Helms Machine v Pope Inc.
Submitted by James on Thu, 06/18/2009 - 12:19pm
The war for control of the North Carolina Republican Party entered a new phase last weekend when nostalgic faithful chose Helms acolyte Tom Fetzer over Pope protege Chad Adams to preside over their ascendance. And while it's tempting to say Fetzer won the hearts and minds of grassroots party officers, that would be a distortion of what really happened. There were, simply put, few minds involved.
Tom Fetzer, who is not gay, ran on the implicit promise of returning the GOP to the dark shadow of its former self. Like Helms, Fetzer wears his bigotry on his sleeve, a bright badge of honor among the dwindling ranks. If voting is an exercise in projection, they have looked in the mirror and said, "We want us some Jesse." Which is exactly what they got in the not-gay Mr. Fetzer.
Chad Adams, for all his faults as an expert in the Art Pope Empire, at least has a Libertarian streak that helps him steer clear of the most offensive Republican values. He too is not gay, or so I'm told, but I guess that wasn't enough to beat the Helms Machine.
And a machine it is, with the kind of old school back slappin', hand-grabbin', and money promisin' that would have made Senator No proud. Fetzer won this battle the Jesse Helms way, a bucket full of retail politics, seasoned with a few cups of good old-fashioned prejudice.
Which has to be frustrating for Mr. Pope and his glittery opinion factory. To my knowledge, Mr. Pope spends somewhere north of $10 million a year to influence public policy in North Carolina and beyond. But for all his websites, think tanks, charitable contributions, lobbying, spinning, and more, it appears the emperor needs a new ground game.
That's too bad. I was pulling for Chad Adams, who I believe would have brought a welcome thread of thoughtfulness and modernity to the NCGOP. Which of course is why he didn't win.
- James's blog
- 1792 reads
And then there are the interwebs
From what I can see, the Pope machine is much more well organized than the Helms machine when it comes to online activism. That would be great if they were trying to influence Democrats, but in the case of the Republican Party, using technology is, like talking about evolution, an exercise in futility.
Nice Analysis James
I too was blown away Fetzer came from behind and pulled it off.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Does anyone have any
figures on how much the Pope machine actually spends per year? Even just figures for the central groups, let alone the extended family of crazies. That $10 million figure seems high, but maybe that's just wishful thinking... *shudder*
The last time I looked
the money flowing into The Show itself was approximately $5 million. John Locke Foundation. NC Institute for Constitutional Law. Civitas. Carolina Journal. That's the number I usually use.
Here's a sampling from 2007, which doesn't include direct political contributions.
Pope does some good stuff, too, which you can read about in the linked article.
If you add in Art's desire to reshape higher education into a force for free-markets, you'd have to throw in a million for Campbell University and who knows how much for the economics department at NC State. Heck, he even gave $10,000 to UNC's School of Journalism.
Direct reported political contributions seem modest, in the $10,000 to $20,000 range. In addition, Pope poured nearly $200,000 into "Republicans for a Legislative Majority" to beat Richard Morgan and get the stellar Joe Boylan installed in the General Assembly.
_____________________
Your comment and question are right on the money. The family foundation gave almost $11 million in the last cycle I found, but only half is directly focused on right wing politics. The other half is a grab bag of indirect influence, as well as some straight-up charitable work, such as animal shelters.
Capitol Monitor
Even Capitol Monitor, the linked source of that information, was funded by Pope in the amount of $184,021.06 in 07-08. It's another Pope entity masquerading as non-partisan.
No Change
It seems that people in North Carolina do not want the change that the rest of the country wanted. Unfortunately, that "change" is not proving to be good for America, at least financially. But in the end someone should not be voted into office for how much money they spend on activism. casino en ligne gratuit
Actually, that change is proving to be good for America.
Financially, the amount of deficit on the books six months ago was already staggering and the economic disaster that was left on the books for the next President was ... there is no word for how horrible that was.
Six months into the new administration, no one has ANY idea whether the plans put into place by the previous or the current administration to assist the economy will be great, good, bad or horrendous. Please don't try to say you have any idea at this time, because that is disingenious at worst. The finest economists have no idea.
Let's allow this to play out and when something finite comes about, we can then have this discussion.
North Carolina. Turning the South Blue!