Talking the talk and walking the walk - Privette resigns

As promised I showed up at the Cabarrus County governmental building this past Monday at 6 pm for my protest against Coy Privette. With me were 15 other folks. A smaller turnout than I had hoped for, but I guess it's better than nothing.

There was plenty of press around and you can catch our protest in a lot of the press coverage from that night.
In newspaper articles:

* Independent Tribune
* Charlotte Observer
* Salisbury post

On TV (please ignore my face, it's not a pretty sight):

* WSOC TV
* WCNC
* News 14

The Cabarrus County Commissioner meeting started at 6.30 pm in the building we were protesting at.
Mr. Privette snuk in through the parking garage and was intercepted there by Beth Feeback, a reporter from the Concord Standard newspaper. Mr. Privette said he didn't care about the protest, but proceeded to ask how many people showed up. When Ms. Feeback told him 15, he replied "15 people? That's some demonstration," and chuckled.

Of course Mr. Privette didn't know at that time that exactly one protester showed up to support him. That one protester was "Ric" Starnes, an extreme right wing nutjob who I've had interesting conversations with before.
He drove by as we were standing outside and was honking and hanging half out of his car while screaming at us in what sounded like a drunken rage. Mr. Starnes, don't drink and drive.

At 6.25 pm we stopped our protest so I could head on in and participate in the public speaking opportunity during the County Commissioner meeting. I had prepared my 3 minute speech and brought the 105 emails I had gathered, through the coyresign@gmail.com address, from people who wanted Mr. Privette to resign. I had planned on handing all those emails to Coy himself after my comments.

Right before the Public comment moment however, Mr. Privette had planned a "preemptive strike".
He requested to speak and read a prepared statement.

"I believe it is important that I publicly disclose my intentions to resign as a Cabarrus County commissioner as soon as matters are resolved related to whom my successor may be."
"It has been very important to me that the citizens who elected me have a strong voice to speak for them and that my successor will be someone who will have the courage to speak out even when he or she may be in the minority on a particular subject."

Once that's resolved, Privette said, he'll submit an official letter of resignation.
In other words, Mr. Privette said he will resign but only if the Republican party can find a successor who's as much of a crazy ass conservative as he is.

"All Republicans talk about being conservative," Privette said. "But there's a difference between talking the talk and walking the walk."

When he made that last statement, I had a very hard time trying not to erupt in loud laughter. Keep in mind that this comment comes from a man who once sponsored legislation to require schools to teach sexual abstinence and the sanctity of marriage, yet was caught having sex six times with a crack whore.

After Mr. Privette's comments it was My time to speak. Of course my prepared speech at this time didn't serve any purpose anymore, so i just told Coy that i had received 105 emails and thanked him for getting people interested in politics again (snark).
I closed off by saying that I wholeheartedly agreed with Mr. Privette when he said that there was a big difference between "talking the talk" and "walking the walk".

After the meeting Privette gave an interview to WCNC TV in which he claimed that his announced resignation had nothing to do with the prostitution charges against him or all the protests against him, but that he and his wife have just decided to move to a Thomasville retirement community. They had planned to retire there for years and decided recently to make the move now.
Right.....
If you believe that, I have some waterfront property in Arizona that i want to sell you.

Hearing him say that made me even happier with the fact that he will resign. A person that can tell a bald-faced lie like that without even blinking doesn't need to be making any political decisions again.
Even if you believe him to be speaking the truth, which he wasn't, he totally cheated his voters less than a year ago by running for re-election. Because why would you do that if you had been planning to retire in Thomasville for years?

The Republican party executive committee will now have to come up with someone to succeed Mr. Privette. This person will be in office until next years' election and not until 2010 like Mr. Privette was supposed to. So next year there will be 3 County Commissioner seats up for election instead of the 2 that were already planned (Bob Carruth and Joni Juba). Commissioners' Chairman Bob Carruth said he's heard four names unofficially mentioned as possible replacements -- former commissioner Robert Freeman; Mark Smith, a former commissioner candidate; and David Black and Larry Griffin, both former chairmen of the local party.

I look forward to seeing who they will come up with.

For Mr. Privette I have 2 words left: good riddance.

Cross posted from lefton49.com