Precinct meetings will determine fate of the Beaufort GOP | Eastern North Carolina Now

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

    Everyone, except for the Yellow-dog Democrats, should pay close attention to what happens at the Republican precinct meetings Tuesday night. It will determine the future of Beaufort County for some time to come.

    Here's why we say that; but first, what will happen.

    The precinct meetings will elect delegates to the County Convention. The County Convention then elects the County Chairman and the Executive Committee for the next two years, which includes the run-up to the November 2014 elections in which North Carolina will elect a senator. The person elected senator will be liberal-leftwing Kay Hagan or a conservative Republican. It will not be a "moderate" Republican. If Kay Hagan is re-elected, along with four other Democrats in other swing states, instead of conservative Republicans then Barack Obama will have a blank check to finish his destruction of America as it was founded. And the Republican Party will be dead.

    So it all depends on whether conservatives control the Republican Party and determine who will run against Hagan or whether we'll have another loser put up by the GOP. And that will be determined across the state in the precinct meetings according to the type of delegates that are elected at the county level.

    There will be a fight at this year's county convention. The fight will be between the conservative element of the GOP and the "moderate" element that believes in compromise with Democrats. Moderates are also known as "RINO's" or Republican In Name Only. Al Klemm is a prime example of a RINO. During his tenure as county commissioner he has voted with Democrats more than he has voted with Republicans on major issues when there was a split vote on the commission. He was a part of the Gang of Five and now is the swing vote to make the Gang of Four. An example is his vote on the jail, in which he gave the three Democrats exactly what they wanted and in the process sold out the economic viability of Downtown Washington. He did the same thing on giving away the hospital. Ditto on his blind commitment to corporate welfare (i.e., economic development) and wasting money building schools where there are not enough students to fill them. All of these decisions were Democrat decisions supported by Klemm. They were not conservative decisions.

    But here's why the selection of delegates to the Beaufort convention is so important. If the RINO's gain control of the party (Chair and Executive Committee) the party will be destroyed in terms of being a viable governing option in Beaufort County. A RINO "victory" will insure a Democrat victory.

    This is true simply because if the RINO's control the GOP, the conservatives will leave. That is already happening because of the lack of strong conservative candidates. We would expect the active conservatives to put their efforts into the TEA Party. We would expect the less active conservatives to simply take a walk from county politics.

    Because of the demographics of Beaufort County, Republicans cannot gain a majority on the County Commission without getting most of the Republican vote as well as most of the unaffiliated vote and even some cross-over Democrat votes.

    The simple political fact of life in Beaufort County is: If Republicans split their vote the Democrats win.

    Some might argue that in recent years, due to the limited voting system, Republicans have elected four of the seven seats. And that is nominally true. But two of those seats (Jay McRoy and Al Klemm) have voted with the Democrats on most of the split votes. Since Gary Brinn has replaced Jay on the board he has voted with the Republicans on split votes. So Al Klemm has become the swing vote. If Klemm is replaced with a conservative then the Democrats lose. If Al Klemm remains in office or is replaced with another RINO then Democrats win. It is as simple as that. The only way to insure that strong conservative candidates are offered to the voters as an alternative to liberal Democrats is for a strong conservative Executive Committee to recruit and support strong conservative candidates, particularly for county-wide offices such as Sheriff, House and Senate candidates. Arthur Williams proved what a disaster it is when RINO's run county-wide. He did not even carry his home county.

    There are rumors that Al will not run for re-election. And if he does run, we would suspect he will face the same fate as Jay McRoy faced last time. Rumor has it that Al will resign before his term is up and the RINO's will seek to replace him by the Executive Committee appointing Jay. To pull that off they have got to control the Executive Committee which will in reality select Al's replacement if he resigns before his term is up. Larry Britt is also rumored as a possible replacement, but politically there is no difference between the three of them. They are all RINO's who will give the Democrats the majority on major issues, particularly tax and spending issues.

    So that is why the delegates that will be selected at the precinct meetings Tuesday night will determine the future of politics in Beaufort County for several years to come.

    If conservative delegates are selected in sufficient numbers a conservative Executive Committee will be elected at the Convention and a conservative Executive Committee will determine who replaces Klemm if he resigns early and it will play a major role in selecting who runs against Kay Hagan and it will likely have a big impact on who is the next Sheriff.

    The issue is not Republican vs. Democrat. The issue is conservative vs. liberal. If the RINO's re-gain control of the Republican Party the conservative vote, including registered Republicans and unaffiliated, will abandon whoever the Republican candidate is. Such a split will give the Democrats control, including, ultimately allowing Obama to appoint more left-wing justices to the Supreme Court without a conservative U. S. Senate.

    If you want to see how this RINO politics plays out you need look no further than the failed deficit reduction quagmire in Washington, the "compromise" on infringements on the Second Amendment, amnesty for illegal aliens and more Benghazi's in foreign policy and a weakened military.

    The only hope America and Beaufort County has is a return to conservative principles. And the only hope for that is for conservatives to control the county GOP.

    Al Klemm sent out an email blast urging his supporters to attend the precinct meetings and replace the conservatives on the Executive Committee. Rumor has it he will run for county chairman. His email proclaims that the Executive Committee should "represent ALL Republicans" and then turns right around and says conservative Republicans should be banished. He attacks the Beaufort Observer, fearing no doubt that the Observer will expose him like we did McRoy. But the problem is neither he nor a majority of RINO's in the Republican Party can banish the conservatives nor can he intimidate the Beaufort Observer. The conservatives will simply move to the TEA Party and we will have the effect of a third party system in Beaufort County and the Beaufort Observer will continue to expose the RINO's for what they are: Democrats in disguise.

    It will all be determined by whether conservative delegates are selected at the precinct meetings or whether RINO's split the party for the benefit of the Democrats.

    We will conclude this by making a prediction. We predict that the conservatives will lose. We believe that will be the case because so many conservative Republicans have already given up on the Republican Party and they see no hope for the GOP. We think that is precisely why Mitt Romney was not elected President. He was viewed as not being a strong conservative and conservatives simply did not turn out the vote. We predict the same thing will be seen Tuesday night at the precinct meetings. We hope we're wrong but it will all depend on how many conservatives still see any hope for the GOP.