What to make of Republican voters in NC making Mark Robinson their gubernatorial nominee? To be honest, I don’t understand it. I lived in NC for nearly 17 years, and I worked in a rural county — Lee County. And Lord knows I was around to try and vote against Senator Jesse Helms to no avail. To paraphrase Yoda, “The dark side of racism is strongest there.” And I was also raised by a racist father in Kentucky, so I have some inkling of how durable racism is in the South. Yes, Robinson endorses all the worst stances of MAGA, but the racists I grew up would NEVER vote a black man for anything. So what gives with Robinson? I have a hypothesis on your modern racists and their voting behavior, and I think it will effect the NC governor’s race in a way that Stein will win.
Basically, your modern racist will vote for a black Republican for any office as long as there is a white man around who will tell him what to do. The exception to this rule is any position that has executive powers is verboten for black Republicans (governors and president).
The best example of this is Senator Tim Scott of SC. The racists in SC are OK with Scott being a U.S. Senator because the senior WHITE Senator Lindsey Graham actually tells Scott how to vote. I’m thinking about the police reform bill that Scott was working on that Scott eventually disowned after being told, “Forget about it.”
Another perfect example of this was Graham’s efforts to get Herschel Walker elected as the U.S. Senator of GA. Here is a video of the dynamic duo of the U.S. Senate — Cruz and Graham — barely letting Walker speak.
Message to GA racists: Don’t worry about Walker. He will do whatever we tell him to do.
Thank God there were enough black voters in GA and others who said, “No fuckin’ thanks!”
And we also saw how Tim Scott debased himself to Trump. Black Republicans are around to cover for white supremacy and to piss off liberals. They have no other use for the GOP.
Remember Ken Blackwell, Secretary of State for Ohio? Blackwell used every dirty trick in the book to try and suppress the vote in Ohio in the 2004 Election. Blackwell was on George W. Bush’s campaign, and he ran for the governship in 2006. He did win the primary, but he lost to Democratic Ted Strickland — there was no incumbent that year — by 24 points.
This was only two years after Ohio went for George W. Bush.
Now last year, Kentuckians had a choice between the current governor, Andy Beshear, or the black State Attorney General Daniel Cameron. Dear old Cameron was McConnell’s protege, and he was expected to someday take McConnell’s seat in the U.S.Senate. But Cameron didn’t want to wait, so he threw his hat in the ring against Beshear.
In a year when Republicans won every other statewide office in Kentucky (landslides to be honest), Beshear won by just over 5 points against Cameron. Keep in mind that Cameron was not an establishment Republican but MAGA. He was even endorsed by Donald Trump. And Kentucky is MAGA land.
Some will argue that Beshear was just so popular and a better candidate, which he was. BUT this was in a red state in an off year election. In other words, Republican voters made up the majority of voters in that election. But those same Republicans who voted for all the other Republican candidates just chocked on Cameron.
And this is why I think Stein will beat Robinson in NC.
If Republican Kentucky couldn’t vote for a black Republican for governor, how is less Republican NC to embrace Robinson? There are still enough Democrats in NC to make that a competitive state. And Republicans in NC are racists. While Republican primary voters may have said, “Yes, this is our guy!” for Robinson, what about the Republican voters who didn’t participate in the primary?
I have a feeling they will not vote for Robinson. They will probably not vote for Stein, but I don’t think they will turnout for Robinson.
And I am reminded of a story published in the Raleigh News and Observer in 1990. Black Democrat Harvey Gantt was running against Republican Senator Jesse Helms. And the story was a gathering of farmers at a political event, and one of the farmers went on the record and said about Gantt, “I ain’t voting for no N*****.” I wished I remembered his name, but he was a typical older overweight Southern man that I had come to recognize from my time as a kid in Kentucky.
Those type of men had kids, and I am reasonably sure those kids don’t have a good view of POC. While some of us didn’t absorb all the prejudice of our parents, many others I know did. Sadly, many of the people of my generation became Republicans. My point here is that I’m betting there are more than a few in NC who will never pull a lever for Robinson based upon his skin color.
This despite the fact that Robinson’s views are in the MAGA “mainstream.”
And if you want some numbers on Robinson’s political weakness, I think you need to read this article from The Hill. According to this opinion piece, Robinson underperformed in the primary versus how Trump did.
This regionalism played out once again in Tuesday’s GOP primary. In unofficial results, Trump received 74 percent of the state-wide vote, while Robinson got 65 percent. If the two are indeed bosom political buddies, one would think that the spread between would be closer than 10 points among Republican primary voters.
And that weakness may show up in the general election.