College Republican challanges North Carolina Republicans

It is a sad state of affairs for Conservatives in North Carolina. What used to be a conservative state is now rampant with liberals posing as Republicans. Although I have only lived in North Carolina for five years, I have seen a lot of changes in North Carolina politics during that time. I saw the chairman of a county Democratic party switch party affiliation and become elected to the Stallings town council as a Republican. I saw the Democratic party actively recruit Democrats to switch parties and run in Republican primaries. I even saw the North Carolina Republican party turn its back on Republicans (and conservatives) when they needed them the most.

Conservativism is not something that you throw out as a talking point or something you wear on your sleeve. It is a set of firm principles and beliefs that you practice as well as preach. This past year during the 2004 Presidential election, as I began my term as chair of the ASU College Republicans, there was an unresolved matter involving a check that had been sent to our organization by the North Carolina Federation of College Republicans. Although I asked politely for the check to be sent to our organization, my requests fell upon deaf ears. After a few emails to the NCGOP, I quickly learned that not only were they not interested in assisting me, they were actively working against our organization. A September 6th email from a higher up at the NCGOP told me: “We have looked into this matter and have deemed that no action on our part is necessary. The NCFCR is a quasi- independent organization. In the final analysis $215 is not enough to burn political capital over. I recommend you move on.” How hard would it have been to shoot a quick email or get on the phone and say to the NCFCR: “Listen guys – you wrote a check to this organization… now pay it?” This was definitely not the only email I had received with less than encouraging news. In a time when conservatives were being outspent 10 to 1 by their liberal counterparts, these kinds of emails are precisely what discourages young Conservatives, especially on college and university campuses from being active and having a voice that we so desperately need and deserve.

Whenever you deal with politics, you are bound to have disagreements and arguments even if you are on the same side of the political spectrum. However, in North Carolina the Republican party is supposed to be the voice of Conservatives. Instead, the NCGOP prefers to keep a close inner circle of power and suppress the voice of any dissenters. There have been rumblings in the NC Republican party for a long time that a “good Conservative” needs to step up and run for GOP chair but there has been little action to go along with a lot of hyped up talk. Now is the time to do something. In a state that is solidly Republican, we end up losing control of the North Carolina House the same year that President Bush is re-elected with over a 10 percentage point spread over John Kerry! Our Republican Gubernatorial candidate loses to Mike Easley, who even had the State Employees desert him due to his blatant disregard for them, by the nearly the same margin that President Bush kicked John Kerry back to Taxachusetts! Out of ten council of state seats, Republicans only definitively control two (there are two remaining unresolved elections). There is something seriously wrong with our party leadership. In a post-election Herald Sun article, it sums up the situation very simply. There are two factions of NC Republicans – Co-PAM (Bill Cobey, Art Pope, etc) and the Richard Morgan faction. They have both waged war against each other at the pricey cost of losing a considerable amount of races for Republicans and Conservatives. Neither one is entirely to blame or entirely innocent either. However, CO-PAM is in my opinion more responsible for our failures at the ballot box this November, since they are the faction that is in control of the North Carolina GOP.

If Conservatives ever hope to have a voice in North Carolina politics the options are clear: 1) create a new party, similar to the constitution party which is active in Pennsylvania or 2) take over the Republican party and make it stand for the principles that it purportedly represents. Option 1 is unrealistic due to the vast amount of money it would take to create a viable third party, even on a statewide level. Option 2 although obvious hasn’t occurred yet. In my humble opinion, it’s about time that it does!

________________________________________________________________________ Alan Teitleman is a conservative columnist, political activist, and consultant from Monroe, N.C. He currently serves as the chair of the Appalachian State University College Republicans. He has worked on dozens of campaigns across North Carolina from school board to US Congress. Alan is a student at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC where he is a Political Science major with a minor in Community and regional planning. You can contact him at: www.AMTConsulting.com. Please feel free to forward this article in its entirety.

Sad to see that. Montana's GOP seems to be pretty nice to the College Republicans here. I'm a member and before the election, some 100 college republicans from Montana gathered in Billings (the cost for us to go was free, donations were welcomed but not needed as the trip was paid for). We went to districts in Billings and delivered pamphlets for Brown/Lewis and many of the people I met while delivering these packets were very happy to see me and most were all voting for Brown, there were people that weren't so happy to see me and would just close the door, but some were very polite. It was an extremely fun trip. We received a phone call from our lone Representative Denny Rehberg and gubernatorial candidate Bob Brown even thanked us for our support as well as Mr Lewis attending the after party that we had.

It really is sad. I'm 19 years old... Don't have a major dog in the fight! Just trying to see that the right (no pun intended) thing is done.

Perhaps a law that states that a representative who changes parties must rerun for his new party or if someone is planning on running he or she must have been that political affliation for a certain number of years.

I don't think that true conservatives can function in this "Two-Party Cartel". This Congress is owned by the elites & they have their agenda, which does not have our interest forefront. Changing this faction of the cartel may seem to be the most pragmatic but I don't see it as gaining any results because it will always be pubbie lite. Push a 3rd party, let this group take the hits. The socialists/commies will always be there but milk-toast pubbies will get us nowhere. We actually havethe libs on he run & GW is cowtowing to them. Does this tell us just what the agenda is of this elite New World Order?

I think that by starting on a county/statewide level we can greatly influence the caliber of candidates that run. There are dozens of instances of conservatives being backstabbed by the party since they weren't "mainstream" enough (i.e. they wouldn't bow and kiss the ground upon their every wish and command).

I am not opposed to either solution. I think that when you are dealing with 20 or 30 people on a county level or 300 or so on a statewide level that it would be considerably easier and less cost prohibitive to send 350 people to Raleigh, Harrisburg, or another capitol on a specific day and have them vote out the current administrations. That opposed to spending thousands of dollars to try to get ballow status and be a recognized political party, etc.

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