RE: The Mitchell Report
Carol Bailey, the ex-Chairman of the GOP (and the last real leader the Stokes GOP had) once told me that when the GOP had been in power as long as the Democrats had, it would be as corrupt as the Democrats had become. She was right and wrong. She was right about the corruption, she was wrong about the length of time it would take.
The old school Stokes Republicans who managed to hold office or even be involved in politics and government during the 100-plus years the Democrats ruled the roost became behaviorally ingrained with an attitude that they had to submerge most of their Republican beliefs. By the time Buster Robertson's generation rolled around, they had been submerged for so long, they had disappeared. Buster and his ilk, Ron Carroll, Ernest Lankford, et al, were never ideologically Republican. Republican was the name of their team, it defined what color jersey they wore. On a side note, how unrepentant old socialists like Eugene Lyons, Willis Overby, and Howard Mabe ever ended up as Republicans is a complete mystery to me. I suspect it was mostly due to family reasons.
What this is all leading to is the simple fact that the Democrats never actually lost Stokes County. Well, it could be argued that they lost it for a very short time, that being the first two years of the Turpins' term. When they were the minority, Buster's crew acted like Democrats to get along, when they achieved majority, they had been acting like Democrats so long, they didn't know how to do anything else. Everything would have been peachey for these folks if 1994 had not happened and the Stokes Party had not been infiltrated by actual Republicans. After 1994, scrutiny was on the sitting Republicans and some of them were found wanting. In 1996, I defeated the last registered Democrat on the Board of Commissioners and, incidentally, removed the sitting Republicans' cover story. After Reba was gone, Buster and company no longer had any excuse for their outsized funding of social services, the health department, and the schools. During the first two years of my term, they were being inexorably exposed as RINOs, which paved the way for Sandy McHugh to get a seat on the board. Once that happened, the exposure accelerated, and as a side-effect, Buster's personal enrichment agenda that was being realized through his control of planning and zoning in the county was also exposed. Of course, that meant I had to go.
The fall of Buster's crowd from power is a very tangled story, but it is sufficient to note that even the Democrats were smart enough to figure out what they lost when they lost Buster's faction. Whether Buster and his crew worked directly with the Democrats to engineer the outcome of this past primary or whether it was accomplished simply by parallel agendas is unimportant. The end result is that the Democrats will once again control Stokes County. They will actually have tighter control now than they have had in over thirty years. Someone said we now have a ten member school board, but that isn't really the whole story. We have a ten member school board with the added benefit that half of the school board also controls funding for the health department and social services. It's a nifty socialist package that only lacks a pretty red bow to make it complete.
The real, crack-up hilarious part of this is that the poor saps who actually have a "D" after their name believe they have the Democrats behind them. The Democrats have their power trio running this fall, and it's not Newsome, Smith, and Southern.
Robert called Stokes a one party county. He's right, but not in the way he thinks. It doesn't really matter what the party is called, it is ideologically parallel to the Democrats. The party organization that holds the Democrat label is window dressing. The unfortunate aspect of this is that not only is there no opposition party, but there is no basis from which to build an opposition party. Both party organizations are now openly dedicated to the same agenda.
Not that I have a great deal of sympathy for the average Stokes County voter in this situation. As Lenin said, the people get the government they deserve. Two years from now, there is a very good chance that I'll have some outraged citizen belaboring me on what a bunch of communists we have running the county. I could ask if they voted in the 2006 primary, but I won't need to bother. I'll already know the answer.
The old school Stokes Republicans who managed to hold office or even be involved in politics and government during the 100-plus years the Democrats ruled the roost became behaviorally ingrained with an attitude that they had to submerge most of their Republican beliefs. By the time Buster Robertson's generation rolled around, they had been submerged for so long, they had disappeared. Buster and his ilk, Ron Carroll, Ernest Lankford, et al, were never ideologically Republican. Republican was the name of their team, it defined what color jersey they wore. On a side note, how unrepentant old socialists like Eugene Lyons, Willis Overby, and Howard Mabe ever ended up as Republicans is a complete mystery to me. I suspect it was mostly due to family reasons.
What this is all leading to is the simple fact that the Democrats never actually lost Stokes County. Well, it could be argued that they lost it for a very short time, that being the first two years of the Turpins' term. When they were the minority, Buster's crew acted like Democrats to get along, when they achieved majority, they had been acting like Democrats so long, they didn't know how to do anything else. Everything would have been peachey for these folks if 1994 had not happened and the Stokes Party had not been infiltrated by actual Republicans. After 1994, scrutiny was on the sitting Republicans and some of them were found wanting. In 1996, I defeated the last registered Democrat on the Board of Commissioners and, incidentally, removed the sitting Republicans' cover story. After Reba was gone, Buster and company no longer had any excuse for their outsized funding of social services, the health department, and the schools. During the first two years of my term, they were being inexorably exposed as RINOs, which paved the way for Sandy McHugh to get a seat on the board. Once that happened, the exposure accelerated, and as a side-effect, Buster's personal enrichment agenda that was being realized through his control of planning and zoning in the county was also exposed. Of course, that meant I had to go.
The fall of Buster's crowd from power is a very tangled story, but it is sufficient to note that even the Democrats were smart enough to figure out what they lost when they lost Buster's faction. Whether Buster and his crew worked directly with the Democrats to engineer the outcome of this past primary or whether it was accomplished simply by parallel agendas is unimportant. The end result is that the Democrats will once again control Stokes County. They will actually have tighter control now than they have had in over thirty years. Someone said we now have a ten member school board, but that isn't really the whole story. We have a ten member school board with the added benefit that half of the school board also controls funding for the health department and social services. It's a nifty socialist package that only lacks a pretty red bow to make it complete.
The real, crack-up hilarious part of this is that the poor saps who actually have a "D" after their name believe they have the Democrats behind them. The Democrats have their power trio running this fall, and it's not Newsome, Smith, and Southern.
Robert called Stokes a one party county. He's right, but not in the way he thinks. It doesn't really matter what the party is called, it is ideologically parallel to the Democrats. The party organization that holds the Democrat label is window dressing. The unfortunate aspect of this is that not only is there no opposition party, but there is no basis from which to build an opposition party. Both party organizations are now openly dedicated to the same agenda.
Not that I have a great deal of sympathy for the average Stokes County voter in this situation. As Lenin said, the people get the government they deserve. Two years from now, there is a very good chance that I'll have some outraged citizen belaboring me on what a bunch of communists we have running the county. I could ask if they voted in the 2006 primary, but I won't need to bother. I'll already know the answer.
posted by Anonymous | 11:18 PM
1 Comments:
For someone who has no clue what he's talking about, you sure run your mouth a lot, Tucker.
You were still practically in diapers when I was elected to the Board of Commissioners, so how would you know anything about how I got there? I rode no coattails. The Stokes GOP establishment tried everything they could think of to stop me. There was nothing they could do without openly splitting the party, so they backed off. Maybe you should grow up a little and gain some real world experience before you start holding forth and making yourself look stupid.
It would take pages and pages to describe what actually happened between 1996 and 2000, and you wouldn't understand half of it anyway. Tell us, won't you, how old were you in 1996? I'm sure you knew everything back then, just as you would have people believe you do now.
As for "so many people" being thrilled, four out of five people in Stokes County most likely aren't even aware a primary happened on Tuesday. A few hundred partisan Democrats like you changed their registration to vote in the GOP primary. That falls into the category of political dirty tricks. The fact that a few hundred of you took advantage of the voting public's apathy is an accomplishment that is neither significant nor something of which you should be proud.
There is an old saying, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." You are nothing but a puppet of forces you are not capable of understanding. I suggest your best bet is to remain silent.
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