Harold Johnson: The Engineering of a Facade (Part 4 of 4)

In this last part of a four part series, I want to talk about the next essential step Harold and the GOP elite did to create his facade. You need a political hack, er..consultant who knows all the games of deception you need to incorporate into your campaign.  Well, Harold found a doozy, Douglas F. Stewart III, better known as Dee Stewart.

One of the strategies Mr. Stewart likes to uses is to move college students into area and pays them for contract labor to knock on doors.  Of course, it’s very expensive and sometimes it fails as in the case of the Bill Graham for Governor campaign which paid over 260K for this to no avail.  Also involved was Michael Aaron Lay who pled guilty regarding election fraud in the McHenry campaign. Oh is that McHenry, Patrick McHenry, the Congressman?  Why yes it is. Mr. Lay was McHenry’s staffer and roomie.  Mr. Dee Stewart was McHenry’s political consultant.  He was also Patrick McHenry’s chief of staff and worked for Robin Hayes.

Oh and look..who came out in favor of Harold Johnson. Patrick McHenry and Robin Hayes.  Also, who else did Patrick McHenry endorse at one time? Why, he endorsed Tom Fetzer for NCGOP chairman.  Guess who was working behind the scenes with Fetzer during his fight for Chairmanship?  Dee Stewart.

See how the good ole boy network works?  Everyone is connected and they work in unison.  They do this to get political paybacks from each other.

Another one of Dee Stewart’s cheap maneuvers to to put out mailers right around the time where it’s too late to try to counteract it, just before the election.  Sound familiar?  The Harold Johnson campaign just did the very same thing, sent out a mailer about the size of a hardback book, repeating all the lies and innuendos Tom Fetzer did.
 
The only other person I will mention is Virginia Foxx’s support of Harold, only because I want to indulge in the irony of it. How gracious of her, especially since Harold lives in her district but didn’t support her. He didn’t vote for her. I don’t mean he voted for someone else, he hasn’t voted much at all.  As a matter of fact, Harold hasn’t voted in a primary or municipal election since 1992.

Now, let’s talk about the second stringers in NC GOP chariman Tom Fetzer’s little army. Mr. Fetzer is a career politician and knows how to play the political game to its fullest.  After he decided that Tim D’Annunzio was not one to be put under his thumb or squeezed, and Lou Huddleston’s limited attraction was collapsing due to Tim’s conservative appeal, he pulled the fossil, Harold Johnson, out of Iredell County’s closet to run in District 8. Now that he had his patsy, he knew if he were to be successful in getting his stooge in place, he needed to demonize Mr. D’Annunzio. This was the only way to try to bring Tim down as he was well liked, he knew the issues, had solid ideas and solutions and a plan to accomplish them. Without going into the numerous instances, he and his county GOP chairs made it quite clear, in words and action that they were supporting Harold Johnson.  They broke their own Republican party rules.

They employed the well-known political ploys of demonization and personal attacks.  One way this can be done is to lie about the person themself and to misrepresent their platform.

Lou Huddleston did this as well. For example, at one of the forums, the method was to pick a question out of the mix, ask the question to each candidate and they would be allowed to speak on it for two minutes. There was no back and forth and no debate. Instead, each candidate was to be given a chance at that same question. They also were not to attack any of their opponents. Lou Huddleston was asked the question something like, “What do you propose to do with the Federal Government?”  His answer was to the effect of “Well, I certainly wouldn’t do what my opponent wants and to rush right in and dismantle the Federal Government and all it’s departments….”  He then went on for the two minutes misrepresenting and lying about the position held by this opponent.  Although no name was mentioned, everyone knew who he was speaking of. When it was Mr. D’Annunzio’s turn, he didn’t get that same question like he should have. He was asked another instead and he stated his answer was No.  He then said that he’d like to use the remainder of his time to clear up the misrepresentations of his stances and refute what Mr. Huddleston had said. Suzanne Rucker, Ms. former Democrat and Chairman of the Cumberland County Republican Party,  jumped up and told him this wasn’t allowed.  Tim said he felt he should have the chance to explain his true positions. She ran onstage and took the mic out of his hand. The liberal newspaper, the Observer, again by Jim Morrill, published their version of the facts instead of what really happened.

The main idea here is that there were up front rules in place and they were broken and nothing was done about it. There was no rebuke or attempt to stop Mr. Huddleston.  Yet, there was towards Tim.  I feel they should follow their own rules and be equally fair to everyone.  Just as a mention as well, Ms. Rucker decided to further break Republican rules twice more, by writing op-eds and placing them in local media.

Although there were many even more blatant illustrations of bias I could have used as examples I choose the one pertaining to misrepresenting Tim’s stance on the Federal Government.  I chose this because this is the one the GOP establishment and his opponents keep hitting him over the head with, untruthfully and as a scare tactic of course, but that doesn’t stop them. 

The reason I am concentrating on just this one instance is I happened upon a nice little article titled Republican Senators Declare Themselves Gutless Wonders. (Click the title to view.)  It’s about how the GOP elite are doing the same thing to Sharron Angle in Nevada who is running to unseat Mr. Harry “taxes are voluntary” Reid.

Her positions are standard Conservative positions and they are the same as Tim D’Annunzio’s.  Just as most Conservatives, Mr. D’Annunzio, Ms. Angle and many others are for eliminating unneeded agencies, bureaucracies and Departments within the Federal Government and those that are unconstitutional. Perfectly sound logic, right?  Not to the GOP establishment.  They tout it as these Conservatives just want to go in there and totally dismantle all Federally run Departments and programs and they want to do it RIGHT NOW.  This is the lie.  They do not want to dismantle them, for one, they want them assessed as to their functions, how well they serve and how they are actual run, but more importantly, their constitutionality.  They also feel that if they are necessary programs deemed beneficial, as they believe many are, they can be moved to the states and to the people if THEY so choose.  The second part of the lie is they want to do this all at once.  They aren’t fools. They want to do this incrementally.

They want to get back to the principles that whatever the constitution doesn’t mention explicitly as a role of Federal Governement should be left up to the States and more importantly, the people. They can run any program better than the Federal Government can. The Federal Government can’t run anything right: case in point, Social Security.  It allows free market principles to come into play, lowering costs through competition. It also gives the people choice and the freedom to run their lives as they want without intervention or interference from the Feds.  The idea of leaving things at the State level is the ability to pick up and move if you don’t like it.  If the Federal Government rules it or makes a law, it applies to all states so, where’s that freedom and choice to decide what’s best for you and yours?  They don’t want you to have liberties and freedom. They want the power and control.

There are many other things that Sharron Angle and Tim D’Annunzio share opinions on.  Several Senate Republicans have not only come out against her on her conservative stances but are chastizing her and refusing to back and support her due to these ideals. Just as the NC GOP party and Washington Gop elites are doing here in the 8th District. Why?  They have their own dog, or I should say, RINO in the race.  This is happening all across the country.

Now, to be fair, I admit Mr. D’Annunzio made missteps. But the one thing we all say we want, is someone like us. We say we want someone who’s gone through trials and tribulations.  We say we want someone who understands how to have to live life the way we do, facing what we face every day.  We say we want someone who has or had to struggle to get by, to face unemployment, foreclosure, loss of business, and to have experienced the personal and social difficulties we all do. Except we don’t really want someone like us, do we?  We can’t accept these people for all their qualities, good and bad. Neither does the establishment and will do anything to stop us.

How can a normal, everyday, common citizen ever get the money to fund a campaign, fight the smears that will most certainly come, fight against the lobbyists, PACs adn others?  Say we want to send an average, working person to Congress who makes let’s say $40,000 or so a year. They don’t have the money nor the means to hire political consultants, pay people to get others to the polls and all the other people they need to run a campaign?  Typical people like this don’t have the network of people to get it from either. But if you have your own money and can afford to do these things, you are marked as “rich” and are considered as buying the race.

Money is only one part of the dilemma. Tim was the first to tell you he’s not a politician.  He also told you he is far fom perfect, as all of us are.  Neither are typical American citizens polished, nor are they made of steel.  How can they ever hope to be able to also fight the Washington good ole boy network establishment?  How can they know the little tricks, ploys and games they need to play to get into office?   Who can stand up to all the criticisms and personal attacks upon themselves, their families, their entire life history? How can keep their emotions, fears and feelings in check through it all?  Even if all of aspects of life, personal, business, social were stellar, the facts and truths would then just be manipulated or put into outright lies. How do you squelch and defend these?   How can anyone ever hope to succeed without turning into one of them?  We are amateurs, they are the professionals.  All of these things make it virtually impossible to ever run for office.  Unless you are Harold Johnson and become the puppet of the GOP establishment or somebody.  The problem is Harold, you’ve just sold your soul to the same devil We The People want you to fight.  You are now one of them and beholden to them.  This is truly a shame and needs to change.  Our Founding Fathers never meant it to be this way.  This is our country and it’s time we took it back.

Might I also suggest that the Teaparty stop allowing themselves to be used and disassociate themselves from the GOP, or if they really want to make a difference, infiltrate it and take it over.  Just merely associating themselves with them and not claiming it as theirs, tarnishes their credibility and defeats their purpose.  It’s obvious Harold Johnson ignores the presence of the Teaparty just as the Republican Party does, until they need them. Harold chose not to fill out a questionaire from a couple Teaparty groups and offshoots, yet runs around claiming their values are his and they support him.  Not bothering to fill out those questionaires or going to talk to them, once again proves what I’ve stated before, that Harold thinks he’s entitled and that he can’t talk about the issues.  I can’t blame him, after all.  It’s like a kid who can’t read, yet graduates from high school. If you can’t do it, fake it.  This is even worse than a RINO, this is ineptness, disgraceful, but above all, scary.