Blust under fire
Put this one into the probably bogus but too fun not to share file:
Rep. John Blust, a Guilford County Republican, was an outspoken of former Speaker Jim Black, a Mecklenburg Democrat. And as such, Blust didn't see very many of his bills move, occupied a hole of an office in the General Assembly building and was relegated to providing the voice of loyal (but ignored) opposition.
Things have since gotten better for Blust under the Hackney regime. He's got a better office and has seen some of his bills work through committees and one or two even get to a floor vote.
So along comes this post on the North Carolina Conservative Friday and a follow-up today that strongly suggests Blust may be tainted. (More after the jump.)
While looking on the North Carolina State Board of Elections Website recently I decided to Check out the favorite PAC of Former House of Representatives Speaker Jim Black, the N C STATE OPTOMETRIC SOCIETY PAC. Reading these paragraphs for the following news article give some idea of this PAC and its relationship with Speaker Jim Black.[snip]
Turn now to the Fall of 2006 in the midst of the ongoing ethics battle of the practices of then Speaker Jim Black, who only resigned in early 2007, with newspaper reports talking about several Representatives speaking on behalf of tightening ethical practices in Raleigh, I see that one of the most outspoken, Representative John Blust of Guilford County was accepting a campaign contribution from this PAC.
The implication, of course, is that Blust is somehow tied to or was an ally of Black. In some Republican circles, that's about like being in bed with the devil. It's also seems like sort of a silly idea if you look at the history of the two men.
The N.C. Conservative, by the way, is a website that gives voice to the far right / activist wing of the party. It gets work contributed from folks like former Rep. John Rhodes and former Sen. Fern Shubert.
The fact that they're taking aim at Blust makes me scratch my head a bit, because he's ideologically in line with these folks. Why attack Blust?
One theory I've heard floated: Blust did not lend his whole-hearted support to Marcus Kindley's bid for state GOP Chairman and this is payback.
I called Kindley this morning and he said he had nothing to do with floating the story. Still, one can well imagine some of Kindley's friends taking up his cause.
Or, it's possible that Blust has hacked off his conservative brethren in some other way.
So time for full disclosure: Someone floated the story to me via e-mail last week. At the time I asked why they were mad at Blust and never got a reply. At any rate, I didn't think it had legs then and I still don't.
It is true that Blust reported a $300 contribution from the Optometrists PAC. And it's true that PAC had a pretty close affiliation with Speaker Black at one time.
But on the same report where they list a donation to Blust, the PAC lists donations to dozens of legislators, including Republicans Rep. Laura Wiley of High Point, Rep. Cary Allred of Burlington, Rep. Bill Daughtridge of Nash County and Sen. Fletcher Hartsell of Cabarrus County. I think the commonality they all share (I could be wrong about this but I don't think so) is none of them faced opposition in that election.
It's also my understanding that by this time, fall of 2006, the leadership of the Optometric Society and its PAC had begun to shift away from the folks so closely aligned with Black. Besides, Black never had full control over the PAC's money and no lobbying group worth its expense account would really want to be no more than a vassal of one powerful legislator.
At any rate, I think if you're inclined to go down this road, you either have to make a case that all of these Republicans need to account for their campaign account or chalk this up to the normal course of campaigning.
Your theories welcome in the comments section.