Charles Carter

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following commentary, which has been cut slightly, was written by Charles Carter, chairman of the Buncombe County Democratic Party:
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This past Sunday the conservative financiers of the Civitas Institute and the John Locke Foundation turned its attention on Asheville and Western North Carolina to coach Republican US House candidate Jeff Miller. Here are Miller’s top three lessons from the power brokers at Civitas.

Lesson #1: Don’t release a poll that shows you getting your butt kicked.

“The [Civitas poll] results are more favorable to Miller than a poll his own campaign released last month that showed him trailing 46 percent to 34 percent,” notes the Asheville Citizen-Times on August 3, 2010. Apparently Civitas didn’t like Miller’s own poll numbers. So they came up with new ones.

Lesson #2: Uhh, Civitas, what about the missing numbers in your poll?

Let’s take a closer look at the Civitas poll. 45 to 44%, Shuler over Miller. Let’s see… that adds up to 89%. So, where are the other 11%? What about those missing numbers, Civitas? Also, from their very own poll, it looks like up to 22% won’t be voting this year. And we really can’t tell how these numbers are cooked up because we don’t have the raw data. Hey, Asheville Citizen-Times, did you check out the raw data before reporting these numbers?

Lesson #3: Use the press to raise money.

“’If he’s going to be outspent 20 to 1, then he doesn’t have much of a chance,’ Hayes said of Miller,” wrote the Asheville Citizen-Times on August 3, 2010. Nice work, Civitas. As is the national GOP trend, you pushed fear onto the front page of our local newspaper. I hope those contributions have been rolling in. But guess what? We’re not going to win because of a “20 to 1” monetary lead. We’re going to win because we organize with the truth. The truth is eight years of the last administration’s policies drove this great country of ours into a big ditch. You can’t have the keys back. You can’t drive.

From President Obama on Aug 4, 2010:

“But you have to remind them for the next three months, this election is a choice. You’ve got these folks who drove America’s economy into a ditch, and for the last 20 months, we put on our boots and we got into the mud and we’ve been shoving that car out of the ditch inch by inch, and they’ve been standing on the side the whole time watching, telling us, no, you’re not pushing hard enough, you’re not doing it the right way — not lifting a finger to help. And now we’ve finally got that car up on the blacktop there, about to drive, and they say they want the keys back. Well, you can’t have the keys, because you don’t know how to drive. You don’t know how to drive. You’re not going to get the keys back. You’re not going to get them back.

Somebody pointed out to me that when you’re in a car and you want to go forward, you put it in “D.” You want to go back in the ditch, you put it on “R.” So I just want everybody to think about that.”

Sorry, Republicans. You don’t know how to drive.

At a recent League of Women Voters candidates’ forum, Republican Jeff Miller said he would repeal healthcare reform if elected.

A vote for Republican Jeff Miller is a vote in the wrong direction. We’ve come too far to turn back now.