The Inside Scoop on How to Have a Say in Politics | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: This post appears courtesy of the Beaufort Observer.

    Most people are born and die without knowing one big political secret. That secret is that our American form of government provides all of us with an opportunity to influence government in addition to just voting. This is one of the best kept secrets in the political world. Those who know how to influence the system will not tell others because they lose a part of their influence every time an another person attends and precinct meeting or a county convention..

    There are 48,00 people in Beaufort County. About half of those people are conservative. That is 24,000 people. Take out those who are too young to vote and those who do not vote. That number comes down to about 8,000 registered Republicans. How many people run the Republican Party in Beaufort County. There are about 20 on the executive committee. They make a lot of decisions (sometimes no decisions and bad decisions) about recruiting candidates, passing resolutions to send up the party line about abortion and border security etc. The recruiting of candidates and the vetting of candidates has a lot do with local government. A lot of Democrats have been elected as Republican because the Beaufort County Republican Party chooses not to vet candidates.

    Every county is the United States operates almost the same as Beaufort County. There are about 3,242 counties in the United States. The Democrat Party operates essentially the same way as the Republican Party.

    How do we decide who those 20 people are? The answer is through an election system on both the county and state level.

    The building block for this organizational process are the precincts. Same as the ones you vote in. There are 21 in Beaufort County. On February 19 at the Beaufort County Courthouse, all of the Republican Precincts in Beaufort County will meet at 6:30 PM. They will elect a precinct Chairman, Vice Chairman and Secretary and delegates the county convention. Every registered Republican and Democrat in Beaufort County is a member in good standing of the precinct they vote in. Any and all of these people who are register as Democrats or Republicans can show up and vote at the precinct meeting. Unaffiliated voters do not have a vote.

    The important business of the precinct meetings is to elect delegates and alternates to go to the Beaufort County Republican and Democrat conventions. It is the county convention that runs the party's business.

    The following business is done at the county convention:

           •  It will elect a chairman, vice chairman;

           •  secretary, treasurer, executive committee members and delegates to send to the Third District;

           •  state conventions. Those conventions elect the State party Chairman, secretary, vice chairman;

           •  treasurer to run the party's business until the next convention is held.

           •  The Beaufort County convention will be held on March 19 at 6:30 PM at the court house. Be there by 6:00 PM.

    As you can see, the fewer people who participate in this process the more power those who do participate have. That is why most of those who participate do not do try to recruit a lot of people to attend these meetings.

    This is where you come in. The more people who participate the better government we will have. Part of our problems with government today are that too few people are participating.

    Both political parties are dominated by extremists. The Democrats have socialists, and constitutional and racial radicals. The Republicans have left wingers and liberals who use the conservative platform to support Democrats. The nation needs change.

    The amazing thing, to get this change, it only takes two hours each year to attend the precinct meeting and another three hours to attend the county convention. All of us spend more time than that complaining about government.

    In Beaufort County, if things play out the way they stand now as few as 50 people will make some very important decisions that can cause hardship for you. The majority of these people are liberal, support abortion, and are on the left sides of both the Republican and Democrat parties.

    A small group has already met quietly to decide who will be the Republican party chairman in Beaufort County and hold the other offices in addition to who will be on the executive committee. You can bring fair play to Beaufort County by participating for only five hours this year.

    Tony Keech, Jr. and Bill Cook are interested in being the Republican party Chairman. Paul Varcoe seems to be running for Vice Chairman along with Patricia Garrison. Dot Moat is running for treasurer.

    If you are concerned about Republican or Democrat politics come out and participate. No need to be embarrassed because you do not have the experience. There will be very few people at these meetings who do have the experience. Your value will be in voting for either conservative or liberal candidates to represent your view point. You may not get your way but you will have a say.

    Call your local political party for information about these meetings. Be prepared to get the run around because most of them do not want you to be there.

    Remember those who did not invite you, do not want you there, because they are voting for you.

    Disclaimer: This article I snot intended to be a comprehensive explanation of how our political system is supposed to work.