Candidate Flack, I Have a Few Questions
By
Democracy For America is hosting a forum for Buncombe Democratic Party candidates for Chair and First Vice Chair. That means you’ll likely see Randy Flack, Political Director of Heath Shuler’s campaign and lifelong Shuler friend and mentor, running for Chair and Kathy Sinclair, current First Vice Chair and progressive leader, running for her current seat. I don’t believe they have any competition, but someone may yet turn up. The forum is Wednesday, April 4th, 7pm at North Asheville Public Library, 1030 Merrimon Ave., Asheville NC 28804.
The forum is open to the Democratic-aligned public. DFA luminary and Democratic Precinct Captain, Doug Gibson, said in an email,
“We’ll be giving candidates for the top two slots in the county Democratic Party a chance to introduce themselves to the public. We’ll also give the public a chance to ask them questions. Whether you’re a yellow-dog Democrat or a progressive who happens to vote for Democratic candidates, we hope you’ll come.”
The Buncombe Democratic Party, as I wrote in a post back in January, is poised to change if the Old Guard opens the process to energized, motivated progressives. If the Old Guard is not prepared to invite others to share in decision making, then progressives will abandon them and/or wait for them to die before taking over the party they built for decades. If the Old Guard does invite progressives in, then we’ll be the strongest county party in the country.
I don’t know how many questions I’ll get to ask at the forum, but, should any of the candidates or friends of theirs read this humble blog, I’ll ask several here and hope for answers before the County Democratic Party Convention on April 14th.
Candidate Flack, Democrats on the county commission recently gave a sweetheart deal to Progress Energy for the construction of a diesel-fired power plant in Woodfin. Congressman Shuler ran, in part, on an alternative energy platform. When asked about this conflict and about Rep. Shuler’s plans for alternative energy initiatives, Commissioner Carol Peterson laughed mockingly, saying, “That Heath!” How will the Democratic Party Chair address such glaring inconsistencies and power struggles?
Candidate Sinclair, it seems to me you’ve been the punching bag for the Old Guard of the party ever since you were elected to your seat. How do you manage to stay motivated when your own party members put you down and short-change your efforts?
Candidate Flack, you have a long and deep history with Heath Shuler. How will any primary challenger to Congressman Shuler know that you will remain an honest broker? If that challenger should beat Shuler, will you pledge tonight to support that nominee?
Candidates Sinclair and Flack, how can the county party encourage more participation by progressives?
Candidate Flack, what will the county apparatus do differently under your leadership? How will GOTV change?
Either Candidate, will y’all get me a Wii?
What questions do you Hooligans have for the candidates? Put them in the comments and/or come on out to the forum.
For a taste of Randy Flack, watch this video, shot at a Shuler town meeting during the campaign –
11 Comments
April 3rd, 2007 at 1:28 pm
This is a test
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April 3rd, 2007 at 1:31 pm
this is another test.
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April 3rd, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Correction on the video provenance. It was a private fundraiser and not a public meeting. Altapass, McDowell County.
And, folks, even if you aren’t a delegate, you can attend the county convention. You can run for office. You can run to be a delegate at the district convention. What you can’t do is vote . . . sad, I know, but that’s why the precinct meetings are so tediously important.
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April 3rd, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Who is Buncombe’s “Leadership Teamâ€? How does one become a member?
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April 3rd, 2007 at 11:39 pm
I don’t know who you’re quoting here but if you’re referring to the people behind the scenes who seem to make a lot of decisions we only hear about after they’ve been made, here’s how you get selected:
You wait for twenty years while “they” watch to see that you do what “they” want you to do without having to ask or be told.
You follow behind their puppets (people like Max Haner and Carol and Bruce Peterson) and when you finally pass the test you get to hold a position but not do anything that’s in your title to do.
Eventually, you’ll get thrown a bone like some real estate work or some piddly contract with the county that you’ve had to beg for and for which you will probably barely make a profit.
But you’ll never be on the leadership team, ann, because you weren’t born to it and/or you haven’t slimed, sleazed, lied, and cheated your way in.
Let’s name some names. Jewell Wilson. Bob Christy. Otto DeBruhl. That’s a start.
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April 4th, 2007 at 8:37 am
Screwy, you present excellent questions to the top two possible candidates. I like the way you think. See you Wednesday night at the library.
A word of advice to all, however. Being confrontational is not going to win friends and influence people. I’ve been a Democrat only 3 years and I see a lot of wasted emotional energy with in-fighting.
Remember, politics is about compromise. Whatever side you’re on, if you get 30% of what you want, that’s a win. If you get 50%, that’s a landslide.
If you are a registered Democrat in NC, log onto our web site, http://www.buncombedems.org. If you are registered on the site you will see a left sidebar item called “Democrats Only.” Soon we will be posting the nominating committee’s slate for the Buncombe County Democratic Party that will be presented at the Convention on Saturday, April 14.
If you were not elected a delegate at your annual precinct meeting you are welcome to observe from the balcony.
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April 4th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Thanks for dropping by, Phil.
See you tonight!
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April 4th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Screwy,
Wow! Thanks so much for blogging about our meeting tonight. I certainly hope everyone reading this will come and ask these and other important questions. (Please consider RSVP’ing via DFALink, though — http://www.dfalink.com/asheville — you’ll see the link to tonight’s meeting at the top of the page).
But I do want to second what Phil said. Confrontation gets us nowhere. With that in mind, I’d like to remind everyone that Randy, Kathy, and the other candidates are going to be our guests — and I’m going to be doing everything I can to make sure they’re treated as such. If you want to see guests treated poorly, buy some falafel and tune in the O’Reilly Factor.
Oh, and kudos on the WordPress upgrade. How long before you’re using Scoop?
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April 4th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
“So in the end, which is more helpful? Calling it what it is: Socialism, OR, Calling it what it can never be: Progressive?”
Brilliant quote by Mr. Tim Peck of Asheville!
No truer words were ever written, thanks!
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April 4th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
ShiningCity – we’re glad to have you as a reader, and that may be a brilliant quote (not my favorite of Tim Peck’s – my favorite was his entry at the WNC Citizen’s Blog where he misspelled “democracy”) but is it really worthy of posting twice in a half-hour? See, we’ve got Spam Karma 2 set up, and your second comment ended up in our killfile queue, probably because of the amount of time between similar comments. If I were an automated spam killer, that would be a red flag for me.
I know you’re not a spammer, and I went ahead and approved your last comment, but consider this a friendly reminder – if your IP address gets added to Spam Karma 2′s blacklist, I’m not sure if I know enough about Spam Karma 2 to override it.
(Doug – I actually considered Scoop for the ScruHoo 3.0 upgrade, but found WordPress to be a little more, oh, blog-like)
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April 5th, 2007 at 9:19 am
It’s great to see the Tim Peck fan club showing up over here. We’ll have to blog about The Peck more often.
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