Tom Campbell: The NC GOP's boat has a hole in it
In the March 5 primary, three Republicans ran for governor. Two were longtime Republicans and respectable candidates: Bill Graham, a Jesse Helms conservative lawyer, and Dale Folwell, the twice-elected state treasurer. The third, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, was a bombastic, outlandish and inexperienced guy whom lightning struck, and he was elected lieutenant governor. Typically, the best known, Folwell, would have been the nominee.
The outcome wasn't close. Folwell got just 19% of the vote, Graham garnered 16 and Robinson got an overwhelming 64.8%. Why? Because Donald Trump endorsed him. And that was enough.
Except it wasn't. As we have recently learned, Mark Robinson is a morally flawed person. It is fair to ask how he was able to get this far.
But it wasn't just in the governor's race where Republicans needed to be asking more questions. Catherine Truitt, the incumbent superintendent of public instruction, was running for reelection. The former education adviser to Gov. Pat McCrory, Truitt had received good grades, especially for dealing with a legislature intent on dismantling traditional public schools. Her opponent was Michele Morrow, a homeschool advocate, had taught a few years in public schools, but she called them "indoctrination centers" and "socialism centers."
Like Robinson, Morrow has a background of outlandish comments. She attended the Jan. 6 insurrection, where she urged Trump to put the Constitution aside, invoke the Insurrection Act and use military force to remain in power. She posted on social media that she wanted to see Barack Obama and other Democrats publicly executed.
The smart money was on Truitt to win. Except Morrow was endorsed by Trump. Morrow got 52% of the vote to the incumbent's 47%. It was the biggest shocker of the evening.
Republicans nominated a state auditor candidate who had no accounting or auditing experience, a candidate to be labor commissioner who has thin credentials and has never served in government. And their candidate for attorney general, our state's top lawyer, was an election denier remembered for primary sponsorship of HB 2, the infamous bathroom bill that cost our state millions of dollars and embarrassment.
It is clear that more careful candidate vetting is needed. The state GOP chair says it isn't the party's job to vet the candidates. Neither did it withdraw support of Robinson. Its only job is raising large sums of money and obeying The Donald.
In most elections, the down-ballot candidates hope the nominee at the top will have coattails that will pull them up to victory. This time, state Republicans are asking if those down the ballot might actually cost the party a win ... not just at the top but all the way down the ballot. Republicans are rightly frightened.
An apt simile might be: When your boat has a hole in it, it doesn't matter where you sit.
In the past few days of this strange election cycle, we have witnessed former Republican Vice Presidents Dick Cheney and Mike Pence, former CIA and FBI Director William Webster and more than 300 well-known Republicans publicly endorse Kamala Harris. They haven't suddenly become Democrats. They want Harris to win so they can reclaim their party that Trump hijacked.
Stateside we're seeing former legislators and big-name Republicans endorse Josh Stein for governor for the same reason.
The real message to Republicans (and Democrats, too) is that before you have to undergo the embarrassment of the circus we're attending today, you should remember three things:
Political candidates can't keep their pasts hidden forever. Every indiscretion will be found out. If you run, you cannot hide from your past.
Before your party gets embarrassed and loses the election, its leaders have an obligation to their members and the public to do extensive candidate research. In olden days the party "bosses" would do this task and weed out candidates who couldn't pass muster morally or get elected. If Republicans had done this, we would never have gotten Trump, Robinson, Morrow and a host of others.
Most important, Lincoln was right. You might be able to fool all the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time. Voters are smarter than given credit for and people will lose confidence in and support for a party that repeatedly nominates candidates who lack basic decency, integrity and credentials.
If you want to win elections you must discover the holes in the boat before everyone else does. Otherwise, you all sink.
Tom Campbell is a Hall of Fame North Carolina broadcaster and columnist who has covered North Carolina public policy issues since 1965. Contact him at .
