Can the GOP win North Carolina's Senate seat in 2014, and if so, how? | Eastern North Carolina Now

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

    The Daily Haymaker is running a story about the spat in the Craven County Republican Party. The link below will allow you to read about that situation. We would suggest how that issue is resolved will show us much about the future of the N. C. Republican Party. For those not intimately involved in party politics let us review:

    Both parties operate essentially the same. Any voter in North Carolina can register Democrat, Republican, Libertarian or unaffiliated. The Democrats and Republicans hold primaries to select the candidate that will represent that party against the other in the General Election. If you are registered as a Democrat or as a Republican you can only vote in that party's primary. If you are registered unaffiliated you can choose which party's primary you will vote in when you go to vote. This gives tremendous power to unaffiliated voters because they become the "swing vote."

    The way it used to be, who was elected was decided in the Democrat Primary but that is no longer true. But that meant that many people registered as a Democrat but don't always vote Democrat in the General Election. The way general elections in North Carolina have been decided in recent years is that a core base of each party always votes for that party's candidate, no matter who the nominee is. The margin of victory is decided by the unaffiliated voters. And all of that rides on turnout. Turnout is produced in large part by party workers/activists who turnout the vote. That is becoming more and more so because of technology. Barack Obama won that way.

    At the county level, both parties are controlled by an Executive Committee that is elected at the county convention. Delegates to the county convention are selected in precinct meetings that can be attended by any party member. The convention also elects the county Chairman. Between biennial conventions the Executive Committee runs the party.

    The county conventions select the delegates to the state convention which then selects the state officers.

    Both the Democrat and Republican parties are fractured. They have always been and always will be, to some extent. Each has its more liberal wing and each has its more conservative wing. There is a constant tension between the factions and it often turns on the individual candidates who are running in a primary.

    The party organizations are controlled by the activists - the people who do the work to get out the party's message and to turn out the vote. Turning out the vote is where the action is with the base. If the base does not turn out, as it did not for Mitt Romney, then the party's candidate loses.

    If the base turns out in both parties, the unaffiliated control the outcome. So the party's message to the unaffiliated is most important. The message that resonates with the unaffiliated is the one that speaks to what those "non-party" voters see as the appropriate positions on the top crucial issues. (And those positions can be fitted on a 3X5 notecard.) The parties/candidates have to be correct in selecting the key issues and they have to hit the target on those issues as the unaffiliated voters see them.

    More often than not, the unaffiliated voters decide on the key issues and which candidate has the "correct" position based on disenchantment with those in power - of either party. That is how Barack Obama won...by blaming Bush and the GOP. That is how Pat McCrory won as the unaffiliated revolted against the Democrat Establishment. That is also how the Republicans won the super majorities in the Legislature. The margin of victory came more from those who voted against the status quo than it did from those who voted for any particular candidate, party or positions. This is why "negative campaigning" works, even if people say they don't like it.

    Back up far enough in your perception and you notice that political favor in the electorate usually swings like a pendulum. That has been true since the Great Depression.

    Those who get into power try to retain that power and they typically do so by trying to increase their power. And as often as not they make the fatal mistake of trying to destroy the opposition.

    That is what's going on in Craven County. And in Beaufort County, and in most county parties. It is also what is going on in both parties at the state and national level. You see that in the recent state conventions. It plays out in the selection of statewide party leaders, both volunteer and paid staffers/consultants. It is now playing out at the national level on the immigration issue and the spat over the rules changes at the 2012 GOP convention.

    Dispensing with the elaboration, we would suggest that the immediate future of both the Democrat and Republican parties in most counties in the state and thus in the state as a whole, will depend on how effectively the people who are in power at the state level accommodate the disenchantment at the grassroots/activists level.

    And that is where the Republican Party is making its mistake. The Establishment is bent on squashing the disenchanted rather than adapting the Party to the issues of concern. For example, in the Craven County matter, the Third District recently addressed the issue by kicking out dozens of party activists from the meeting.

    One of two things will happen with the Republican Party in North Carolina in the short-run. It will either adapt to the Conservative Movement/TEA Party/Libertarian activists or it will fall back into being the minority party. If the Democrat Party adapts to bring the more conservative element back into the party's operations it will win by pulling the unaffiliated vote to match up with the Democrat core (i.e., Yellow Dog Democrats).

    So watch what happens in Craven County. And in Beaufort County. Those battles will not determine the outcome at the state level, but as the state leaders respond to those local battles we will see how effective the state organization will be in adapting the party's message and energy in drawing in the grassroots.

    In the Democrat Party you can see what will happen in how the state party apparatus responds to Rev. William Barber's crusade to demonize the GOP majority in the Legislature. If he is successful in pulling the unaffiliated into his crusade, the GOP majority in the Legislature is roadkill. If the conservative Democrats and unaffiliated are the ones to fashion the message and channel the energy, then the Republicans have no chance of retaining power. On the other hand, if the left wing Democrat demonizing of the GOP does not work and the unaffiliated turn out and vote as they did in 2010 the GOP will retain control of state government and the message and energy will shift toward the right.

    So the trick is how the GOP will get the core to turn out and the unaffiliated to vote Republican. And that will hinge on the disenchantment of the unaffiliated and conservative Republicans.

    If the GOP Establishment fails to accommodate the conservative wing it is doomed. Conservatives cannot win on their own. Thus, a third party cannot become the majority party, but it can determine who will hold the majority.

    Some would argue that we already have a third party in North Carolina. The conservative/TEA/Liberty coalition has theeffect of being a third party regardless of the fact that it does not have a formal party structure or identified candidates running under its banner.

    To elect its candidate, a third party would have to attract conservative Democrats and most of the unaffiliated. That's not likely, but they can determine whether either the Democrats or Republicans win or not. And if the Democrats move to accommodate the conservatives/unaffiliated, the Legislature and Governorship will shift back to Democrat, but it will be a different Democrat party than the Black/Basnight party. If the radical left dominates the Democrat Party then the Republicans stand a chance of retaining control. But again, that would require the "base plus" to win.

    What the outcome will ultimately be in 2014 may be forecast in the Craven and Beaufort battles - along with a number of other counties - over the next few months. If the state GOP continues to alienate the grassroots/TEA/Liberty faction it will, as Rush Limbaugh recently predicted of the national GOP, sow the seeds of its destruction.

    And that will determine who North Carolina's next U. S. Senator will be and whether Barack Obama will be reined in or not. If the Establishment GOP fails to bring in the conservative/Liberty/TEA party wing, Kay Hagan will be re-elected as the Legislature shifts left. And it will all be determined by the unaffiliated voters.

    Click here to go to the Daily Haymaker to read more about the Craven County GOP spat and stay tuned for the Battle of Beaufort.

    Though it is not entirely this simple, it is basically true that in order to retain its legislative majority and win the U. S. Senate seat in 2014 the GOP must win a significant part of the unaffiliated vote. To do that will require activists turning out the vote. And alienating a significant bloc of the base and its activists is not a good way for the GOP to turn out that vote.

    If one uses the recent election of state officers as a barometer, you could conclude that the grassroots comprise over a third of the current activists in the NC GOP. Few enterprises could afford to lose a third of their staff, or customers, and still do as well next year as they did last year.

    How well the NCGOP handles situations like the Craven and Beaufort spats will signal how adept the leadership will be in winning the unaffiliated vote.

    So far, it's not looking too promising.

    And as a footnote, we would suggest that the message that will determine what the unaffiliated voters do in 2014 will be the extent to which the GOP can convince the unaffiliated block that the GOP is the best choice of changing "Obama's welfare statism of dependency back to individual liberty and economic freedom." In other words, whether the GOP can sell the fact that socialism results in more poverty for everyone, and alternatively, prosperity comes from economic freedom.