I’m going to have to part company with you on your assessment here. You know I’ve never been a fan of the Pauls, but Karl Rove and anything he touches is toxic. There’s been almost no one else behind every bad, lousy, loser RINO candidates and their agenda like Rove has since he became a national figure. Frankly, I think this guy has been a plant from Jump Street. He’s done more to help Democrats and serve the establishment (or bipartisan/uniparty big government cabal) as a “Republican Strategist” than anyone else. He spends enormous amounts of money in service of sabotaging Conservatives. He is not and has never been on our side (and if he ever claims to be, it’s an act, a falsehood).
Tillis may not be as horrible as some describe, but it’s pretty clear he is the preference of the establishment. Another disappointment like Richard Burr (if not worse) is not what we need. The NC Tea Partiers have been behind Brannon for some time now, and I have yet to hear or see anything that is truly damning of either him or his candidacy (a la Sharron Angle in NV). Even the polling data I’ve seen bears it out that Tillis is the weakest general election candidate and Hagan would have a much easier time tying him to all the alleged negative legislative red meat stuff to gin up Democrat turnout. Brannon has no such problem.
DJ, with all due respect, just because Karl Rove and American Crossroads have supported some duds in the past does not mean that they only support establishment RINOs. In 2012, they supported Josh Mandel, Richard Mourdock and Deb Fischer, among others (see http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/08/15007504-karl-roves-election-debacle-super-pacs-spending-was-nearly-for-naught?lite). True, Rove is unlikely to support a candidate with whom Big Business would have qualms about, but I don’t have a problem with a conservative candidate such as Tillis whose belief in the free market is shared by Big Business.
So the “NC Tea Partiers” support Brannon? Who the heck speaks for “Tea Partiers”? It is a movement of individuals with no one leader, and if some self-appointed “Tea Party leaders” support Brannon it likely is because they’re Paulistinians themselves or because they have heard Brannongive some red-meat speeches and don’t know that Brannon is a Paulistinian. And you are aware that political newcomers with no record on which to stand frequently tout “Tea Party support” even when they’re not true conservatives, right? (Heck, I’ve seen leftists claim to be “Tea Partiers.”) Besides, if some Tea Party members or leaders reflexively support whichever candidate has the slimmest record of achievement then we’ll end up with candidates who may have no idea how to win a freaking election and who, if elected, would be cyphers.
As for your statement that “the polling data I’ve seen bears it out that Tillis is the weakest general election candidate,” you should be aware that he only polling company who has been releasing NC Senate polls is PPP, run by North Carolina Democrat Tommy Jensen. Jensen is notorious for agenda-driven polls early in the cycle so as to boost Democrat fundraising and discourage Republicans, and, in the case of GOP primaries, to try to get Republicans to nominate the weakest GE candidate possible. The most shameless example of his agenda polls was when he showed Todd Akin with a lead over McCaskill after his politically lethal statement regarding “legitimate rape” and whatnot, while every other poll showed McCaskill beating Akin like a rented mule, and PPP’s poll gave Akin what he was seeking to justify him staying in the race instead of dropping out (and allowing a conservative Republican who could win to replace him) like any decent conservative and Republican would have done. And when it comes to elections in his home state of NC, Jensen is even worse, pushing his agenda to the nth degree. He risibly had Elaine Marshall within striking distance of Burr throughout the summer and early fall of 2010 in order to keep Democrats motivated, and he never passes up the opportunity to run interference in the GOP primaries. So Jensen’s polls showing the Paultard Brannon as the “most electable Republican” are not to be taken seriously. (And, BTW, the most recent poll by PPP showed every candidate being equally likely to beat Hagan, so not even Jensen could keep up his shenanigans to the same degree as before, probably because Nate Silver, Nate Cohn and other liberals have criticized Jensen’s arbitrary methodology publicly.)
Thom Tillis has a remarkable record of achievement as Speaker, spearheading a conservative revolution in NC. When the GOP achieved a majority after 2010 (for the first time since Reconstruction), but when the governor was a Democrat who could veto conservative bills, he still got a few measures passed with veto overrides, and obtained the votes to place the NC Marriage Amendment on the ballot for a May 2012 vote (it was approved by the voters with 61%). Moreover, due to the fact that the NC Constitution does not allow the governor to veto redistricting plans, Tillis and his fellow Republicans obtained passage of redistricting maps for the state house and senate that cement 60%-70% GOP majorities in both houses for at least the next decade (and since the maps pretty much guarantee that Republicans will control both houses after each subsequent census, they can just redraw the maps again each decade to remain in power in perpetuity), and of a redistricting map for Congress that turned an 8-5 Democrat U.S. House delegation into a 10-3 GOP U.S. House delegation (it currently is 9-4 GOP because McIntyre held on by like 700 votes in 2012, but he already announced his retirement and the seat is not rated “safe Republican”). And with a Republican governor being sworn in in January 2013, Tillis has shepherded an incredible amount of conservative legislation through the House, on voter ID and other election matters, abortion, labor relations, taxes, environmental issues, etc.
So Tillis not only has talked the talk, he has walked the walk. What has Brannon done to prove his conservative mettle other than give a few speeches, join Ron Paul’s cult and donate money to Paultard B.J. Lawson’s congressional campaign? (Yes, Greg Brannon’s only contribution of $200 or more to a candidate for federal office since 1990 was his $500 donation to Paultard Lawson in June 2010, when Lawson blew our best chance since 1998 to defeat Congressman David Price; and if you weren’t sure that Lawson was a Paultard, check this out: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?129151-BJ-Lawson-for-Congress-North-Carolina-District-4.)
So it would take a heck of a lot more than an endorsement from American Crossroads for me to turn my back on Thom Tillis and support a candidate in Brannon who is at best unproven, and perhaps another Justin Amash waiting to happen. Nominating Thom Tillis will give us U.S. Senator Thom Tillis; nominating Greg Brannon will give us either 6 more years of the execrable Kay Hagan, or 6 years of a Senator whose strings will be pulled by an anti-Semitic, anti-U.S.-military, pro-heroin-legalization, pro-open-borders cult leader. Frankly, I don’t think that it’s a close call at all.