NCSEN: Key Tea Party group backs John Rhodes write-in effort | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: Brant Clifton expresses that there is an alternative to Hagan/Tillis in his "bare knuckles" Conservative online publication known as The Daily Haymaker.

    One of the Tar Heel State's more significant Tea Party organizations — Asheville Tea PAC — has stepped forward with a recommendation that voters write in the name of former Mecklenburg County legislator John Rhodes for US Senate.

    Lately, western North Carolina has been sitting up and taking notice of the group's aggressive conservative grassroots efforts. In the May primary, ATP backed Cary OB-GYN Greg Brannon.

    Contrast this with the — what I'm told was controversial — endorsement of Thom Tillis by Conservatives for Guilford County. Tillis has been avoiding the group like the plague. He didn't bother to show up for the group's candidate forum during the primary. C4GC held a straw poll on the primary field in January, and Tillis came in dead last.

    I've heard some people compare actions like C4GC's to battered spouse syndrome. They believe things might change if they hang around. They might be listened to — and given a little more respect — if they hang around and "behave."

    Washington is pumping up the cost — and destroying the quality — of the best health care delivery system in the world. (Both parties have abandoned the idea of killing ObamaCare and are talking ONLY about "fixing" it. Never mind that John Boehner got his speaker's gavel based on the promise of killing off that beast.) No one is taking our $17 trillion — and growing — federal debt seriously. The "debt limit" keeps getting knocked upward by the political class for the sake of pacifying the rubes back home and getting the media off their backs. Regulatory growth and overreach are decimating the economy and pushing a growing number of folks away from self-sufficiency and toward government dependency.

    Republican majorities have come and gone. Republican presidents have come and gone. Yet, HERE WE ARE.

    The way to putting America back on track will be paved with new, innovative ideas. How's that going here in North Carolina? The takeaways, so far, in this campaign are: (1) Sean Haugh smokes pot, (2) Thom Tillis wants to be all in the middle of your visit to the OB-GYN, and (3) Kay Hagan missed a committee meeting.

    November's vote will make very little difference in the battle to cleaning up the country. (ONE of the two major party candidates might actually slow our slide into the pit of decline.) You can be a good soldier and fall in line either in the R or D column. (And be dismissed for two to six more years.) OR you can take a stand and demand leadership on the things that matter in the fight to save our country.