cross-posted at BlueNC
While I was driving up to Chapel Hill yesterday for the Carolina-Florida State game (which we lost, unfortunately), I was shocked to see a sign along I-85 near Concord advertising a Republican candidate in NC-08 named Tim D'Annunzio. I saw another one near Kannapolis when I was driving home this morning. Now how the heck is this happening? I wondered. Then I found an article in last week's Charlotte Observer saying that this guy is outraising our guy, Larry Kissell.
Tim D'Annunzio of Raeford, a conservative who ran his own TV ads against Barack Obama last year, has more than $260,000 in his campaign account, according to reports filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission. Kissell has $245,000.
Considering that candidates in NC-08 have to run ads in Charlotte and the Triangle (Fayetteville, the second-biggest metro in the district, is part of the Triangle market), those numbers should make any Dem--especially in North Carolina--nervous.
D'Annunzio bills himself as "a conservative first, and then a Repbublican." He certainly proves it on his Website. He's got a section on his Website which argues the way to turn the House red again is to run red-meat conservatives in marginal districts. Um, yeah, that's worked well the last two years, hasn't it?
But there's something equally worrying. According to his bio page, D'Annunzio is a member of RockFish Church in Raeford. I did some clicking around, and that church is a member of Grace Churches International, a network of Latter Rain/New Apostolic Reformation churches located primarily in North Carolina. I know a little about this outfit, since their biggest church is based in Chapel Hill and had a small campus ministry there. In other words--D'Annunzio is a Sarah Palin-type dominionist.
Needless to say, folks, we can't afford to have Larry replaced by this winger next year. Send him some love--and let's keep two real Dems representing Charlotte in Congress.