Looks like its the Silly Season. Say whatever you think it takes to get elected. | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

Never mind the crucial issues this county faces that need resolution

    The voters of Beaufort County have just recently been treated to two examples of disgusting, sleazy politics. The Republican Party in Beaufort County has just been subjected to an exhibition of one of the things that keeps the GOP from becoming a viable governing force in the county.

    We are referring to two mass mailers recently sent out by commissioner candidates Ron Buzzeo and Don Cox. Both apparently believe that attacking Republicans is the way to win as a Republican. There are so many things wrong about these mailers that it is difficult to address them all. But the main complaint we have is that rather than focus on the issues and offer solutions for the county's problems they instead use innuendo to attack personalities. In so doing they have the potential of inflicting mortal damage on the Republican Party.

    Here's our paramount point: We believe what Beaufort County needs now more than anything is a conservative majority on the County Commission. That means a majority that can and will put an end to the foolishness we have been served by the current RINO/Democrat majority. And common sense tells us that attacking the current conservative block (Deatherage, Richardson and Brinn) or parts thereof, on the board is not the most effective way to achieve a conservative government for Beaufort County.

    We would suggest to Messers Buzzeo and Cox, and their handlers, that the better way to achieve a conservative county commission is for conservatives running to address the crucial issues with ideas about how they would deal with those issues, in contrast with how the current liberal majority has done. Neither mailer succeeds in doing that.

    Let us break it down this way:

    Buzzeo's mailer, the less offensive of the two, posits four points: The jail, emergency medical services, what he calls "unprofessional conduct by Commissioners taking advantage of limited voting incumbency..." He proclaims that if elected Commissioner he will not embarrass us with his conduct. What does that mean?

    On the jail he fails to tell us whether he thinks a new jail is needed or whether what he finds "unacceptable" can be corrected in the present facility. There is a multi-million difference between building a new jail and fixing what might be wrong with the current facility. Yet we are provided no clue about how he would vote on the jail issue. That suggests he is trying to pander to both sides of the issue.

    On medical services in the "eastern part of the county" he is even more devoid of what we might expect him to do as a commissioner. He says nothing about how to save Pungo Hospital or even whether he thinks it should be closed or not.

    He bemoans "unprofessional conduct" by "taking advantage of limited voting incumbency" while doing precisely what he complains about.

    He promises to never embarrass us, but does not document a single incident of what he considers embarrassing behavior of which complains, much less how that might be connected to limited voting. It is a shameful pandering to the low-information voters about an issue that is so complex that the same group of political hacks who promised last time to fix the problem have yet to even come up with a viable alternative. Turns out that they used this issue last time to elect a candidate who promised to do something about the electoral system but succeeded only in wasting a lot of time in useless meetings. Now that is real, effective governance is it not? Let us sum up Buzzeo's attempt to ride the same lame horse into a seat on the board by suggesting that he could never very likely get elected in any other electoral system other than limited voting, yet he rails against that which he seeks to take advantage of.

    We'll deal with his embarrassments a bit later.

    We "reached out" to Mr. Buzzeo to ask him to explain the mailer and who the creative geniuses behind it were, although we already knew from campaign finance reports he filed. He declined to give us substantiation for the innuendos he published. He refused to tell us who he paid to run this smear. (We'll disclose that in another report). Think about that. Neither Mr. Buzzeo nor Mr. Cox would name who was involved in the mailers. Makes us wonder what they are trying to hide. Why the secrecy? We'll have more to offer on that point in a later article.

    Then comes more sleaze from the same source with Don Cox's name on it.

    Mr. Cox rounded up the "usual suspects": Lower taxes, less regulation and promising us he will "never embarrass" us. Note the similarity to Buzzeo's similar emotional affliction.

    So we called Mr. Cox. He could not tell us specific votes that anyone had cast that were an embarrassment to him. Not one. He claimed that "I have been told by some people that businesses considering coming to Beaufort County decided not to do so after watching video of Commissioner meetings." We checked that out and could find no such examples. But our checking was not very exhaustive because Mr. Cox could not furnish us the names of any such businesses with whom we could confirm his accusations. How more embarrassing can you get?

    But the back side of Mr. Cox's mailer may tell the story. He uses a Photoshopped picture of two of his challengers, Keith Kidwell and Stan Deatherage, to attempt to smear them as "bullies." Yet when we asked him to give us a couple of examples of bullying he could point to nothing specific. He just doesn't like the way their personalities strike him sometimes. Now that's a really good way to decide who should be representing us. No votes that were deemed incorrect. No positions on issues with which he disagreed. You get the picture. Now that's what Beaufort County needs: Commissioners whose personalities are more palatable to us. Makes one wonder if we're not talking about "go along to get along" governance as we're seeing in Washington, DC these days.

    Mr. Cox also promises us to never embarrass us. So we asked him: Who's embarrassed us and how did they do it? The only thing he could cite was that Keith Kidwell went a few seconds over the time limit in recent comments to the Commissioners. When we pointed out the difference between how Jerry Langley presides over the public's participation in Commissioner meetings and how two videos of the same process in Chocowinity (which were currently posted on our Home Page) show an entirely different approach to welcoming public participation, Mr. Cox would not confirm whether he would support encouraging more effective public participation in Commission's business or whether he would instead favor cutting citizens off in speaking to the board. Makes us wonder if he thinks every issue should be resolvable in three minutes.

    Which is more "embarrassing": A citizen speaking four minutes or four commissioners voting on spending 20 million dollars without any deliberative debate? We would suggest that the real embarrassment here is the majority on this board making their decisions in the backroom rather than in public view, even via video. Is it not embarrassing to these gentlemen that the current chairman (who cut Mr. Kidwell and others off) tried to prevent the Jail Committee meetings from being videoed so the working public could see what goes on?

    (We are compelled to digress on this point. We attend or watch/edit the video of all Commissioner meetings. And as we have written here on numerous occasions, the arrogance of the current chairman in his lack of accommodation of public participation is...well, nothing short of "embarrassing." Mr. Cox staunchly supports arbitrary "rules" and enforcement. We would suggest that just the opposite is needed by a new County Commission board. Greater public participation is needed, not less. There is nothing sacred about "three minutes." That is an arbitrary constraint imposed on citizens who go to the trouble to exercise their first amendment rights. We think it sends exactly the wrong message and if you want to see the alternative then click here to see how we think it should be done.)

    So what we have been subjected to by Mr. Buzzeo and Mr. Cox is an embarrassing example of sleazy politics. Personal attacks via insinuation and innuendo. And we may as well say it like we see it. It is a stupid move.

    The reason we say that is simply that if Mr. Buzzeo or Mr. Cox were to be elected to this board they would then find themselves sitting at a table trying to deal with the People's business with other commissioners that they had just attacked. What kind of sense does it make to stick a knife in the back of a person(s) you need their vote to get anything done? Think about that for a minute and you then see what we think makes this such a sleazy tactic. These mailers do absolutely nothing to identify the crucial issues this county is facing much less offer solutions or constructive ideas about how those issues should be addressed. No, what is going on here is a disgusting, selfish attempt to "say anything to get elected" by appealing to the most base level of civic discourse and then have the gall to talk about being embarrassed. Just what our county needs...hypocritical politicians intent in serving their own self-interests rather than the People's best interests. Not.

    We challenge anyone to review the mailers and tell us what principles either of these two men would apply to the decisions they would be called upon to make as a county commissioner. "Base" is the correct word here (see link above).

    We are not suggesting that candidates should not criticize incumbents or disagree with opponents. That is a healthy process in the Art of Governance. But what we are saying is that the People have a right to have their leaders lay out what their core values are and what principles they will use to decide the issues that come before them. What is actually embarrassing is to castigate personality and fail to take a position on crucial issues. How trite can you get than to say: "the jail in its current form is unacceptable... available resources and the voice of the people will determine the solution..." or that an opponent has "broken every rule in the book" and then be able to only cite going a few seconds overtime in advocating for the People's right to vote on 20 million in new debt. Give us a break. Tell us something we need to know—what would you do about the jail situation? If you're going to advocate "superior EMS services" how are you going to structure them and how are you going to pay for them? Tell us, gentlemen, how you propose, if elected, to secure the votes to get your agenda implemented when you have stabbed a knife in the back of those you seek to court? And moreover, as a Republican why did you, Mr. Cox, choose to attack fellow Republicans rather than Democrats?

    Our concluding paragraph of this article is but a transition to the next article. We are confident we know what's going on here and we will expose it in the follow-up. Both Mr. Buzzeo and Mr. Cox, in our opinion, have been duped by unscrupulous and unprincipled political hacks for the (here's that word again) most base of all motives: Money. More on that shortly.

    Stan Deatherage has responded to Don Cox's attack on him and Keith Kidwell. You can read Stan's response by clicking here.

    Click here to read a Letter To the Editor on this topic penned before this article was posted.

poll#49
Considering that Beaufort County may build a new jail /sheriff's office: What should be the best course?
7.51%   Build a modern jail/S.O. in the southwest corner of the county
43.3%   Build a modern jail/S.O. behind the courthouse in the county seat
49.2%   Do not build a jail/S.O. anywhere
746 total vote(s)     Voting has Ended!

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