U.S. House 13th District Primary: Hendrix, Robinson and Sutherland
Three Republicans are hoping voters will give them the nod to face off against Democrat Brad Miller in N.C.'s 13th U.S. House district.
The GOP contenders are:
- John Ross Hendrix, a graphic artist who lost to Richard Burr in the 2004 Republican Senate primary. (Link to his web page.)
- Vernon Robinson, the former Winston-Salem council member known for, among other things, his aggressive radio and television spots. (Link to his web page.)
- Charlie Sutherland, a Rockingham County business owner and frequent candidate who has never held elective office. (Link to his web page.)
Audio links from my interviews with the candidates are at the bottom of this post. (For those of you visiting this blog for the first time, there's an opportunity for you to comment to me and exchange ideas with other readers via the comment link at the bottom of the post.)
We're putting the story on this race in the paper-and-ink edition Sunday, but as I did with the Blake and Coble interviews, we're posting the audio and some other matter early so blog readers can get a preview.
From Sunday's paper (hyper-links coming Sunday when the stories post to our website) Update: hyper-links added:
- A story on the race.
- An issues box containing biographical information and the candidate’s responses on some issues.(You'll have to scroll down a bit to get to the biographical info and Q+A on this race.)
The story looks more at who will likely emerge from the primary to face Miller. If you have to bet the butter and egg money, plunk it down on Robinson.
That's not a slight against the other two candidates or an endorsement of one set of views over another. It's simply an acknowledgement of the political realties on the ground.
The 10,000-pound elephant in that regard is campaign fund raising. Robinson has almost $300,000 in the bank and is spending it on broadcast ads. (Robinson was fresh from placing his latest radio spot when he stopped by to speak with me Friday afternoon.)
The other two candidates aren't raising money at the moment, although Hendrix does have a donation option on his web site. He told me that as of Thursday, no one had used it.
In my story, political strategists (and blogger) Carter Wrenn says:
"The first thing you have to do when you run for office is become known," said Carter Wrenn, a media consultant who worked for Jesse Helms and other well known GOP politicians. He said if nothing else, Robinson’s fund raising prowess should see him through the primary."If (Robinson) has got $300,000, and the other guys aren’t raising anything, then Vernon’s going to win," Wrenn said. "He's going to have the money to talk to these people."
Weird stuff can happen, though. It's possible, for example, Robinson's ads cheese off the wrong folks or some news event comes along that happens to give one of the two other candidates a boost at the polls.
Robinson would probably have more to worry about if he was in a one-on-one race with either of the two other candidates. Being well known has its disadvantages, and one big one is there will be a certain cadre of people who just don't like you. Instead of having that vote concentrated all in one place for one candidate, Hendrix and Sutherland will be splitting it.
Now for the audio.
All these clips are MP3 files. The files for Hendrix and Sutherland should be somewhere between two and six minutes in length. I posted longer but fewer files for Robinson at the request of our web gurus. Aside from being cut out of the hour-or-so of tape I have on each candidate, they are otherwise unedited.
Hendrix I spoke to Hendrix at a Raleigh area Perkins restaurant, so you'll hear some clinking plates and other background noise:
- Talking about immigration policy.
- Talking about abortion rights.
- Talking about why he should face Brad Miller rather than the other two candidates.
- Talking about gay marriage and adoption.
- Talking more about Brad Miller.
- Talking about Robinson and Sutherland.
- Talking about his views on the constitution.
Robinson: Robinson visited me at the News & Record's Raleigh bureau in downtown Raleigh:
- Talking about why he's running in a district he doesn't live in, his thoughts on a national sales tax and the GOP Congress' performance on the budget.
- Talking about immigration and Iraq.
- Talking about why he's the primary candidate with the best chance of beating Brad Miller.
- Talking about gay marriage and guns.
Sutherland: I ended up speaking to Mr. Sutherland over the phone. My apologies for the fact my voice is twice as loud as his is:
Comments (1)
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Vernon Robinson ran a vicious nasty campaign in the 5th district against Virginia Foxx.
He had a narrow edge over her, but lost in the runoff - thank God. During the runoff, he got especially nasty, and ran tv ads showing Virginia Foxx and Hilary Clinton on a split screen.
Up until that point, my caucasian neighbors just loved old Vernon, but they didnt' like it when he assaulted the good character of Virginia Foxx.
There were letters to the editor of local paper complaining about the nearly pornographic campaign materials Vernon sent out in mailers or via automated phone banks about marriage and homosexuals. Stuff that caused even the real right wingers to worry that their children might pick up the mail, or answer the phone and hear stuff they were to young to be hearing.
If Vernon was pushing family values, he forgot that people don't want their children of various ages picking up or hearing his homophobe rantings.
Also, hypocritical - Vernon calls himself the "black" Jesse Helms. In other words, he hates himself.
He will make this a nasty campaign, and will ultimately embarrass republicans in the 13th district, and end up making Brad Miller seem like one of Jesus diciples.
Dems should pay him to run he is so detrimental to the republicans.
Posted on April 26, 2006 12:33 AM