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And again, thank you so much for your support. It's Tuesday,
it's noon, you know that, But that also means we
talk to Andrew Dunn. He is a contributing columnist over
at the Charlotte Observer as well as the Roleigh News
and Observer, and I forget the third paper that they own,
the McClatchy outfit.
Speaker 1: But also he is.
Speaker 2: The publisher of Longleaf Politics longleafpol dot com.
Speaker 1: Andrew, how are you today, sir?
Speaker 3: I'm well, always good to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Pete.
Speaker 1: Do you remember do you know the name of the
third newspaper? Is it the.
Speaker 3: Durham That's what I thought, Durham Harold's son.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you were at the North Carolina Faith and
Freedom Coalition Salt and Light conference this weekend. So first,
for people who don't know what that is, tell folks
what that is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, basically, it's a huge gathering of national
conservative figures from around the country. Everyone comes down to Marion,
North Carolina up there in the mountains for a full
weekend of speeches and worship and networking and all sorts
of good stuff.
Speaker 2: And put on by Jason Williams and Jim Quick and
more than what two thousand attendees. You say were there
this weekend, And you moderated a panel discussion with some
state lawmakers, and I wanted to ask you two quick
things on that. You said that you talked with them
about potential follow up legislation to Arena's Law.
Speaker 1: So what came out of that conversation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that was a great panel that I had
the honor of leading. With two House members and two
Senate leaders. I was able to kind of diffuse some
of the bomb throwing over the budget, thankfully. But yeah,
you're right, I mean, that was one of the big
things that I drilled down on. Is all right, So
Arena's Law has been passed by the General Assembly, it's
still kind of unconscionable to me that Governor Stein hasn't
signed it, but we can talk about that in a
little bit. But I wanted to ask them about, all right,
so what comes next? You know, we talked about last
week and I think the week before too, how Arena's
law is a good start, but it's not everything that
we need in North Carolina. And what I heard from
the lawmakers is that what they're really focused on in
terms of a next step is what do we do
with folks who are showing signs of mental illness and
signs that they might be a danger to themselves and others.
You know, undercurrent state law were kind of limited in
what we're able to do. You know, there's limits rightfully,
so you know, for you know, civil liberties reasons. You know,
you can't just lock somebody up for long periods of
time without just cause. But there's there is a gap
in there, and there's room to make things better so
that people who do pose a risk are not out
on the streets well.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that came up in the
House debate on Arena's Law. Marsha Morey retired judge from
Durham Durham, and she talked about how all of the
guidelines for bail specifically are those are handed down at
the local district court level. And I this morning, I
went over to the Mecklenburg County Court System website and
I pulled our guidelines twenty pages. But some of the
stuff that you can walk with cash list bail on
are seem pretty egregious, but they're classified as you know,
misdemeanor class two level and so they get to just get,
you know, a written notice to appear. And this has
been a concerted philosophical direction that the local courts have
gone in with their adoption of the local guidelines. And
so I don't know because on the one hand, Maury
was saying, you know, these are local guidelines, it's not
the magistrate's fault, and you know, but you guys don't
have any guidelines that you're passing as part of Arena's law.
But then she turns around and says that she doesn't
want the legislature encroaching on the judiciary's responsibilities. So like,
I'm unclear, So what we just got to suck it
up and live with these cashless bail guidelines.
Speaker 1: There's no other recourse? Did that at all come up?
Speaker 2: If there's any kind of I don't know, muscle that
the General Assembly could could push.
Speaker 3: Well, it's worth noting that the General Assembly kind of
holds all the cards in North Carolina government, I mean,
all cities, all judicial districts, all towns, counties. Everything that
they're able to do flows from laws passed by the
General Assembly. So it is it is absolutely a concern
of the state legislature to take that on. Arena's law
does have some provisions around restricting cash list bail for
violent offenses, especially, and I think that's perfectly within their purview.
I mean, I'm sure there'll be some pushback. You know.
The rhetoric that I typically hear around that is that,
you know, we don't want to have debtors' prisons, or
you know, we don't want people to be stuck in
jail just because they're poor when rich people are able
to get out.
Speaker 1: But I think.
Speaker 3: I'm somewhat sensitive to that. But at the same time,
if people are accused of very serious crimes, we need
a mechanism. You know, a written promise to appear is
just not good enough.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: We we heard from the congressional hearing yesterday on Monday
that you know, a police officer who said that, you know,
we arrest these folks and is you know, before we
even get done filling out the paperwork, they're already back
out on this street, right, And that's just not acceptable.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and maybe the guidelines need to include some sort
of mental health screen. If somebody is brought in and
some of the facts of the arrest, you know, it
would indicate that the person is suffering from some mental
health disorder.
Speaker 1: Maybe that needs to be part of the guideline. But
I mean, one of the.
Speaker 2: Things I saw stalking so stalk is you can walk
if you get taken in for stalking, which seems bizarre
to me because that is by definition a threat to
somebody else, you know. But yeah, so, like, yeah, I
get it. Also the debtors prison kind of argument. I
agree with you on that. But if you are a
if you're a threat to either yourself or to the public,
I think that's a pretty bright line. So it seems
like there should be some I don't know, it seems
like there should be some movement or clarity on that,
I would think. All right, so let me ask you now,
because you were you not only moderated this panel where
you heroically prevented fisticuffs from breaking out over the budget debate.
But you also gave a presentation on what you write
up at long leafpol dot com north Carolina's political state
of play heading into twenty twenty six, and you note
there were only sixty four days to the start of
candidate filing, one hundred and fifty seven days to primary
election day, four hundred two days until election day twenty
twenty six. But who's counting, right except you, I guess.
So you said that you hear people say that, oh,
there's going to be another blue wave.
Speaker 1: So why do people think that? Why do they say that? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean, the reason why they say that is because historically,
you know, whichever party the president is, his party tends
to do poorly in the midterm elections. And we did
see some of that in twenty eighteen, especially around the
country during President Trump's first term. It was a little
bit muted in North Carolina, though, to be fair, Gretz
did pick up ten seats in the North Carolina House
and at least three or four in the Senate. I
can't remember right off the top of my head, but
it wasn't an overwhelming shift in North Carolina. But the
thing is, you know, I'm skeptical of anybody saying that
we're due for a blue wave in North Carolina in
twenty twenty six. You know, the dynamics this coming year
are just so different from everything we've seen before. You know,
the presence of a Senate race on the ballot really
changes the dynamics. Your listeners probably remember in twenty eighteen
it was the quote unquote blue moon election with no
statewide races on the ballot. That's not the case in
twenty six. So there's a lot left to be figured
out on how things will shake out. But it's not
going to be like an election we've seen before.
Speaker 2: Right, So you got Trump obviously not on the ballot,
but kind of sort of on the ballot. I think
your assessment that we're essentially going to be asking voters
do we want to send somebody to Washington who supports
Trump's agenda or somebody who will fight against Trump's agenda.
So in that regard, you're looking at the camp or
you're looking at Trump's approval numbers and whether people are
satisfied with the job he's doing. So much of that
is tied into the state of the economy, and if
people feel good about what Trump is doing, then that
may redound to the benefit of Michael Wattley if he
ends up being the nominee from the Republicans. But if
you know, if the economy doesn't doesn't do well, if
inflation is still a problem, and you talk about real
wages in this piece too, that's going to give people,
you know, a reason to vote against the Trump agenda.
Speaker 3: I suspect, yeah, that's exactly right. I mean President Donald
Trump's almost his entire argument in twenty twenty four was
around fixing the economy and you know, getting inflation under control,
et cetera. And so, you know, his success, his party's
success in twenty twenty SI is largely going to depend
on that. And from the numbers that I'm able to
see right now, it's kind of a mixed picture, you know,
just looking at Trump's approval rating. I took a look
at what President Trump's approval rating in North Carolina is
currently and compared it to twenty seventeen during the same
time period. And North Carolinians are a lot more satisfied
with President Trump this year than they were back in
his first term. You know, the latest data point was
forty nine percent approval in twenty twenty five versus around
thirty three percent or thirty five percent in twenty seventeen.
And that's not insignificant. I mean, yes it might. It's
slightly underwater, I guess, but that's a pretty you know,
for President Trump, that's a really darn good approval rating
in North Carolina. And then on the economy, I mean,
inflation is starting to tick back up. I mean, we
got close to the two percent inflation number the economists
and the Federal Reserve aim for, and over the past
past few months it's been slowly ticking back up a
little bit. But yeah, the real wages is that the
one number that I'm looking at the most, and what
that is is how much people are making compared with
their buying power. So it's all inflation adjusted. And North
Carolina is actually bucking the national trend right now. You know, nationally,
real wages have increased over the past two years. In
North Carolina, they're going down. And that's going to really
need to turn around if President Trump and Michael Watley
or the Republican nominee for Senator are going to be
successful well.
Speaker 2: And also and last question here I'll just raise with you,
is the structural advantage that you talked about Democrats having
in North Carolina for so long is basically gone at
this point, and so Trump's approval numbers. If you're looking
at the voter registration numbers, you've got Republicans that keep
adding more and more and more voters. Democrats keep losing more.
Voters on affiliateds keep growing. That the largest you know
affiliation now, but they tend to vote in a partisan way,
and so like it tells me like this is it
seems to me like you've got a lot of Republicans
coming from other states that are moving here. And we
could even see you mentioned Union County is like the
top Republican stronghold could even be replaced by some of
these counties down east.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Brunswick County is the new hotbed for new Republican registrations.
I mean, they've added fifteen thousand registered Republicans by far
the most in the state. But to your point, I
think I would be much more willing to say a
blue wave could happen in twenty twenty six if it
wasn't for the current state of the Democratic Party nationally.
I mean, the Democratic Party brand has never been more
toxic it is. You know, the approval ratings for Democrats
are the lowest they've ever been, you know, not that
they're that much higher for Republicans. I mean, the Publican
Party in general is somewhat unpopular, but nowhere near as
dismal in polls as the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Andrew Dunn, appreciate your time as always, sir, have.
Speaker 1: A great week.
Speaker 3: Thank you too.
Speaker 1: H Right, buddy, that's.
Speaker 2: Andrew Dunn, a publisher of long Leaf Politics longleafpol dot com.
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Andrew Dunn's piece over at long Leaf Politics, unaffiliated voters
are by far the largest voting block, but there are
very few independent voters. I always correct people when they
say that, oh, I'm registered independent. It's like, yeah, now
that's not a thing. You're unaffiliated. You're not independent. There's
no such classification in North Carolina as independent. And also
when you look at the polling data, unaffiliateds vote for
partisan candidates, so they lean right or they lean left,
and they have a stronger partisan voting history than even
people registered in parties. So it's like oftentimes it's because
they're the party that they would otherwise identify with. Isn't
isn't strong enough, isn't far enough that you know, like
they look at the Republicans and say they're not conservative enough.
Democrats or unaffiliated lefties look at the Democrat Party and
say they're not lefty enough. Right, So, he mentioned Brunswick County.
They got fifty eight thousand registered Republicans there. Union County
has seventy one thousand, but Brunswick picked up fifteen thousand
new registrants just since twenty twenty. I think this is
a lot of retirees. I think there's a lot of
people moving from blue states that are Republican voters that
are now moving down towards the coast.
Speaker 1: That's what I think is happening.
Speaker 2: But he also pointed out Wake County and Mecklenburg County,
both Republicans and Democrats are losing voters there or here.
Okay by registration, but the declines in the Democrat registration
numbers have been steeper, so they're now at their lowest
point ever.
Speaker 1: So that's some good news, he says.
Speaker 2: In summary, looking at twenty twenty six, you got presidential approval, prices, paychecks,
and base turnout. Those are the keys to the twenty
sixth election, he says. He talks about it's a pretty
lengthy piece. It's a presentation that he did at the
Salt and Light Conference. He says Roy Cooper in the
polling never cracks fifty percent, which is pretty remarkable because
he's a two term governor.
Speaker 1: And he is stuck in this.
Speaker 2: Virtual tie with Michael Wattley that most people don't even know.
The translation is that this thing is winnable with message, discipline,
and a functional ground game that treats unaffiliateds as leaners
not unicorns. He then talks about Justice Anita Earls, the
most activist judge North Carolina has ever seen.
Speaker 1: She's on the state Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: There's going to be a ton of money pouring into
this race because it's a setup to try to flip
the court majority two years later.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty eight. But they need that.
Speaker 2: Democrats need to hold Anita Earl's seat if they're going
to have a chance to flip the Supreme Court in
twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 1: So we'll be watching that as well.
Speaker 2: So when I was a kid, my grandpa died with Alzheimer's,
and before he died, my mom and my dad took
care of him as he got worse. Forty years ago,
there were no treatments and not much support for caregivers
and family. But things are different today because of the
work of so many people, including the Alzheimer's Association of
Western Carolina. It's a great organization with awesome people with
huge hearts. I've been a supporter for twenty five years.
This cause means a lot to me. I participate in
the annual Walk to end Alzheimer's and I'm leading a
Charlotte team again this year, and it's called once again
Pete's Pack. You can sign up and you can join
the team and walk with us. It's on October eighteenth,
that truest field. Sign up at alz dot org slash
Walk and then you can search for my team name
Pete's Pack. There's also a link at thepetepod dot com.
There's also a link in the description of this podcast. Also,
I'll be am seeing the Gastonia Walk on October eleventh,
and so you can make a team and join that
one too, or make a donation and help me hit
my goal of five thousand dollars. If you do, I
really appreciate it. There are a bunch of other walks
all over the Carolinas. You can go to alz dot
org slash Walk for all the dates and locations. We're
closer than ever to stopping Alzheimer's. Can you help us
get there? Will you walk with me? For a different future,
for families, for more time for treatments. This is why
we walk. This from the Blue Ridge Times by Tim Wigginton.
Last weekend, Senate candidate former Governor Roy Cooper, a good friend,
Ray was spotted by Politico Playbook, which is a gossip
publication for the DC Insider set. He was at a
wedding of Katie Hendrickson and Drew Cockram.
Speaker 1: That's that's his name.
Speaker 2: Katie Hendrickson is a principal at the Vogel Group. The
Vogel Group is an international government affairs and consulting firm
headquartered in Washington, d C. Serving companies, associations, and asset
managers around the world. The Vogel Group lobbies On behalf
of a company called Goshen, like Motion, but with a
G Goshen. Goshen is a Chinese electrification company, and she
recently registered to lobby for in Vida, which was recently
exposed for powering the Chai Coom's Deep Seek Ai that
is designed to spy on Americans steal our technology and
subvert us law. So this is who Roy Cooper was
hanging with last weekend. Katie Hendrickson, you see, is the
daughter of Thomas Hendrickson. Thomas Hendrickson is a former state
Democratic Party chair and leader of Cooper's dark money that
promised access to Cooper while he was governor. While her
father was running Cooper's dark money operation, Catherine worked as
the deputy director of Boards and Commission. What did she
do there, Well, she could help find appointments for the
donors that were writing the mass of checks to Cooper's
re election efforts. Now you see why he got invited
to the wedding. Wiggington goes on to point out this
is just another example of Cooper's suspicious or as the
kids would say, sus relations with the chi Cooms. In
twenty seventeen, Cooper recruited a Chinese tire manufacturer to come
to North Carolina with one hundred and fifty two million
dollars in incentives with a promise of thousands of jobs.
In twenty sixteen, before the North Carolina announcement Triangle Tire,
the Chinese manufacturer was found guilty of violating American patents,
which is shocking a Chinese Communist Party business because they're
all chicom businesses over there stealing American patents. Really, I
never In twenty twenty two, the company announced that it
planned to cancel the project. Would you ever notice whenever
they do the big announcements, Governor Cooper gets out there,
you know, cuts a ribbon with the ridiculously oversized scissors,
and when the deals, these incentive deals fall through, these
tax breaks for billionaires and millionaires and corporate handouts, right,
these incentive grants that Democrats are always against, all of
the tax breaks for all of the corporations, except if
I get to hand you the ridiculously large check, right,
like the physically large check. It's like six feet long,
three feet high, Like if I can give you the check,
I think they stop doing that because the pr that
is so terrible. So they do like those corporate handouts,
especially if you can give it to some business entity
that's connected to the Chinese Communist Party. But they announced
three years after the big fanfare announcement that actually, yeah,
we're not going to We're not going to do the project.
The company was started by the Chinese government in nineteen
seventy six and still likely maintains close links with the
Chinese Communist Party and complies with Chinese's law that require
cooperation with the party. Yeah, it's a little known fact
over there too. It's like, if you are a business,
like anything you're doing, if there's any kind of a
nexus to the Communist Party, something that they can utilize,
something they need, you're doing tech stuff, they can co
opt your stuff, they like, you got to comply with it.
So also while Cooper was governor, the amount of farmland
owned by Chinese interests grew In twenty ten, No North
Carolina farmland was owned by a Chinese interest By the
end of twenty four Just four years later, they had
amassed fifty thousand acres of North Carolina farmland. That's according
to the us DA. So nothing to see there, I'm sure.
The Charlotte Ledger reporting on the Mecklimber County Democrat Party
endorsing candidates in the November nonpartisan school board race. This
is the Mecklenburg County local party, and one of the
endorsements is not for the Democrat incumbent in the North
mech District one race for a seat on the Charlotte
Mecklenburg Board of Education. The Democrats are endorsing Charlotta Hatch
or Charlotta Charlita. Well, how would you pronounce itha r
Litta Charlata.
Speaker 1: Charlotta Hatch.
Speaker 2: Anyway, the City of Charlotte's chief data and analytics officer
is challenging the incumbent, Melissa Easley, a former teacher you
may recall, easily made a bit of news in the
wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination by making a whole
bunch of nasty comments and lies about Charlie Kirk. There's
also Bill Fountain. He's a Republican running in that District
one race. Now, these are non partisan race, so you're
not going to see the d's and the rs next
to the candidates' names on the ballot. But when you're
waiting in line to vote right, you get people at
the polls that walk around and hand out palm cards
they're called where it's a list of all of the
endorsed candidates by a particular organization or the Democrat Party
in this case, and so they're going to be endorsing
Charlotta Hatch over the incumbent Melissa Easley. In a notice
on its website. Mecklenberg Democrats said that they chose to
endorse a single Democrat in each race, quote in order
to combat the constant assault on our public education system. Okay,
it's a Democrat already holding the seat. Is she assaulting
the education system? She's a teacher or a former teacher.
The endorsements were based on votes by the Executive Committee
mem in the party. Now they also bypassed endorsing Democrat
Tony Mhel emehemhel mehel emil. How would you pronounce this
e m e h e l mhel anyway? In favor
of Anna London. There's no incumbent in that race. And
I will tell you why. It's a seat for representing
South Charlotte and the Steel Creek area, so southwest Justin Sheeley,
a Republican, is also running. Emmahel told The Ledger that
she believed quote, the process was skewed from the start.
I was told at the beginning of this process that
I would not be endorsed.
Speaker 1: You ready for this? Why? Because I'm an African American?
The wait?
Speaker 2: The Democrats told you that they're not endorsing you because
you're black and the district is predominantly white. She would
not say who told her that, other than it was
a quote well connected member of the Democrat Party. Mecklenburg
Democrats endorsed all this is the anti racism party, obviously right.
Mecklenberg Democrats endorsed all other Democrats school board incumbents. They
also endorsed Democrats Cynthia Stone in her race against incumbent
Lisa Kline, who is the board's loan Republican. Six of
the nine school board seats are on the ballot in November,
along with the municipal races and the referendum. Now, the
Charlotte Ledger a couple of months ago, and I've had
this in the stack of stuff for a while, they
had a very interesting write up on some of the
behind the scenes personalities and work and connections and such
at Charlotte Mecklenberg Schools and how this is playing a
role now in the election. The headline is superintendent's key
advisor is backing school board candidates. Game on Week one
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Limited time offer. In a piece by Tony Mescia, He
also was the author of the last piece I just
read to you. This was from back in July. At
a school board meeting in March, first term Charlotte Mecklaburg
school board member Melissa Easley told her colleagues that she
planned to vote against a proposal to increase a contract
by one hundred twenty five thousand dollars for executive coaching
services in CMS middle schools. She said the money could
be better used, that other programs already did the same thing,
and that as a former teacher, she had never heard
of the company that CMS was hiring. That company's name
is sy d kim Yl Educational Consulting, which is an awful,
awful name.
Speaker 1: That is such a stupid name.
Speaker 2: It's like this massive acronym syd kim y l sidkim
mill sid kim ile.
Speaker 1: Why why you education consulting and that's the name you
come up with? Okay?
Speaker 2: Anyway, she says, I have never encountered this firm. We're
seeing its results in our classroom, and I have been
there since twenty eleven. Where is the evidence that this
directly impacts our student outcomes? Let's prioritize the spending that
directly affects our students and supports our staff that are
already tirelessly working in schools easily and two other board
members oppose the contract increase, okay, but they were outvoted
by a five person board majority that sided with the superintendent,
Crystal Hill. Now, two of those three board members who
did not vote to approve the contract have candidates running
against them, and those opponents are backed by one of
Crystal Hill's top advisors, Racky McGregor, who happens to be
the husband of Sydkimyl Educational consulting's owner. This stinks. This
stinks so bad. Crystal Hill's top advisor, Racky McGregor is
married to the owner of this firm that just got
a bump in their contract amount, and now Racky McGregor
is out there working for campaigns to oust two of
the three that voted against the contract increase. Oh and
by the way, McGregor had his own thirteen thousand dollars
a month CMS consulting contract for working with the superintendent
Crystal Hill. He is also a consultant for the Charlotte
Executive Leadership Council, a group of influential CEOs and other
leaders of more than forty of the Charlotte region's biggest companies,
including Atrium Health, Bank of America, Red Ventures, Lows, Duke Energy.
The public involvement in school board races by a CMS
contractor and advisor so close to the superintendent would be
unusual by itself. Top professional staff of local governments typically
stay out of local politics, but throw in the matter
of the contract for his wife and his ties to
Charlotte's most prominent business leaders, and McGregor's involvement appears to
some board members and CMS watchers as heavy handed political
payback against those who were doing their jobs by questioning
CMS expenditures.
Speaker 1: Now, look, there is.
Speaker 2: A perfectly reasonable logical explanation for why it looks like this. Okay,
there's just hear me out, because it is. That's why
it looks like that is because it is. It absolutely is.
Of course it is. McGregor appeared in a Facebook video
posted by Charlita Hatch when she filed at the Board
of Elections to take on Easily.
Speaker 1: Let's see.
Speaker 2: In addition to the CMS contracts, as y D kim
y L Educational Consultants also received six hundred thousand dollars
from Necklenberg County in fiscal year twenty twenty five for
social and emotional learning instruction in grades K through eight.
According to WFAE, this is a racket. This is essentially
money laundering, taking money from taxpayers and funneling it to
democrat aligned nonprofits and consultants. Right, six of the nine
school board seats are on the ballot in November. You'll
recall that Crystal Hill was appointed superintendent in May of
twenty twenty three. It was a six to three vote.
The three that voted against Hill Easiley, Lisa Klein, who
also has a Democrat challenger and Summer None. That's her name,
Summer None, not some or none, it's Summer None. McGregor
also has ties to the school board race in the
Steel Creek area that Summer Nuns district. She was one
of two sitting board members to vote against Hill's appointment
to superintendent two years ago, and she sided with Easily
against the McGregor's wife's contract increase. McGregor is the chairman
of the board of workforce development nonprofit Charlotte Works, and
the organization's CEO, Anna London, filed to run against Summer
Nune on the first day of filing in July. See
there's a reason why it looks like they are picking
off political opponents of the superintendent is because they are.
That is obviously what's going on. You got these three,
even the Democrat party sees it. That's what they made
their endorsements. Not of Easily and some are none. What
happened with her, she decided not to even try to
run again. Four days after Anna London entered the race,
None announced she would not run for a second term,
and she explained why in part by decrying politics. She said,
I want to be very clear. I will not put
my career, my family, or my reputation at risk because
of politics, especially when politics get in the way of
doing what's right for kids, teachers, and our community. She said,
dysfunction remains on the school board and noted, referring to London,
her opponent, that a candidate from my own party filed
to run before I had the chance to share my decision,
which I find kind of funny here also because it's like,
these are non partisan races, that's what they always say,
but they're not, like why would you like, why would
it matter if it's a member of your own party
running against you, the incumbent?
Speaker 1: Why should that matter?
Speaker 2: They're nonpartisan races because they are not nonpartisan races. They're
just masked. They're hidden. Party identification is hidden from the
voters on the ballot.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 2: You can pull all these people's voter cards. You can
find out who you know, who the party endorses, find
out doing research, finding out what parties these candidates belong to.
This idea that the school board is quote nonpartisan, is ridiculous.
It always has been ridiculous. But it's a way that
you know, Democrats have masked who they you know, their
political philosophy on the stuff they just say for the children,
for the teachers, and then they just kind of network
behind the scenes for their campaigns. Now I mentioned the
Republican in the South Charlotte district Kleine. She is also
facing a challenge from a Democrat, Cynthia Stone. Kleine says
she has no evidence that Racky McGregor is targeting her,
but said quote, it is very odd, Yes, it is.
It is very odd that the three people who voted
against Racky McGregor's wife's contract are now being challenged. I
think there's something up with that. Yes, you should think
there's something up with that, because there is something up
with that obviously. So here's a guy with all these
connections in the business world, milking the CMS system for
contracts for his wife and himself while advising the superintendent.
This is like a hatchetman kind of a gig. That's
what this seems like. Airs of Jim Husley waft past
my nose. All right, that'll do it for this episode.
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