Twenty-six year-old Ethan Wingfield is running for the GOP nod for the 11th District congressional seat as a conservative businessman.

Since he has not held office before, one can only judge the depth of Wingfield’s conservatism on his political activism as a young man in college. Unfortunately for Western North Carolina conservatives, Wingfield’s record is one any RINO (Republican In Name Only) or Democrat could appreciate.

Christine Gates Guest Columnist

During his tenure at Brown University, Wingfield was involved in the 2006 re-election campaign for liberal Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee, serving as Brown’s co-founder of “Students for Chafee.”

Chafee was best known to conservatives for his support of abortion, federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, amnesty for illegal aliens, opposition to Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito’s confirmation, as well as opposition to the 2nd Amendment. 

Chafee even opposed a bipartisan effort to ban partial birth abortion, which is the procedure where abortion doctors dilate the female and then puncture the skull of the unborn child.

Such a record would normally preclude any conservative, especially one with WNC values, from supporting such a candidate. Instead, Wingfield supported Chafee with gusto when the latter was challenged by conservative Steve Laffey in 2006.

When questioned on his support for Chafee, Wingfield was quoted that he supported “‘Rhode Island Republican values,’ as represented by Chafee, over the moral conservatism backed by Laffey and many Southern Republicans.” One might ask when did Wingfield shed these Rhode Island Republican values for WNC conservatism? (Or did he?) 

Chafee went on to defeat the more conservative Laffey in the primary, but lost the general election that year. Chafee, soon after, abandoned the GOP and was elected as a liberal independent to the Governor’s Mansion in Rhode Island. This latest stint in elected office saw Chafee refuse to dedicate a Christmas tree, instead opting for the more benign label of holiday tree.

In addition to his prominent and vocal support of Chafee, Wingfield’s leadership skills as chairman of the Rhode Island College Republicans left much to be desired. 

His tenure was notable for a letter he sent out, urging College Republicans to make sure that they moderated their words and activities when exercising free speech. His tenure was also marked by the atrophying of the organization before his resignation upon graduating.

Wingfield’s succesor as chairman, Ryan Bilodeau, stated that “(Ethan Wingfield ’07) was a chairman missing-in-action. Ethan was an intelligent businessman … but he spread himself too thin. I think we met twice throughout his term.”

That is far from a ringing endorsement to make one feel confident in placing our trust in him as congressman.

Whether it is his lack of a record of principled conservatism, his support of a liberal Northeastern RINO, his moderate approach to issues, and his lack of political skills as chairman, Wingfield is clearly not the man to represent WNC in Congress.

I invite everyone to research Chafee, Laffey and Wingfield’s tenure at Brown University to see if they are comforted or horrified at the prospect of Wingfield standing for you in Washington.

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Christine Gates is the president of the Caldwell TEA Party and president of the Caldwell Republican Club (a federal PAC) in Lenoir.