My how things change after you announce for US Senate and start trolling for PAC dollars | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: Brant Clifton keeps a watchful eye on "Tholl Road Thom" in his "bare knuckles" Conservative online publication known as The Daily Haymaker.

    Let's check the ObamaCare scorecard, friends. Senator Burr says trying to defund ObamaCare is "the dumbest idea." Senator Hagan voted for and praised ObamaCare, and now takes both sides on the issue. Renee Ellmers says she's not interested in a defunding showdown. Neither is Bob Pittenger over in Charlotte. Republican US Senate candidate Greg Brannon says he'd be right there with Ted Cruz and Rand Paul and Mike Lee in fighting to defund ObamaCare. Brannon says both Burr and Hagan should be joining the fight to defund this legislative atrocity.

    What about state House Speaker Thom Tillis - the establishment favorite currently running slightly behind Brannon in polling matchups with Hagan?

    When all of the talk of the state refusing federal dollars to set up health insurance exchanges got started, Tillis initially parroted Governor Pat's talking point about ObamaCare being "the law of the land." In July 2012, he was asked whether he supported efforts to nullify at the state level the implementation of ObamaCare. Tillis responded that the best way to nullify ObamaCare was by "electing Governor Romney." Well, that didn't happen. What's plan B?

    In January, he told an audience in Moore County that it was not a question of whether to fund ObamaCare, but how to implement it.

    The Democrats have a tracker with a video camera stalking Tillis everywhere he goes these days. (It's interesting that most of the video that gets released has our state House speaker trolling the streets of DC - hopping from one PAC office to the next.)

    One of the more recent videos tries to pin Tillis down on whether he would support Senator Mike Lee's effort to use the continuing resolution as leverage in the ObamaCare defunding fight. Tillis would not go as far as Brannon did in his comments. Tillis uttered the proper GOP talking points about how bad ObamaCare is, but said he'd leave the whole defunding thing to "the duly elected senators."