CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
MEETING MINUTES OF
25 SEPTEMBER 2012
Meeting was held at Jing Giannia’s in Morehead City, NC
Meeting was called to order by at 6:02 pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by EULA PARKIN
Invocation by EULA PARKIN
Attendance – 35
BOB said he had been telling us for a long time not to pay any attention to the polls. Tonight as he was coming to the meeting, he heard on the radio that a poll had been taken just today of NASCAR fans and the poll had Obama leading Romney by 49 to 42. Now you know there is no way. That just shows you how accurate polls are.
BOB introduced LIBBY BROWN who asked if we would pass out some cards she had had made up “The Power of One”. She said she and her husband had attended a meeting in DC the first of August, and they had ended up talking to a lot of people from Wisconsin. The people from Wisconsin thought the reason they had been successful with Scott Walker was that they had tried to empower every person that they met that could make a difference in the election. So she has been thinking about it and she and one of the other ladies from their TEA Party group came up with this idea. She had these cards made up and the idea is for you to give this card to 10 people and then give them some more cards that they give to 10 other people. The card states:
“The POWER of ONE”.
Tell ONE to tell TEN more
VOTE ROMNEY-RYAN.
Tell 10 to REGISTER.
Tell 10 to VOTE.
It’s our country!
We Want it Back!
You can make a DIFFERENCE
by telling ONE to tell TEN more to
VOTE ROMNEY-RYAN
On the reverse of the card is a blank space where you can write some message if you would like and also says:
*Promote job growth *Lower Taxes.
*Grow Small Businesses *Smaller Government
*Repeal Obamacare *Energy Independence
She asked if anyone would like to help her pass out these cards she was leaving a stack of them and would like for us to pick them up and help get them out. She did not include any phone numbers since this was a personal project, not a TEA Party endorsement per se. She said she had been making phone calls from home and today she had been making calls for Ohio to get people out to vote there for Josh Mandell who is running for Senate, a fine young man; as well as to vote for Romney/Ryan. One man she talked to said he was not too crazy about Romney but he did not like Obama. She told him what she would suggest is realize that when you vote for Romney, you vote against Obama. She thanked us and left.
BOB recognized ROMA WADE. He said a couple of weeks ago they found out that EDITH had cancer. They are in the process of having it treated. He said EDITH was a very strong woman and would like all their friends to fight along with them. When EDITH had gone to the hospital for tests, she, her sister, and DIANE LANG had all worn pink, her fighting color of choice When they got there the nurse said “Don’t you all look nice in pink!” and EDITH explained why they were all wearing pink. The nurse had asked ROMA where his pink was and he told her he had pink underwear on. He told the nurse that he had had to go through his wife’s underwear drawer and finally found a pair of pink panties but they are awfully tight. From that they had come up with an idea of giving to those who wish to be on EDITH’s fighting team, the men will receive pink underwear (which when you tell EDITH your correct size, she will dye them for you and deliver them next week). The women will receive pink socks. He is asking everyone when they pray at night, that they will throw in EDITH’s name. ROMA listed several men who had already gotten their fighting pink underwear. EULA asked everyone to please stand up. She then asked all those who had never had cancer to please sit back down. She said she was a 14 year breast cancer survivor. PEGGY said 18 years in January. Another said since 1969. VERNON said thyroid cancer about 4 years ago. DIANE said 34 months. (If I missed anyone, I’m sorry.) EULA said this is not an easy road to travel, but it can be done. HOWARD said the doctors said when PEGGY had her cancer, that the support system was more important than the treatment. ROMA said he did not intend to bring sadness to the meeting – but instead was bringing cheer. They were going to fight this and it was not going to beat them. (Applause) BOB said GOD Bless you EDITH, you are certainly going to be in his prayers and felt sure everyone here tonight felt the same. EDITH said ‘Thank you, she would need all the prayers she could get.” BOB said if his wife washed his TEA Party shirt anymore it was going to be pink. KEN LANG said ‘he hopes she continues to wash his shirt, otherwise….
BOB said last week we discussed the TEA Party ballot that we are going to be promoting at the election in November. Since then he has received a couple of emails and two candidates had been requested for re-discussion…Debra Goldman, who is running for State Auditor and Walter B. Jones. BOB recognized VERNE THOMPSON. VERNE said he realized that everyone wanted to get the ballots made up and printed so they could get them out to the public, and he knew he was delaying the process, but after the meeting last week, he got to thinking about where he had heard the name Debra Goldman. After he got back home, he remembered…..she, along with John Tedesco and three other Republicans (who were voted into the majority of the Wake County School Board in 2009), and I’m sure you remember all the headlines about their efforts to change the student assignment policy to get away with so much busing. The local head of the NAACP got into it and threatened to sue. But they had drafted a student reassignment plan (in fact John Tedesco did most of the work on that) and they were prepared to implement it; but it was of necessity disrupted because they were not able to change the way the students were assigned. Debra Goldman was the one who changed her mind and instead of voting as a Republican, she voted with the Democrats. So John Tedesco’s reassignment plan bit the dust. They were eventually able to re-craft it in such a way that it got enough votes for implementation. There was a great deal of bitterness there for a while between Debra Goldman and the other four Republicans…especially with John Tedesco, because he thought she had stabbed him in the back. Their term as a majority is at an end. In the last election the Democrats won control of the county school board. And in keeping with Ronald Reagan’s words – speak no evil of another Republican….it is now all sweetness and like. VERNE said he raised this in conjunction with her qualifications. He could tell us from working with state government, the State Auditors’ office is probably the least politicized department in state government. They are all professional accountants; they all go out and do audits, and there really isn’t much that the elected head of the state office can do to politicize that process. Having worked with them for many years that all the auditors, particularly the audit managers in the state auditors office are much more comfortable with the idea of having a professional accountant and/or CPA as State Auditor. Present incumbent, although a Democrat, is a CPA. Not only is Debra Goldman not a CPA, she is not an accountant. Getting back as to why he raised this issue, he is all for us developing ballots of people that we feel comfortable with representing to the public as being people who share the values of the TEA Party but I think by recommending such people as Debra Goldman and possibly some of the others on the ballot we run the risk of being seen as a group for the sake of expediency will recommend Republicans just because they are Republicans and not necessarily because they are conservative. This is why he asked BOB and KEN if they would allow us to reconsider not only Debra Goldman…by the way he is not recommending that we put her opponent on our ballot. Rather what he is doing is suggesting that we confine our ballot to people that we feel comfortable in saying to the voting public “These are conservatives”….not just that they are Republican. He is not sure that our ballot should even include a recommendation for every single office. But that may be an issue to wait for another time. What he understands from BOB right now is to just revisit the issue of Debra Goldman and possibly Walter Jones and leave it at that because we are pressed for time in getting our ballot out to the public. That was his thoughts and he thanked us for listening to them. (Applause)
BOB said the latest issue of the Carolina Journal, on page 5, is a whole article on the State Auditor’s race…Beth Woods and Debra Goldman. He described the write up on Beth Woods …her experience and background. Mostly Debra had questioned Woods aggressiveness, saying waste, fraud, abuse, corruption and cronyism are prevalent in state government. She has a whole laundry list of items to investigate if elected…but declined to name them saying in the heat of election does not want to give Wood’s those last minute scandals she might announce just before the election. And that is about all there is about Goldman except her background on the school board. In reading that article and considering VERNE’s comments it came across to him (BOB) that she never really offered anything other than she wanted to investigate waste, fraud, abuse, scandal, and all that but she is not naming anything. If there is any fraud going on, she should have already turned that over to the SBI for investigation. Bottom line in his (BOB) book she poses a weak argument for why she should be elected. Beth Woods on the other hand poses a very good case of why she should be reelected. She says she does not investigate red dollars or blue dollars, she investigates all the dollars. Anyway, he wanted to give all here a chance to hear VERNE’s argument and to think about again. NANCY said she agreed that she didn’t think we had to endorse someone for every single office. Maybe we should leave some, that we are not positive on, blank and let the people make their own decision. BOB said he also got an email from KEN who found out our congressman Walter Jones is among three Republican House members who have not endorsed Mitt Romney. (One of the other two is Ron Paul and it appears that Jones and Paul are pretty much joined at the hip….whatever Paul votes for so does Jones. It would appear that Jones is more Libertarian but runs under the Republican banner to get elected.)
BOB called on KEN to expound on his thoughts on this subject. KEN said he was not here last week (it was Cape Carteret’s meeting night) so he was privy to our conversations at that meeting; but he understands that there was a good case made for Walter because a lot of times he does vote on the conservative side of issues. He likes a lot of the things Walter votes for but at least for him, he can’t support somebody who is not going to support our candidate for president, especially this year. He is just going to have to vote his conscience on this and he just can not support Walter Jones this time. Whether or not we revisit the ballot or not, on that particular issue, is not as important to him as making sure that people know where he stands. To him this election is ’if you don’t support the candidate who is running against Obama, you may as well be supporting Obama.’ That’s just the way he looks at it, right or wrong. GLADYS asked who the Democrat that is running against Jones. BOB looked it up and said Eric Anderson is running against Jones. (No one in the meeting had even heard of him.) BOB said to ERIC BROYLES that if he remembered right ERIC had spoken in Jones’ behalf last week. Would he like to tell those here tonight why he believed we should support Jones. ERIC said he did and he had based it on his voting record. He had not been aware of Jones’ lack of support for Romney. He still thinks we should look at his individual voting record. He is basically voting conservative. He is all for a balanced budget. He has taken many positions that ERIC thought were more conservative than…BOB said ’being in the banking business, how do you feel about Jones supporting the Dodd/Frank bill?’ Was that good or bad? ERIC said he was not warm and fuzzy about any more regulations. There are some regulations that do need to come down. Unfortunately in some of these better regulations there are some bad things that get put in there. In the Dodd/Frank there are some that are “over” reaching. ERIC continued to discuss problems occurring with Dodd/Frank and considered it a shifting of the blame; until BOB said he was getting in too deep with the problems with Dodd/Frank; that what we needed to do was get back to Jones and why we should support him. ERIC said he thought Jones had supported the bill because of some of the issues that were going on especially with derivatives because he believes in derivatives. His staff had said that to him in conversations with them several times. He, ERIC, also believes they should be regulated. BOB called on VERNE who said he hoped we would all forgive him for raising something that may complicate things a little bit more but he understands that everybody here knows that this is a very important election. He realizes that we have to elect a Republican ticket, not just those that we think are conservative. So maybe what we ought to do is, from what was commented before, that our ballot doesn’t recommend anybody; it just says we think these people share our agenda. Maybe what we can do is put asterisks next to the people that we do believe are conservative and then include some sort of comment on the ballot that explains that, saying we believe the folks with asterisks beside their name share the agenda of the TEA Party, but we also believe that all the other candidates will result in better government for the United States. Maybe that is sort of a way out of what I see of us being seen by the public as advocating for people who are not really conservative. BOB said his comment on that is a lot of people show up to vote don’t even know who they are voting for. They don’t listen to the news; they don’t take time to read the paper, and the more verbiage we give them to read on the ballot, the less likely they are to read it. So, it goes back to the old Keep it Simple, the kiss principle. He would recommend staying away from footnotes and asterisks and diversions. BOB recognized PEGGY. She said that phone call HOWARD had just received was from John Tedesco. HOWARD had called him earlier in the afternoon to talk with him about Debra Goldman, but he had been unable to come to the phone at that time. When HOWARD returned he told us that Tedesco thought he was right and she disagreed with him and that was about 18 months ago. He said that since then she has realized she was wrong and has come around. They had been in a meeting today and she had stood by Tada, the school superintendent. Apparently they had been in a hot meeting today. HOWARD said he had called Tedesco about 4:00 this afternoon and he apologized for getting back so late, but he said they had been in this meeting but he said Debra had stood right with him today, rock solid, and said she was voting for Tada along with the other Republicans. However, they are now outnumbered by the Democrats and lost the vote.
A member (did not catch his voice) said we did not endorse Walter Jones in the primary. We backed Palombo. We were against him them so why should we be for him now? BOB said the difference is the lack of support the Republican candidate at this late date in the game. KEN said I think his point is we didn’t think he was the right candidate in the primary, why do we think he is now. (Discussion from all at once). SUSAN RYNAS said she still liked that Jones had gone out and tried to at least do something about impeaching Obama and talking about how Obama is trampling on the Constitution, and a lot of other things he has done that she is very much in agreement with. She would like to see us support Walter Jones. (Discussion on talking about impeachment and actually trying to do something about it.) SUSAN said from information she had received he had been trying to do something. He had a bill he had drafted but had not been able to get enough support for it. ERIC said the test here is does these candidates meet our three principles. Does he believe in limited Constitutional government? Does he believe in fiscal responsibility and does he believe in free markets and promote American businesses? That is the test that Jones and any of the other candidates have to stand up to. SUSAN said he voted against the stimulus. (Further discussion on the pros and cons of Jones) KEN said he was not proposing that we take Jones off the list. He was just reporting what he had learned about him and how he felt about him. He is all for leaving the list just as we voted last week. He would like to say something about Debra Goldman. When we were selecting candidates for our council of state, we invited all of them to come and talk to us. Debra did not come and talk directly to the TEA Party but she did come to the Leon Mann Senior Center for the Reagan dinner and talked to everybody there and he said at that time those of us who went to that dinner felt like that she was a conservative. Based on what she told us….as it turned out kind of the top three at the end of the primary were Debra Goldman, Fern Shubert, and he couldn’t remember the other guy’s name. Fern Shubert was the one that was a CPA but we did not hear from Fern. She did not come and talk to us until almost right before (actually she came to the 3rd District meeting) but didn’t come here and talk to us in Carteret County. By the time she came to the 3rd District Meeting, we had already picked our candidate to support and it was too late because we had already made our decision. He got a call afterwards from Fern and there is no doubt in his mind if we had had an opportunity to talk to Fern, we would have supported her rather than Debra. But the problem is she lost the primary so it came down to two Republican candidates and we had backed Debra in the primary so in the second primary we were going to again back Debra. Her opponent dropped out of the race, so that left only Debra anyway. (From what we can determine he was in with that group that supported Arthur Williams, Randy Ramsey and the others, so we would not have wanted him anyway.) If he had continued to run he was not a CPA either, so regardless at that point we did not have a candidate that was a CPA. KEN said he was comfortable with continuing support of Debra Goldman. He again reiterated that he was comfortable with leaving our ballot the way it was. He just wanted to discuss Walter Jones a little bit more after hearing and seeing that he was not supporting Mitt for President. HOWARD said Jones voted about 52% according to the last information he had seen. LUKE KUKULINSKI said Jones takes care of the military. Several agreed. VERNE said he was familiar with Fern and she definitely was conservation, so if she ever decides to run again, we need to give her an opportunity to be considered by the TEA Party. KEN said he thought she had regrets of not coming to talk with us because she told him she did. He was very impressed with her and wished he had known more about her prior to the primary. ERIC said early on some of us were for Ron Paul, some for Gingrich, and others for Perry, etc, and we were not so warm and fuzzy about Mitt Romney and he is still not so warm and fuzzy for him even today, (and he continued by explaining some of the things Mitt was proposing that ERIC was definitely opposed to), but when it all boiled down, our only choice was Mitt rather than Obama. We are hanging our hat on the lesser of two choices. So maybe Jones is in the same boat and when time comes to vote, chances are he will vote for Mitt. Several said they approved Paul Ryan as his VP and would vote for Romney because of Ryan.
BOB said he had opened the discussion about the vote we had taken last week and had asked for opinions on Goldman and Jones. Everyone has had their say for and against. He asked for a show of hands for those who wanted to leave the ballot as voted on last week and then asked for a show of hands of those who wanted to change the ballot. Majority wins…the ballot remains as voted on last week.
Someone questioned about wasn’t the TEA Party a state wide organization and worked together. BOB said there are many different groups (something like well over a 100) throughout the state. We have a Web-a-nar on Monday nights where the different groups talk about what is going on, what each is doing, and where we hope to go. We discuss legislative issues, our three core principles, a group that is tracking Agenda 21, a question and answer period with input from the different national directors. That is the only coordination we have. Each group is organized differently…some are organized as 501-3c, c4’s, etc. We are not incorporated, strickly a grass roots organization. We do not want any paperwork trail. There is a North Carolina State Coordinator for the TEA Party Patriots. Right now the TEA Party Patriots are pushing making telephone calls and doing door to door stuff. We have not shown any real interest in doing that. We prefer to use our ballot and work the polls on election day. We feel we have a bigger impact with that and our advertising in the newspaper. Several said they were getting a lot of requests for our ballot already and want to know when they will be available since early voting will begin soon.
BOB asked NANCY what our current bank account is: $1700.00. Our plans are to place our ballot in the paper once a week during the early voting and the three consecutive issues prior to the election. These ads do cost but we all think they are worth it.
LUKE wanted to know how the newly in the process of organizing group down in Jacksonville are doing. BOB said we had our third meeting last night and we had Tommy Thomas who is running for County Commissioner. He is a Democrat but gave a very good presentation and appears to be a true conservative….conservative Democrat….most unusual. The group is considering supporting Mr. Thomas who received the most votes during the primary. The Republican candidate garnered the least number of votes. Since the Republicans hold the majority on the board, maybe it would be a good idea to put a Democrat on the board to try to keep them honest. BOB said he was impressed with Mr. Thomas’ background. PEGGY said they are also having our problem down there….their Golden Corral is closing this Sunday and they are having to look for another place to meet. Mr. Thomas offered several choices to check out. The group had 13 members in attendance plus TOM AUSTIN, leader for now, BOB, HOWARD and PEGGY. Not too bad a turnout for a group just getting organized.
RUTH PARKER recommended that we publish our ballot as soon as possible in the paper. NANCY agreed. She said she and her husband feel that if Obama gets re-elected then our country is gone. There is no chance of our every coming back. We really need to work as hard as we can to ensure this man does not go back in office.
Discussion on voter registration, fraud, corruption, and abuse. FRED DECKER has forms for you to fill out if you know of someone who is deceased or has moved away from that area and is still on the voter rolls. He also has a list of names of the deceased for about 12 precincts to be used at the polls on election day for challenging possible voter fraud.
Question was raised about when we could put up signs. You can do so now. Three feet from the pavement along state roads.
Discussion on upcoming events. Fund raisers for Pat McCrory for Governor, Saturday, September 29 at the Holiday Trav-L-Park, 9102 Coast Guard Road, Emerald Isle, NC 6:pm-7:30pm. Guest speaker Gov. Nathan Deal, Governor of Georgia….and….Fund raiser for Norman Sanderson for NC Senate District 2, Monday, October 8, 2012, 6:00pm – 7:30pm at the Leon Mann Senior Center, 3820 Galantis Drive, Morehead City, NC (Heavy hors d’oeuvres served). Would like to know approximately how many plan to attend. RSVP Jennifer Alcock, 252-876-7189 or email jenniferalcock@embarqmail.com.
Pat McElraft would appreciate any donations you may be able to make to help in her campaign. She has emphasized small donations of $5.00, $10.00 or whatever you can afford
KEN said he had invited Chris Dillon, to come and talk with us next week. Chris is running for one of the appellate judge positions. He had talked to him at the Craven, Pamilco Christian Coalition Banquet last week. He is very interested in coming and talking to the TEA Party. KEN is just waiting for confirmation. He is one of the judges that we discussed and decided to support.
Discussion on items of interest by KEN and various attendees. Ie. Obama still blaming the video for the violence in Libya and the murder of four American citizens including our ambassador….does not use the word terrorists….why Obama did not meet with Israel’s prime minister (if he met with one he would have to meet with many others)….Madonna says to vote for the black Muslim in the white house!!!….Amazing what all is going on but the news media just continues to ignore anything opposed or against Obama. HOWARD reported that he had copies of JERE GEURIN’ letter to the editor about Agenda 21. He told about talking to a retired police chief Sunday, who had no idea what Agenda 21 was….had never heard of it. ERIC discussed the 47% who did not pay income taxes and what it was comprised of. RO THOMPSON talked about befriending people on Facebook and how much it has meant to her.
GLADYS SUESSLE reminded every one about Glenn Beck’s program Wednesday and Thursday night this week called ‘the project’. (Dish TV or The Blaze TV) It’s about how the Muslim Brotherhood is infiltrating everything and is in just about the last stage of their world domination.
ERIC recommended that everyone watch “The Last Ounce of Courage”. Understand it is playing in Jacksonville now.
Meeting adjourned at 7:30 pm
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.
