January 5, 2008
For more than three years, I and a few dozen others from around the 10th Congressional District have actively sought—even prayed for—a top-notch candidate, who possesses intelligence, impeccable character and integrity, and a little fire in the belly, to challenge Patrick McHenry.
If I didn’t know already, I’d have to say that Lance Sigmon is, indeed, proof that God answers political prayers.
A former lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, an appellate judge in the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps, the Newton attorney filed for the office of U.S. Representative last November and formally kicked off his primary campaign with three speeches Jan. 3 in Catawba, Lincoln and Cleveland counties.
The 49-year-old Sigmon served 21 years in the Air Force, then moved back home to Catawba County in 2005. He and his wife Melissa remodeled the south Newton home where she grew up and began a solo law practice defending military personnel in the military courts.
Lance has asked me to help in his campaign, and I have agreed to handle media relations and scheduling for his personal appearances. Knowing his opponent as I do, I also hope to have some input into some of the campaign strategies.
Lance Sigmon represents a substantial “improvement” over Patrick McHenry, as a representative of western North Carolina, in more ways than you can count.
First, he’s not only a military veteran, he’s actually had to man the guns, by himself, onboard a nuclear-armed bomber to defend the airplane. I doubt if McHenry ever had the courage to tackle such a job.
As one Marine veteran of Okinawa told me, the Congressman “has never picked up a weapon to defend his country.” That fact probably won’t go unnoticed in a district in which more than half of the households have at least one resident veteran.
Second, Sigmon is married with a wonderful family. Besides Melissa, his family includes 18-year-old Kirk, a Wake Forest freshman seeking an international business degree, and Leah, 16, a high school junior with an interest in veterinary medicine for large animals.
By comparison, McHenry is a 33-year-old swinging single, whose lifestyle seems to include everything but raising a family. One naturally wonders how the congressman could ever know anything, first-hand, about the “family values” he espouses in speeches.
The incumbent has never helped with a child’s homework, aided a son in earning a Boy Scout merit badge, counseled a daughter about an unusual career for women, or consoled his wife on the death of a parent.
Third, Sigmon was raised in a hard-working middle class family which taught him that any honorable work was good, even if manual labor. He’s done a variety of such work in his life to get to the position of graduating summa cum laude from college, then earning a law degree.
Again comparing, McHenry has never had a real job outside the political arena. Even though he ran as “the only small businessman in this race” in 2004, “McHenry Real Estate” was an apparent sham—no phone, no employees, no transactions, no assets, no tax return, etc.
Which brings forth another Lance Sigmon quality—his uncompromising honesty and integrity. My own experience is that anything he ever tells you is the unvarnished truth. In his kickoff speeches, he promised voters, “I will be honest with you at every turn.”
By contrast, I personally witnessed as McHenry lied to 60 Caldwell County Republicans at a Christmas dinner on December 15, 2007. He said he “considered” sending lumps of coal to those in Congress he didn’t like, “but my staff talked me out of it.”
A few hours later, I read a column on “washingtonpost.com” that stated he did, indeed, send out lumps of coal. The article even quoted an Arizona Republican who received one of McHenry’s bituminous “gifts.”
Now why would a congressman feel it necessary to concoct such a story of total bovine fecal matter? If he’ll lie about such trivialities, is there really any doubt that he’ll lie about virtually anything else?
Lance has already promised that he will not accept lobbyist campaign money from outside the 10th District and has challenged McHenry to do the same.
No doubt, the good Congressman—whose personal net worth has grown to well over $1 million since 2005—will ignore Sigmon’s challenge. He has taken hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars from big oil, big banks, big pharmaceuticals. And “big beer.”
That McHenry would tell such a bold-faced lie as the lumps of coal story brought me to the natural conclusion that he’s just immature. I call it his “junior high school prankster” approach to his job, because the kind of tricks he pulls is just how my friends and I acted way back then.
You have to wonder how much of McHenry’s persona, his story, is based on similar prevarications he’s told himself over the years. It’s not surprising that voters have heard the lies and believe them—because he believes them, too!
Lance Sigmon, on the other hand, is in the serious position of being a criminal attorney whose negotiating skills, and ability to compromise with people he doesn’t like, hold the fate of some young men who face many years of possible confinement in military prisons.
Meanwhile, McHenry is known for his ranting antics on the floor of the House of Representatives, calling people names just because they have different ideas. It’s understandable that Democrats in Congress detest him, but many Republicans don’t like him, either!
Such a contentious approach to the position of U.S. Representative does nothing but hurt the 10th District. Our reputation in Congress, unfortunately, depends upon an immature rogue.
That this young man, referred to by the Washington writer as a “nip at your heels brat,” will invent some way to attack Lance Sigmon is a foregone conclusion. Though it’s somewhat comical in the concept, it’s a serious matter, because McHenry’s fund raisers have built enough of a campaign war chest to repeat his lies often.
I have just one more political prayer. To paraphrase Richard Nixon’s blast at the press after the 1962 California governor’s race, it’s my fervent hope that, after May 6, “we won’t have Patrick McHenry to kick around any more.”
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