Beaufort County Republican Convention - Earthquake | Eastern NC Now

Beaufort County Republican Convention - Earthquake

BY: HOOD RICHARDSON

This is the year the election of new leadership officers in the Republican Party from the precinct to the National party chairman takes place.  This happens every two years.  These elections provide an opportunity for the Republican Party to cleanse itself.  For the positive thinkers, it is the opportunity for the party to grow stronger by electing stronger and better leaders.  It is also an opportunity for the party to align itself more closely with public sentiment.

This political process is important because those elected will manage and guide the party during the following two years.  This two-year (Beaufort County) cycle includes the selection of four candidates for school board, three county commissioners, a district attorney, a clerk of court and at least one judge.  On the State and Federal levels there will be the entire North Carolina House of Representatives and Senate and the entire Federal House and one Senator (the Tillis seat).

There are huge problems on the Beaufort County School and County Commissioner Boards. The North Carolina House and Senate are drifting toward Democrat Control.  Keeping control of the Federal House of Representatives is of great importance.  Then there is our liberal Republican Senator Tillis.

This political process begins in the precinct, then the County Convention, then the District Convention, then the State Convention, and finally the National Republican Convention. Many people consider themselves to be at the peak of political effectiveness if they attend rallies, volunteer to help candidates and donate money to political parties and candidates.  However, they have not arrived until they have entered the political process by attending their local precinct meeting and maybe becoming a delegate to the higher places.  The real political process begins in your neighborhood precinct.

The political influence peddlers in the Democrat and Republican Parties do not want a lot of people to be involved.  Most citizens are not aware that they can help fix that school problem or those wasted tax dollars by participating in their precinct meeting.  The influence peddlers want as few people as possible at these meetings.  The fewer people present, the more influence those who are present have.  It is the liberals in both the Republican and Democrat parties who always show up.  Ultra liberal socialists have destroyed the Democrat Party, and they control the Republican Party because they show up for the meetings.  

Beaufort County votes about 65 percent “Trump Conservative”.  The School Board has a majority of Republicans (eight Republicans and one Democrat) and so does the Board of County Commissioners (five Republicans and two Democrats).  However, both boards vote Democrat by refusing to lower taxes and maintaining a true basic education curriculum.  All of these liberal Republican RINOs (Republican In Name Only) have been supported by the Beaufort County Republican Executive Committee.

The interesting thing that happened this year is that the RINOs lost control of most of the Beaufort County Republican Party.  A conservative First Vice Chairman, Dianne Ahearn, was elected.  A conservative Second Vice Chairman, Janet Knight, was elected.  The liberal Chairman, Carolyn Garris squeaked in by only one or two votes.  I use the pronoun “Chairman” because my North Carolina eighth grade English Book said, “The masculine denotes both the feminine and the neuter”.

The political earthquake came with the change in the way we elect members of the Executive Committee.  We went from individual nominations to fill the board with a certain number of seats (21, I believe), back to allowing all of the convention delegates who desired to volunteer to serve on the Executive Committee to be allowed to do so.  The volunteer system of seating the Executive Committee is how we have always done it until a few years ago when the RINOs got control of the Beaufort County Republican Party.  The volunteer system is much more fair because it allows all factions within the Beaufort County Republican Party to be represented and have a say.  This builds party unity and cooperation.  It also discourages hand-picked candidates.  The RINOs, under the 21-seat system, have been picking RINOs, using the county party money to support them and working against conservative Republicans.  They donated surplus county funds to causes outside Beaufort County rather than use the money to support conservative Republicans.  This is what has made the Conservative Club so effective in recruiting and electing true, conservative Republicans.

The change in the way the Executive Committee is elected did not come easily.  When the motion was made to change the way we elect the Executive Committee the RINO supporters sprang into action.  Representative Keith Kidwell made a motion to amend that, if passed, would have defeated the volunteer Executive Committee.  He motioned that the committee have only 15 members.  The motion on the floor would have had a maximum of 84 members. Eighty-Four is the number of delegates from the precincts who attended this convention. Had Kidwell’s amendment passed we would be back to a handpicked RINO Executive Committee. Then another amendment motion was made by Joseph Knox to limit debate, that if passed, would have not allowed debate.  Without debate and explanation of the volunteer proposed motion there would have been a high probability the volunteer committee motion would have been defeated.  Fortunately, both the Kidwell and the Knox motions failed.

This allowed the details of the volunteer Executive Committee motion to be explained and voted upon.  I would estimate we now have about 45 people on our Beaufort County Republican Executive Committee.  All factions are represented, as they should be, and the corruption of the RINOs will be eliminated if the new board does its job.

The Convention was scheduled to be over by 12:30 PM.  Because of the games Keith Kidwell and Knox played in trying to defeat democracy we got out after 3:30 PM, an additional three hours.  While Kidwell makes sure he votes conservatively in the House of Representatives, his behavior outside of that public venue is full RINO.  Joseph Knox’s only participation in politics is to provide a vote when needed by the RINOs, otherwise he is not seen in Beaufort County Politics.

Some of the other complaints that led to this change within the party are as follows.  During the past School Board election, the Republican Headquarters told voters not to vote for the Republican candidate, but instead to vote for the Democrat at Old Ford.  The Executive Committee did not give any money to support Republican candidates for the School Board other than one candidate they liked.  That candidate voted with the Democrats when seated on the School Board.  The Executive Committee took no action against Fake Frankie Waters when he donated money to the Democrat candidate for sheriff while Fake Frankie was a member of the Executive Committee.  The Beaufort County Republican Party campaigned for Randy Walker for County Commissioner and did not give support to the other Commissioner candidates.  They did this by spending over $3,000 for mailers targeting Johnny Rodman, a Democrat candidate.  This had the effect of helping Randy Walker and not the remainder of the candidates for Commissioner.  Randy Walker votes with the Democrats.

In addition, the Beaufort County Republican Party provided no volunteers for the “Trump Force 47 2024 Campaign” while the Conservative Club provided 24 volunteers to get out the vote.

The Executive Committee schedules precinct meetings just before the convention and provided only snacks that were gone before 12:00 Noon for a convention that lasted until 3:30 PM.  Precinct meetings should be scheduled several weeks before the convention to allow political discourse before the convention.  Who has a convention that overlaps lunch with no food?  This is all done to keep the RINOs in control.  Some people went home before the business of the convention was complete.  But all of the RINO crowd stayed.

During the last convention there was unkind and intimidating behavior toward conservative Republicans.  The extremes of this behavior came when Representative Keith Kidwell filed a false report with the Sheriff that I had slapped a woman at the convention.  A total lie.  But the Sheriff took it anyway?  Also, Paul Varcoe harassed Hood Richardson to the point that charges were brought against him for pushing Richardson.  The Democrat Judge, Gaylen Braddy, ruled that Varcoe did not intend to push Richardson so he must be innocent.  Another example of Democrat judges in action.

All of the above is why concerned Republicans should participate in local politics.  They can come and see for themselves how people really behave instead of listening to them tell you how great they are.  Nonparticipation is what ruined the Democrat Party.  Will we allow that to happen to us?