Who are the conservatives in the GOP statewide NC runoffs May 14? | Eastern North Carolina Now

In this day and time in a Republican primary, all the candidates will swear they are "conservative" and sometimes send out endless postcards with that claim.  Some of them, however, are as phoney as a three dollar bill. One must look at their backgrounds and connections to find the true champions of conservative thought and reject the poseurs

Republicans have two statewide primary runoffs on May 14, and early voting is open now, for the Council of State offices of Lt. Governor and State Auditor. The Lt. Governor's office is open because the GOP incumbent is running for governor, and the State Auditor is open because the Democrat incumbent just resigned in a scandal.

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR

The race for Lt. Governor is between Hal Weatherman and Jim O'Neill.  Hal Weatherman served for eight years as Chief of Staff to conservative Republican former Lt. Governor Dan Forest.  Since Forest left office, Weatherman has been engaged in leading a campaign for election integrity in North Carolina.  He finished in first place in the first primary and is regarded as the frontrunner.

O'Neill is a prosecutor in Forsyth County who was defeated in the 2020 Republican primary for Attorney General.  He is from the establishment wing of the GOP that is associated with Sen. Thom Tillis.  Indeed, it is Tillis' political consultant, Paul Shumaker who has run O'Neill's campaigns.  O'Neill has just had a mass mailing from a small Virginia based establishment PAC that tries to call itself conservative but it has only been active in the past in backing a nahdful of establishment candidates in Kentucky and Mississippi.  It seems to mainly churn a handful of other peoples money and the question at this point is whose money?

Hal Weatherman is the clear conservative choice in that race.

STATE AUDITOR

The race for State Auditor pairs a young CPA Jack Clark, against an attorney, Dave Boliek.  Clark is a lifelong Republican while Boliek is a fairly recent switcheroo from the Democrats who is now trying to paint himself as a "conservative"..

Jack Clark is the only candidate who filed for this office in either party who is a CPA and the only one with actual auditing experience.  After being licensed as a CPA, Clark worked in the private sector during which he conducted audits for his firm.  He has since moved to a staff position with the NC General Assembly, where he has governmental experience now as well.  Although, not the first choice of many conservatives in the first primary, Clark is regarded as definitely the more conservative of the two runoff candidates.

The other candidate, Dave Boliek is an attorney and former prosecutor who serves on the UNC Board of Trustees where he has looked the other way while wokeness  has enveloped that university.  He has a long record there of refusing to stand up to the left.  Boliek was recruited to run for State Auditor by Jim Blaine, the political operative of liberal Republican Senate boss Phil Berger.

Clark led in the first round, but Boliek is spending lots of money trying to pass himself off as a "conservative".

Clark is the clear conservative choice for State Auditor.

Republican voters need to pay attention to these races because we made a big mistake in the first round in nominating for State Treasurer another do-nothing UNC board member, also recruited by Blaine. Brad Briner, who voted in the Democrat primary as recently as 2020 and is employed by gun control cheerleader Michael Bloomberg.  Briner and Bolliek ran their campaigns almost jointly.