Raleigh 2022 Postmortem

It was a split decision in the capital city as Mary-Ann Baldwin, Jonathan Melton and Corey Branch retained their seats while Stormie Forte successfully moves from District D to an at-large seat. Countering them will be Mary Black-Branch, Megan Patton, Jane Harrison and Christina Jones. With the absence of a sixth district, I expect a lot of deadlocks over the next two years.

Under the old system, only Harrison and Jones would have avoided runoffs. 

I'm pretty upset that the only non-duopoly leftist (Josh Bradley) finished dead last and only had support from Revolution Raleigh, Socialist Alternative NC Triangle and Raleigh DSA. I noticed that both Indyweek and the N&O supported most of the sitting members. Meanwhile, there was a Green turned Vote Blue No Matter Who popping off his mouth while saying nothing about either of Bradley's runs (he also finished third in the 2019 District A race).

2022 Raleigh Endorsements

I was going to do a write up of all of things that have ailed the capital city of North Carolina but being under the weather and other commitments got in the way, I'll simply say this: Every single sitting member that is running needs to go.

Mayor: Terrance Ruth

At-Large: Josh Bradley, Portia Rochelle

District A: Mary Black-Branch

District B: Megan Patton

District C: Wanda Hunter

District D: Jane Harrison

District E: Christina Jones

Fixing the Club World Cup

A few years ago, I came up with two ways to fix the FIFA Club World Cup. 

The first one was to rotate the tournament all over the world so that each continent would host it every six years. 

The second one was to only hold the event every four years but to expand the tournament to 24 teams. Each confederation except OFC would get four teams while OFC would get two teams while the final two spots would be reserved for the defending champion and the domestic champion of the host nation. For group stage play, the confederation champions would be tossed into randomly selected groups.

As it turned out, FIFA has its own plans.

From Wikipedia: 

AFC (Asia): 2.5 (two of which will be allocated to the finalists of the AFC Champions League and the half slot will be contested in a play-off between the two losing semi-finalists)

CAF (Africa): 3 (will be allocated to the top three teams of the CAF Champions League)

CONCACAF (North, Central America and the Caribbean): 3

CONMEBOL (South America): 6

OFC (Oceania): 0.5

UEFA (Europe): 8

Host nation: 1 (will be allocated to the winner of the Chinese Super League, with FIFA to decide the course of action should they qualify through the AFC Champions League)

The tournament will feature 24 teams, with a play-off between the OFC representative and the 3rd-best Asian team (other than China's champion club, which automatically qualifies as host country representative) to determine the final entrant. The teams will be split into eight groups of three teams each. The winners of the eight groups will advance to the quarter-finals, which will use a knockout format to determine the champions.

Greensboro 2022 Postmortem

So, the results are in: Nancy Vaughan has held off Justin Outling in the mayor's race. All of the people who were in office in the other seven contested seats will be returning as Zack Matheny will join them for a second tour of duty after officially running unopposed in District 3. The two biggest surprises are Hugh Holston and Tammi Thurm. 

In the at-large race, Holston made it 4-for-4 with fill-ins being elected to full terms. Greensboro voters will always find a way to boost unremarkable people. Katie Rossabi jumped up to fourth while Linda Wilson remained in sixth. Meanwhile, Tracy Furman slipped from third to fifth. Her electability has to be questioned at this point. She lost to Justin Conrad in the 2018 county commissioner's race, and now, she's blown a lead to a bland, propped-up candidate and to a dangerous woman.

In District 5, Thurm held off Tony Wilkins. This means that there's been a demographic shift that no longer favors Republicans or right wingers in that part of town.

In short, the establishment fielded a clean sweep tonight. Also, the people who really run the Gate City love it when the City Council appoints someone to fill unexpired terms because it makes it easier for their candidates to win the following election.

Missed Opportunities and a Gloomy Future

Greensboro Rising and others fighting police brutality could have taken cues from the People's City Council's Los Angeles chapter as the latter fielded candidates in that city's municipal races last month. Instead, mostly inaction in the Gate City led to the right-wing filling a void and shifting the discussion towards the ridiculous notion that Greensboro police somehow didn't get any support when the status quo City Council gave them more money after George Floyd's name faded from the headlines. 

What it means for 2025 is that I completely expect the right-wing to mainstream William Marshburn's position on policing and other issues as well--ergo, I wouldn't be surprised to see Rossabi or Thurston Reeder, Jr. to move even further to the right three years from now and to have some success riding that wave.

What needs to happen now is for those of us who are tired of business as usual together around the groups I mentioned in April. They can continue as their respective groups for nonelectoral proposes, but when it comes to electoral politics, they need to form a group similar to the Richmond Progressive Alliance.

They need to come together and let the public know just how out of touch the City Council is because the local press is in bed with not only these elected officials but the people who fund and prop up the politicians.  

This is reason enough for me to punt on Greensboro politics until 2025. It's time for other groups to join WHOA to shut down the Greensboro City Council and expose them and their funders as the forces who are really driving the city into the ground

Moving Away From Creative Focus

After viewing this year's races in Greensboro, I have to seriously review how I look at who's running and what they stand for.

Greensboro should be ripe for a creative revolution...but yet, there are roadblocks, some of which I've seen over the past six years. My guess is that half of the community has some type of association with the very people they ought to be opposing--they're either related to members of the moneyed elite, work for them or take funding from them. 

Three candidates technically fit the criteria as being members of the creative class, but I disqualified one of them for being just as reactionary as more established candidates and being so rabidly anti-defund the police that I will have nothing to do with her in the future.

Starting in the fall when I analyze the Raleigh races, I will no longer be focused on the creative connection, and it's also worth noting that the Triangle scene is full of clashing egos, so it's easier for me to merely focus on the political.

2022 Endorsements

Mayor: No endorsement

At-Large: Tracy Furman, Linda Wilson

District 1: Previous support for Felton Foushee rescinded

District 2: Cecile (CC) Crawford 

District 3: Write in Heather Hogan

District 4: No endorsement

District 5: No endorsement

Greensboro 2022 General Election

Mayor

Nancy Vaughan vs Justin Outling

Last month, Eric Robert decided to shun the devil you know approach in endorsing Justin Outling. He cited Nancy Vaughan's attempts (alongside the movers and shakers) to deprive East Greensboro residents of essential needs.

Vaughan doesn't need any more demerits to be ruled out, but Outling has his own problems as I detailed three months ago.

With the chalk holding to form here, both the incumbent mayor and her challenger from District 3 are easily exposed as enemies to the cause that so many people were advancing two years ago so I have no problem telling Greensboro creatives to sit this round out.

At-Large

Yvonne Johnson vs Marikay Abuzuaiter vs Hugh Holston vs Tracy Furman vs Katie Rossabi vs Linda Wilson

Rossabi's positions are so horrible that this blog wishes her (nothing but) ill in the event she gets elected. Abuzuaiter would probably welcome Rossabi in the hopes of gathering a Thin Blue Line coalition. In any case, she can get bent. Some progressive groups have endorsed Johnson, but this blog doesn't because she participated in the stonewalling of the Marcus Smith case. Holston is being propped up by establishment PACs (Simkins, Replacements Limited) because, so few people know who he is.

To Furman's credit, she did call out the police over it handled the murder of Joesph Lopez before the officer who killed him got fired. 

Wilson deserves the other spot for no other reason that she wants to rein in the gentrification people like Roy Carroll and Marty Kotis have engaged in over the last decade.

District 1

Sharon Hightower vs Felton Foushee

There is nothing that the incumbent can do to win this blog's support as her association with Greensboro's Black Misleadership Class is well documented.

However, we now have serious buyer's remorse about her challenger as well. A June 7 Triad City Beat article highlighted the Greensboro Police Officers Association PAC donating to three candidates--none of whom are named Katie Rossabi, Tony Wilkins or Melodi Fentress--this election cycle.

The donations were actually made earlier this year, but it took last month for the details to come out.

Foushee says his stance on police accountability hasn't changed but how is he supposed to hold the police accountable when he's taking money from a PAC that is at best upholding the status quo?

I expect nothing less from the mayor since she's flush with establishment money. Holston is another rotating face on the City Council so him taking money from police is par for the course. I expected much better from Foushee given that Hightower went radio silent on Marcus Smith after her initial statement and the incumbent was also a deciding vote against written consent. Given how different the political environment is from 2017, Foushee posing as someone who's willing to rein in police abuses only to be exposed as someone who takes money from a police PAC (i.e., he would give the Greensboro PD more money if he's elected) is actually worse than Tammi Thurm posing as an antiestablishment candidate and being revealed as establishment friendly the whole time.

So, the end result is that we are rescinding our previous endorsement of Foushee and will now be sitting this contest out.

District 2

Goldie Wells vs Cecile (CC) Crawford

Wells is even worse than Hightower, and she's proven to be a gatekeeper for her constituents. Crawford's positions on housing and policing are more than enough to carry her over the top.

District 3

Zack Matheny vs Chip Roth

Roth withdrew from the race after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. Given who Zack represents, he's all but guaranteed to return to City Hall.

However, a last-minute write-in campaign has now happened as Heather Hogan has thrown her hat in the race. This blog recommends writing her in next Tuesday and hopes like crazy that she runs an active campaign to unseat Matheny in 2025.

District 4

Nancy Hoffmann vs Thurston H. Reeder, Jr.

Early last year, the incumbent called defund the police "a bumper sticker phrase." Her challenger wants full funding of the police and clapped back at anyone who wanted police funding reduced. The end result is yet another Hoffmann vs right winger scenario, which shows how much of a grand exception 2017 really was. Given that it's a contest between the biggest enemy of the creative community and someone who's even worse, this race is easily another hard pass.

District 5

Tammi Thurm vs Tony Wilkins

This blog remains neutral for the reasons that were previously stated.

Recapping Greensboro Primaries

Some Surprises, But Mostly Business as Usual

The worst-case scenario would have been a future City Council divided between gradually giving police more money (most people on the outgoing City Council) and exponentially giving the police more money (a position shared by Rossabi, Wilkins and Fentress). Instead, it looks like only Wilkins is likely to win in July as Fentress is gone. 

Given the increased enthusiasm on the Republican side, I expected Rossabi to have a better showing with Fentress possibly sneaking in at sixth. Imagine my relief as the latter completely fell off and the former is in fifth place—the Karen Candidate could still make up the votes to claim the final at-large seat, but it’ll be an uphill climb as conservatives outside of West Greensboro could punt to November. As a result, Marikay remains the Blue Lives Matter candidate.

Zack curbstomping Chip in District 3 speaks for itself. 

Meanwhile in District 5, Tammi Thurm is in trouble as her vote total failed to reach 50 percent (she earned 45.4 percent). Motivated conservatives could use former Sheriff BJ Barnes’s enthusiastic support for Wilkins to put the latter back in office.

Going back to the at-large race, Hugh Holston got 11th hour endorsements from some longstanding PACs (Simkins, Replacements Limited). I thought for sure he wouldn’t make it out of the primary due to a lack of name recognition—remember, Wilkins ran the Guilford County GOP, Outling is a member of a high-profile law firm that represents the city, Wells was on City Council from 2005 to 2009—a guy on a committee no one pays attention to was surely not going to advance, right? So much for that, but Holston is in trouble as he starts the next round almost 200 votes behind Tracy Furman for the final seat.

Progressives and creatives had a bad night overall. For the former group, Franca Jalloh simply did not get the votes she needed to be competitive. As for the latter group, Dusty Keene only bested a mostly nonparticipating Taffy Buchanan. And, then there’s the mayor’s race…

…A disgraced judge got more votes than the true outsider, a guy who’s done more creatively for Greensboro than any mover and shaker? I mean, what do you even say? It was one thing to fall to Nancy and Justin since they had everything in their favor, but I have to say that the voters of Greensboro failed Eric Robert.

Whither Marcus Smith! Whither George Floyd! Whither Any Efforts to Overhaul Greensboro Police!

Meanwhile in East Greensboro, the biggest impediments to the 2020 uprisings are well ahead of their second-place challengers. This is where Greensboro Rising failed as the group should have fielded candidates to hold Hightower and Wells accountable for their anti-defund the police copaganda stances. If there’s a demographics issue (i.e., older residents), then, we have our problem right there. If it’s something else, then, these activists will need to find a new way to break decades of paternalism.

Speaking of Marcus Smith being forgotten as a major stain on Greensboro’s reputation, these tweets from WHOA spell out what happened:

The elites who run the Gate City caught a huge break with the city settling with the Smith family. Instead of a major political overhaul, the local races were reshaped in favor of the establishment. 

Consider the following:

1. Smith’s family was legally prohibited from rallying against the eight remaining City Council members (excluding Hugh Holston, but including his predecessor, Michelle Kennedy who's working for the city in another department)

2. A vital issue was eliminated from this election cycle, which meant the powers that be no longer had any reason to be uncomfortable

3. The absence of any groups fighting police brutality in the nine contests enabled three formidable Back the Blue challengers (Rossabi, Fentress, Wilkins) and a fringe fourth one (Marshburn) to join Abuzuaiter in shifting the pendulum in the opposite direction

Hospital mergers just don't stop

The ink hadn't even dried on Atrium Health's purchase of Wake Forest Baptist when this bit of news dropped. When it's all said and done, it will be the fourth ownership change for High Point Regional Hospital over the past decade. It went from local ownership to being owned by UNC Hospitals to being owned by WFU Baptist to Atrium to soon being run by Advocate Health Brand.

A skeptic of the High Point City Council once took the High Point Enterprise's former editor to task for suggesting that the city had "survived the Hospital Wars" because High Point Regional ceded local control to a public university at the time. Well, nothing is really local any more.

2022 Primary Endorsements for the Creative Community

Mayor: Eric Robert

At-Large: Franca Jalloh (Mayor Pro Tem), Dusty Keene, Linda Wilson

District 1: Felton Foushee

District 2: Cecile (CC) Crawford

District 3: No endorsement

District 5: No endorsement

Greensboro Mayor

Incumbent: Nancy Vaughan

Challengers: Justin Outling, Eric Robert, Mark Timothy Cummings 

While enough can be said to not support Vaughan for reelection as mayor, here's also the case against Outling getting a promotion. (alternate thread here).

The political clans are out in full force here. Outling, for instance, is backed by the Marty Kotis and Jim Melvin factions. Not to mention, they all hate Robert since he called them out in the past.

The only good thing about Vaughan reneging on her 2017 campaign pledge not to run again is that she froze out the biggest opponent of any kind of police overhaul on the City Council. Let's face it, if Marikay Abuzuaiter had run for mayor against Outling in an open contest and had there not been any Census delays, many East Greensboro residents would have begrudgingly supported the latter simply to stop the "fund the police" candidate. 

As bad as the two members of the City Council are on policing, the outsiders are only slightly better on the issue as these two tweets from a People's Freedom Assembly member attest (i.e. Cummings and Robert are more incrementalistic). 

Given the lack of advocates supporting a radical overhaul of the GPD, it goes back to who would be better for the creative community's issues, and on that front alone, Robert gets the nod over Cummings.

Greensboro At-Large

Incumbents: Yvonne Johnson, Marikay Abuzuaiter

Seat Holder: Hugh Holston

Challengers: Linda Wilson, Katie Rossabi, Tracy Furman, Taffy L. Buchanan, Franca Jalloh, Dustin Keene, Melodi Fentress

Johnson has been the top vote-getter for a while. Abuzuaiter is only in this race because Nancy Vaughan broke her promise to not run for mayor after the 2017 election, and she is the Blue Lives Matter candidate despite being a Democrat. 

Holston replaced Michelle Kennedy, and based on his credentials, he is a surefire insider. Holston not only became the fourth consecutive fill-in to run for a full term but he was selected by the rest of the City Council precisely for that reason. Given his lack of name recognition though, he could be on the outside looking in come May 18.

Rossabi is giving Marikay a run for her money in terms of who "backs the blue" the most--and she's also the Karen Candidate--claiming that Marcus Smith was "treated humanely" and, for the lack of a better term, even caused his own death. Her ties to the police (alongside her husband) make her even more dangerous than Abuzuaiter. Plus, she's an overall killjoy who would be a major obstacle for creatives.

Buchanan is a business owner but her Facebook page didn't show any political activity when I visited it last week.

On paper, Fentress should be a shoo-in for this blog's endorsement given her direct ties to the creative community (Note: I was a frequent attendee of 2 Art Chicks, a gallery that Fentress co-owned, when events were held there from 2005 to 2007), but her "fund the police" plank--not to mention, it's the very first thing on her website--is a major deal-killer two years after the biggest uprisings in decades (the perfect analogy would be the Lakers going from championship favorites to failing to make the play-in tournament this season).

Keene is another candidate who's directly involved in the arts scene. On policing, he's a reformist, which is good enough for this cycle. Jalloh and Wilson get the other two spots over Fentress and Furman because their positions are the best among all of the challengers.

Greensboro District 5

Incumbent: Tammi Thurm

Challengers: Tony Wilkins, Robert Bodenhamer

Thurm had this blog's support in 2017 because she campaigned as an outsider and netted a perfect score from Democracy Greensboro. However, she was revealed to be a fraud by George Hartzman shortly after she got elected.

She's an insider who posed as an anti-establishment candidate and her record as a councilwoman shows it despite her fervent support for the failed written consent ordinance for police officers. Another demerit against Thurm is the map below. Her antics towards the Pie-Shaped map shows that she's just as interested in preserving her own interests as the other members of City Council.

Wilkins was the biggest obstacle for creatives when he was on the council from late 2012 to 2017 but he would be number two if he returns because Nancy Hoffmann has become even more insufferable. Wilkins is a strong supporter of the police and has used it to attack his successor. 

Bodenhamer is the outsider in this contest and he can be described as a bit less conservative than Wilkins.

This race will determine one of two things: Either 2017 was a blip due to depressed conservative turnout after John Brown had a disappointing mayoral run, or the demographics have changed to the point that it will become more difficult for a right-wing candidate to get elected in Greensboro. Either way, Thurm has lost this blog's support as we sit this race out.

Greensboro District 3

Candidates: Chip Roth, Zack Matheny, Bill Marshburn

Roth is the husband of former assistant city manager Denise Turner Roth. Both worked for the Obama Adminstration.

Matheny held the seat from 2007 to mid-2015 when he stepped down to run Downtown Greensboro Incorporated.

Marshburn once threatened to assassinate City Council members--including Matheny--over the city annexing his home. His far-right views calls for police to use even more excessive force than what killed Marcus Smith and George Floyd. 

Since this is a contest that contains two establishment shills and a right wing extremist who might as well wear a thin blue line flag, this contest is a hard pass.

Greensboro District 2

Incumbent: Goldie Wells

Challengers: Portia Shipman, LaToya Bernice Gathers, Cecile (CC) Crawford

Wells has been in office too long--this is her second stint--and nothing says that she's out of touch more than her opposition to written consent and another demerit is that she and Hightower are both part of Greensboro's Black Misleadership Class.

Gathers is a rare breed as a progressive Republican running this election cycle, and her policies are similar to the other two challengers.

Shipman correctly called out the city's settlement with the Smith Family for what it really was.

Crawford is a part of a progressive organization and her platform on housing and policing puts her over the top. Any one of the three challengers would be preferable to the incumbent, but CC's the best.

Greensboro District 1

Incumbent: Sharon Hightower

Challengers: Felton Foushee, Timothy Kirkpatrick

Hightower voted against the written consent decree and was largely unreliable on the Marcus Smith issue.

Foushee gets the endorsement by default not only due to Hightower's actions but also because Kirkpatrick doesn't even have a website.

Greensboro Since 2017

The Changed Landscape

The main issues in the five years since the 2017 elections largely upheld the status quo have been the Marcus Smith murder by Greensboro police, the continuing divide between those at the top and everyone else, the opening of the shrine dedicated to the city's one percent (aka the Tanger Center) and the fallout from the pandemic.

Smith was the Gate City's George Floyd, and on February 1, the city settled with his family--likely hoping for the murder and coverup to go away just in time for elections. In the wake of Floyd's murder in Minnesota, there was an attempt to pass a proposal requiring police to get written consent before searching people, cars and property. However, it failed on a 5-4 vote, with the Nancys, the cop-loving Marikay and both East Greensboro representatives killing the measure.

The Lack of Anti-Establishment Cohesion

Five years ago, Democracy Greensboro was formed in the wake of what to do next post-Bernie, and while it fielded candidates in the last elections, Michelle Kennedy (more on the details when I analyze the District 5 race) got into office in the end, and she didn't even finish her term. Ever since those elections, the group disappeared, and there are currently no solid anti-establishment groups to hold the leaders accountable even though there are some on the periphery that could make some noise over the next three years.

A coalition to beat the city's entrenched elites is possible if the following groups band together once the elections are over:

• GSO Revolutionary Socialists
• People's Freedom Assembly
• Working Class & Houseless Organizing Alliance
• Triad Abolition Project
• Incarcerated Outreach Network
• Greensboro DSA
• Greensboro Rising

It's nice to be in the streets, but the politicians can easily ignore groups like Greensboro Rising by giving police less accountability when these groups demand the exact opposite. As far as I can tell, there's been no follow-up or threat to unseat those people in power (as a matter of fact, there's a chance that the two factions that end up on City Council this summer could be between gradually giving police more money and exponentially giving them more money).