ALEC's all-stars in the NC General Assembly

I would never vote for him. At this point I am missing David Parker.

I live in Wake County, and I ran for a vacant 1st Vice Chair seat on April 14th.

IF you were there, you witnessed the sad display put on by consultant Perry Woods where he told you all a series of untruths about me to influence the vote. Since there was no time to directly confront and address those mistruths, I lost. And he was dumb enough to admit to defaming me - and give his reasons why - in the N&O.

But those of you who were there also witnessed consultant Woods submit a Resolution from the floor attacking NCDP Chair Parker and ED Jay Parmley about the alleged sexual harassment and confidential agreement with former employee Adraidn Importante Ortega.

Some people asked me if the two incidents were related - they are. If you remember the character "Deep Throat" from the movie "All the President's Men" - who told Woodward and Bernstein to "follow the money".

Both Perry's attack on me and the attack on Parker & Parmley were related. It's all about money - money that flows to Perry's consulting business for those 2009 "Board of Elections" mailers that were sent out for the "Board of Education" race. I've objected to outside individuals or groups having so much control over the Wake Dems in the 2011 school board race, and I object to Amendment One groups controlling the Wake Dems now. We can work with them - but working with an outside group is a two-way street. Unless the whole purpose of doing this is to give outside groups more control over the Party than they should have. You should really ask yourselves if you want the Party controlled by outside groups.

The attack on Parker and Parmley was about even more money. The news media went repeatedly to both consultant Brad Crone and Perry Woods who both urged Parker and Parmley to resign "for the good of the Party". Only it wasn't the good of the Party they were really concerned about - it was all about the money they may or may not get out of the Party. An estimated $1.2 million in taxpayer checkoff money and $700K in unspent funds from the Governor's campaign fund.

As a long-time party activist, Parker advised the District Chairs about the change in the law made in 2009 to remove their ability to decide how half that money was spent. The district Chairs showed great solidarity in 2010 - and got to keep half that money and decide how to spend it. Meaning they didn't let the Party keep that money and give it to the candidates. That was under former Chair David Young. Parker's role in helping the District Chairs surely was a reason why Governor Perdue didn't want David Parker to be Chair.

So when Parker was elected Chair in 2011, he made some changes to the way that business was conducted at Goodwin House. He didn't appoint an extra 13 people to the Taxpayer checkoff committee to drown out the votes of the 13 District Chairs. So Parker has to go - before the money comes to the Party for the Taxpayer Checkoff Committee to decide how it's going to be spent.

The COS candidates aren't having an easy time with raising money. Much of the money is going to outside groups focused on issues - not to candidates. Those groups are controlled by people who are now attempting to control the "electeds", the candidates and the Party - as the School groups did last year and the Amendment One groups are doing now.

Here in Wake County - current board members are either controlled by or are very close to either former Board members or the outside groups that are trying to take over control of more and more of the Wake Dems.

And now the consultants and "electeds" are pushing NC Senator Don Vaughn to replace David Parker as NCDP Chair. His name was included on a list of candidates deemed acceptable by the Council of State to run the North Carolina Democratic Party. Vaughn is a current active member of ALEC.

Do you want ALEC to run the NCDP? Do you want it controlled by a member of a group that takes money from Art Pope and the Koch Brothers?

Do you want other outside groups to run the Wake Dems? If so - then just do nothing. If you are like me - and you object to this outside interference and wonder why some Democrats on the Board allow and invite it - then you must do something. Don't be a rubber stamp for the "Powers that Be"!