyraxterinok
GOP thinks this fraud MAY have hurt the party label?!?!
Scotian
@Ladyraxterinok:
The fact that this qualifier is even thought of, let alone used here, underscores just how far from core legal principles the GOP have moved, and without respect for the rule of law, one cannot have an open democratic society, the one relies upon the other for its stability and consistency. Sounds like the son understood this far better than the father.
CaseyL
@Ladyraxterinok: Because the party is already identified with grift, bigotry, and violence, so maybe there’s not much left of the party label for anyone who isn’t into supporting grift, bigotry and violence.
rikyrah
(((DeanObeidallah))) (@DeanObeidallah) Tweeted:
@realDonaldTrump Below is Spike Lee’s speech. Nothing racist in it. What upset Trump was that Spike encouraged blacks to mobilize and vote. That’s a threat to Trump’s white supremacist power structure:
https://t.co/bXaREFcsRk https://twitter.com/DeanObeidallah/status/1100017886415015936?s=17
OzarkHillbilly
@Ladyraxterinok: They have been engaging in this kind of fraud for quite some time and it’s never hurt them before. My question is why do they think it might this time?
germy
raven
Senator John Cornyn
✔
@JohnCornyn
“We were the first to assert that the more complicated the forms assumed by civilization, the more restricted the freedom of the individual must become.” Benito Mussolini
3,235
11:17 AM – Feb 24, 2019
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SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Because ponies and rainbows?
SFAW
@raven:
Not sure what Cornyn’s actual point is, but fuck him and everybody that looks like him.
rikyrah
Hayes always giving these muthaphuckas the benefit of the doubt that they never have earned.
RedDirtGirl
I hate these mother fuckers!
Also, too, last night I dreamt that I shared a bowl of ice cream with Head Jackal, JC.
germy
Yarrow
Haven’t been following this story all that closely. Has it come to light yet that the national Republican party was involved in the NC election tampering?
@rikyrah: Damn right it is!
raven
@SFAW: @SFAW: It’s on the top of his head.
Barbara
The article in whole is more balanced than the ridiculous paragraph you quoted, but I totally agree, there was nothing heart wrenching about a would be member of Congress taking the stand and continuing to think that he could lie because he knew that he had withheld key documents from the inquiry that made it clear he was lying. So, earth to Harris: when a person is subpoenaed to give testimony they are also told to provide whatever documents are responsive to the subject of the inquiry. The fact that his son testified about anything should have put him on notice that Elias already had the correspondence. Harris has been whining repeatedly that he is the real victim here, and that the only fraud was perpetrated by the Election Board’s Democratic majority in refusing to certify his election. He was doing that well before his now oft referred to and rather convenient health problems.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: Hayes is not to be trusted.
JPL
@germy: @raven: Praising Mussolini would not be my approach to win re-election, but maybe it appeals to his Texas base.
OzarkHillbilly
@RedDirtGirl: You need to spend less time here. Maybe go cold turkey.
OzarkHillbilly
@Yarrow: They are involved in voter suppression at all levels. This is just an extension of that behavior.
Yarrow
@OzarkHillbilly: Yes, but it’s being portrayed as a local issue. It’s not just local or even state. It’s bigger than that. That part isn’t being publicized.
Humdog
@Barbara: TWO sons undercut their lying pastor father. One on the witness stand and another to Wash Post reporters. The father didn’t teach his sons his own perfidy.
Neldob
To my usual rant is now added they are not law and order. Republicans are not conservative, not patriotic, not pro life, not pro family, not fiscally responsible and don’t support law and order. Buncha bungholes most of em.
beth
I have a Trump voting relative who lives in this district tell me in a conversation this weekend that she was disgusted that they’re going to have to spend all that money having a new election and that “both sides were doing funny business”. I would be wiling to bet a million dollars she still votes for the Republican candidate, whoever it is. I honestly don’t know how you get through to these people.
OzarkHillbilly
@Yarrow: I took your question a differnet way.
I have read a couple times (can’t recall exactly where) that these same shenanigans committed by Dowlless in 2016 were in fact referred to the Eastern District DA (Fed) for investigation and nothing happened. I’m not making baseless speculations when I presume that is how Harris’s USAA son in the EDNC office was so well versed on this situation and was so adamant in his warnings to his father. I also suspect Harris ignored those warnings because he figured that Higdon didn’t care.
It is a federal offense. It should be investigated by the Feds. It is news of national import and should be covered more broadly.
Yarrow
@OzarkHillbilly: It is and it should.
My original point is that the national party was more involved in this than is being portrayed. Perhaps it will come out at some point.
Kelly
@beth:
Oh my that applies to just about every issue. Climate, human rights, health care, an endless list.
DanF
Reminder that there is an immigrant woman in Texas who thought she was eligible to vote, voted, and now faces five years of jail time for voter fraud … and Harris gets to run again? IOKIYAR, and apparently even better if you are white and Republican.
OzarkHillbilly
@Yarrow: The present day GOP has as an element of their current culture that the depressing of the votes of minorities is perfectly acceptable towards the goal of winning elections. ANY vote suppression tactic in service of that larger goal is acceptable and if it is not legal they will do everything they can to make it legal.
It is an inevitable consequence of such a mind set that certain operatives within their party will get impatient and not wait for the laws to change, and that other members of the GOP will make light of it or just flat out ignore it. .
Outside of a few columnists and personalities (Krugman, Rampell, Maddow, etc) I would not expect any of the major publications/news sources to take note of this dynamic.
Gelfling 545
@Ladyraxterinok: But it probably didn’t. Republicans don’t mind crooked candidates.
ruemara
@beth: I’d say “both sides were not doing funny business, it’s the republicans you voted for & will vote for again.” but I stopped caring about Trump & Bernie voter feelings a long time ago. Either way, saying it bluntly is a kindness because that’s the lie they tell themselves that makes it ok to vote Republican.
Well, the only choice is to make sure people know there’s an election and mobilize to win it. Because those assholes are probably trying to figure out how they can steal it again.
Peale
@raven: Lordy. Look, if we’re going to be all nostalgic for the Roman Empire and have to deal with the whole “we were great when we had slaves and only certain people had rights – we are the New Rome” crap, can we at least talk about some of the things that Rome got right? Like the execution of Senators and blinding and cutting out the tongues of emperors who fell out of favor?
RedDirtGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: I actually haven’t been here as much as usual, so I must be missing it.
joel hanes
Harris should withdraw himself entirely.
Harris should be prosecuted. Immediately.
sukabi
@rikyrah: give Chris a break, it’s hard to wake up every morning as a newborn.
hells littlest angel
Oh FFS. The Tiny Violin Players Union is demanding shorter working hours.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@beth: Actually, it’s pretty easy.
All you have to do is start hating on black and brown people and they’ll listen to you.
That’s their core. They call themselves “conservatives,” but in reality they’re simply *neo-Confederates.”
From their unwillingness to pay for labor to their willingness to “rule or ruin in all events” to their undeniable hostility to people of color, that’s what they are.
There’s no reaching them without becoming a white supremacist yourself.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@OzarkHillbilly: They’re Neo-Confederates– determined to keep black and brown people from participating.
Exactly as they did to kill Reconstruction. Exactly as they did during the Civil Rights Movement.
This is how they maintain their power, and there is NOTHING more important to Confederates than getting their own way.
Every time, all the time.
Kent
So how exactly is this going to work?
They going to have an open election with multiple candidates and then go to a runoff if no one gets to 50%
They going to pick the top 2 from the start?
They going to have a primary first?
They going to go with whoever gets the most votes even if less than 50%?
C Stars
@JPL: I haven’t read all the comments yet, but yeah, I mean, I think it’s pretty clear that the red-meat GOP base is now tilting more in favor of fascism than Democracy. All signs point to it…
So quoting Mussolini does not seem like that much of a stretch. Hey, he was a violent white guy who amassed a ton of power, and in the modern GOP mind, those qualities far outstrip any notion of justice or rule of law.
Kent
OK, I clicked through the article. Apparently they are planning a May primary and fall general election with a June primary runoff if they don’t get to 50% in either primary. So we are still a long ways to seeing this to completion.
tarragon
@OzarkHillbilly:
Cold Turkey is my favorite ice-cream flavor!