A faction within the Republican party has attacked me as I seek re election to the Beaufort County Board of County Commissioners. Differences of opinion are what politics are about. If we all agreed on everything there would be no need to have elections. Usually political factions inside the two parties settle their differences during the primary election and then come together for the general election. Beaufort County Republicans rarely do it that way. Winners of the primary are fair game right up to election day.
A rant was put on by: Ashley Woolard defeated by Butterfield , Larry Britt former chairman of the Beaufort County Republican Party and defeated in the primary elections for county commissioner this year, Bill Tarpenning, campaign manager for several Republican losers, and Gary Brinnn a candidate with unproven credentials for County Commissioner in the November elections. Tarpenning and Ashley Woolard are Gary Brinn's campaign advisors. A prominent local Democrat made this observation the day after the rant. He said: "There is one thing about you Republicans, we always depend on you to fight among yourselves during election years".
The Washington Daily news reported on the incident which took place at the Beaufort County Republican Club meeting at Woogies Restaurant on Thursday night September 27. A lot of things were said and a lot of names were called. The summary of the event seems to be: Everything is Hood Richardson's fault and the Republican Party is required to embrace Gary Brinn and Jay McRoy regardless of how many bad decisions and judgements they may have made. They must be embraced because they say they are Republicans.
Beaufort County Commissioner Hood Richardson, showing up, and telling his story on his county can be better governed: Above. photo by Stan Deatherage
In a free society, everyone can have an opinion, and may try to persuade everyone else that his opinion is in the best interest of everyone.
This is a fight about using the name of the Republcian Party as an endorsement to further the political ambitions of at least two people. They are: Gary Brinn and Jay McRoy.
It is the duty of the Beaufort County Republican Executive Committee to protect Republican principles when all Republicans cannot be present. Republicans are represented by the Precinct Committees and their delegates during the Biannual Convention. The Executive Committee is appointed during the convention to run the party until the next biannual convention.
Therefore, the Executive Committee has the right and the obligation to further the principles of the Republcian Party. Those principles are generally: smaller government, less regulation, lower taxes and personal responsibility. In preserving these goals the Beaufort County Republican Executive Committee has made several hard decisions during this election year.
One of those was that Arthur Williams had not been a Republican long enough to have proven himself to be a protector of those principles. Another was to carry out the custom of the person getting the lowest number of votes in the Republican Commissioner Primary to not be supported by the Republican Party. There is nothing new about this. We have done this during the past several elections. One of the reasons for doing this is the limited voting requirement for Beaufort County. Limited voting means you can only vote for one of the eight people running for four commissioner seats.
The Arthur Williams issue has been settled by the voters. The executive committee voted and went to Gary Brinn, who got the lowest vote count of the four winners in the primary, and ask him to withdraw his name from the ballot before the ballots were printed in order to give Republicans a good chance of winning in November. Gary Brinn refused. Therefore, the executive committee is not supporting Gary Brinn. The majority of the executive committee does not support Jay McRoy in the commissioner race because he votes 84 percent of the time with Democrats and has failed to support or protect the principles of the Republican Party. The recommendation by the majority of the executive committee is to support Hood Richardson and Donald Dixon.
Brinn and McRoy have their nose out of joint because they desperately need the endorsement of the Repulican Executive Committee in order to cover up their bad judgement. Brinn's bad judgement is that he supported Arthur Williams and refused to step down to help the Republican Commissioner ticket. Jay McRoy has years of voting with Democrats and making a lot of other bad decisions. Go to the Beaufort Observer web site and click on the advertisement for a list of his actions.
We all know the process of getting elected for a new candidate consists of preparing campaign materials and demonstrating to the public that you have the skill, ability and judgement to handle the job when elected. If one cannot run a successful campaign there is a good chance one will not be a good commissioner. An incumbent must demonstrate these same characteristics with the exception that he is filling in a score card with every vote and decision he makes while in office.
Brinn has not demonstrated good judgement. First, he should not try to support another candidate while running for office because he will only loose votes. Second, he should have the mathematical ability to understand the reason the forth candidate drops out. Third, he should realize that his complaining abut the decisions of the Executive Committee makes him look immature and lacking in the ability to reason his way thru fairly simple situations. Fourth, he should pick political advisors who are mature and have the reputation of having won some elections. Fifth, Brinn should have done some service within the Republican Party to have demonstrated his political reputation by association with Republicans.
Jay McRoy has a voting record. He sat on the Hospital Board while it went bankrupt, voted for the OLF, voted to build the road to nowhere (US 17 west of Washington), voted to gift $267,000 to Agape Health Clinic, was a player in Chicken Gate, voted to build the Blue Goose and supported all of the bad decisions the EDC has made, voted to increase taxes, etc, etc, etc,
