McHenry hired gun misses the mark

November 16, 2009


Patrick McHenry has his hired guns out early, as Carlton Huffman—“it is never easy to criticize a fellow Republican”—took a Friday the 13th shot at me, three months before the primary filing period. Huffman signs his letters “Granite Falls,” but he’s been a Washington, DC, political hack for years and has forgotten his Caldwell County values.

Huffman accuses me of “personal attacks on Congressman McHenry and other officials in Caldwell County,” which is untrue on its face. My “attacks” on McHenry have focused entirely on his lack of performance in Congress as he builds his personal wealth to over $1 million, working for himself not the voters.

My only criticism of Caldwell officials was to point out the obvious failings of the previous Republican majority of commissioners (22.2% property tax increase in 2007). I was so off-base that local voters heartily agreed with me in 2008 and threw them out in favor of three different Republicans!

Regarding McHenry, my question is why don’t 10th District voters throw him out, too? Already, two conservative Republicans have announced their intentions to run against him next spring, and there must be thousands more who can represent us better. If McHenry is so great, why does he keep having primary challenges?

Huffman accuses me of an “editorial jihad” against the congressman, noting that I “attack people’s personal conduct.” It doesn’t matter to him that McHenry brought in hired people to live temporarily in his home, didn’t notice as they illegally registered to vote (said the N.C. Board of Elections), and then voted in three 2004 elections. Two associates have since been convicted of voter fraud and driving while impaired in Gaston County. The congressman himself buys houses at terms no one else can get. This is the “personal conduct” I attacked.

The Gaston Gazette and Channel 9 News last week documented the Congressman’s personal disregard for rules, with photos of his SUV parked atop a curb at the Charlotte airport.

Shouldn’t a congressman and his staff be held to a higher standard than the average person? Shouldn’t their “personal conduct” be a good example for kids, not another item on the police blotter?

Wouldn’t you like to know, too, why McHenry is paying $3,000 a month to a Washington, DC, law firm (see his campaign finance reports)? I’d need to be in awfully serious trouble to pay $72,000 to lawyers over two years! Why not tell us what the payments are for? If you donated money to McHenry’s reelection campaign, are you happy that your money goes to pay his and his employees’ legal bills (Michael Aaron Lay, $20,000)?

What should be disturbing to all of us is Huffman’s not-so-thinly-veiled threat that Republicans “may find a better candidate” in the next Soil & Water Conservation District supervisors’ election. First, he needs to understand that election to that board is NON-PARTISAN, which he might know if he really did live in Caldwell.

But, sadly, this is what McHenryites do. They threaten local Republican officials with election defeat if they don’t quietly acquiesce to the congressman’s brand of politics.

For instance, McHenry and his cronies sponsored Catawba County GOP primary opponents to sheriff David Huffman and to Hickory mayor Rudy Wright, and they had an associate in charge of similar tactics in other counties. McHenry people worked both campaigns.

Mike Ledford, who came within 140 votes of Sheriff Huffman in 2006, is now looking at a prison sentence for obstructing justice. He tried—on tape—to bribe a sheriff’s major into cleaning up his official employment record in Catawba County so he could get a job. Wright, who recently won a third term unopposed, was challenged in 2005 because he turned down McHenry’s request to host a GOP fundraiser. Wright told McHenry that the mayor’s office is NON-PARTISAN and hosting such an event wouldn’t be appropriate.

Therein lays the point. Whether Republican, Democrat or Martian, voters want a congressman whose ethics are unimpeachable. They want someone who will exercise in Congress western North Carolina honesty, not blind partisanship. They want someone whom other Republicans won’t consider a clown, whose very presence in the House won’t hurt the District. Ask fellow Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona why he killed a McHenry budget item for Spruce Pine in 2007.

Where are the jobs McHenry has promised for five years? The Washington Post (look it up) ran an article last week about how the Hickory area was one of the hardest-hit economic disaster areas in the country, having lost tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs to foreign countries. Caldwell County has lost almost 10,000 jobs in furniture since 2001 (Western Piedmont Council of Governments). Doesn’t Congress negotiate international trade to protect Americans? Where’s McHenry?

Carlton Huffman, with his inside-the-DC-beltway wisdom, didn’t challenge my facts. He just said “it does no good to refight the battles….” Baloney! He protects an incompetent!

If Huffman wants to orchestrate my defeat as a Soil & Water Conservation District supervisor, let him have at it. I will continue to write the truth, whether I’m on that board or not.