A week ago, from June 5–8, I was in Greensboro, NC as one of 18 delegates from Henderson County participating in the 2025 NC State Republican Party Convention. Readers may recall that I was also a delegate at the Convention last year.
As with last year’s experience, this was also illuminating, refreshing, and encouraging. Illuminating to see to some extent “how the sausage is made.” That expression may not be clear to all our readers, so “for those of you in Carthagena, Ohio…” Oh, wait a minute…Carthagena is the farm country where I spent much of my boyhood and everyone in that area knows exactly how sausage is made. LOL !
But seriously, the saying refers to the possibility that if you really witnessed how the sausage (or hot dogs) are made, you would be so repelled that you would never eat it again. I almost never eat hot dogs any more, even of the all-beef variety, but I do eat turkey or chicken or venison sausage, even knowing how it is made.
Recently, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson used that very expression to describe how Congress works, but neither he nor I are suggesting that citizens should be repelled by and refrain from getting involved in politics.
We, as Christian God-fearing, and freedom-loving Americans must realize that we must be involved in civic and political activities for the simple reason that if Christians disdain politics and avoid any and all political activity, then who does that leave to enter the halls of your city/town hall, your school board, county commission, etc. and control your life?
Obviously, it leaves the non-Christians—who are more often than not outright antichrists. I know I am repeating myself from many other blogs, but this cannot be repeated too often.
Although I have stepped down from serving on my local Planning and Zoning Board, and from the Board of Directors of our local 35-personnel fire and rescue department, I have not forsaken civic and/or political activity.
The 2026 mid-term elections are just as important as were the 2024 elections. For if we let our guard down and slide back into apathy, then you can bet your last dollar that the enemies of Christ and liberty will once again swoop into power locally and nationally.
Thus, I took the time and some considerable expense to the three-hour trip to Greensboro to participate in the Convention. It was refreshing to see there people with whom I had become friends at last year’s Convention. And it was encouraging for many reasons.
I was encouraged because although 2025 is an “off year,” our county had a few more delegates than last year. It was also mildly surprising to see that there were about a hundred more delegates statewide than last year—about 1700 this time.
It was also encouraging to see that in the two of the three break-out sessions that I attended on Friday morning, the room was packed—literally, standing room only (SRO). Here is a quick photo I shot from my seat near the front left. I was on time, but felt lucky to find that seat.
There were five sessions on Friday morning and each one offered three choices. All sounded very interesting to me. No recording was permitted for obvious reasons.
The first session I attended was entitled “GOP Data Center Training,” taught by Mr. Dakota Cook, NCGOP Political Director. It was amazing to see the capabilities now available for efficient and effective use of the latest technology.
Another session I attended was SRO and it was entitled “Precinct Organization.” Very helpful techniques.
A third (also SRO) was the Legal Compliance and Election Integrity Panel, hosted by four youngish lawyers from the NC branch of the Republican National Lawyers Association. (Photo below.)
That also was very encouraging as they reviewed how Michael Whatley and Lara Trump put together some 700+ lawyers to be available near the 2024 election, spread across all 50 states to deal with election integrity issues as they arose.
These four lawyers also spoke how we can do even better, and again and everywhere during the Convention, they reiterated how we must continue pressing forward, working now to be ready at the precinct level to solidify and increase our gains at both the state level and in the national House and Senate level.
We also had good news at that session how it had just been revealed that another NC House Democrat had just flipped to join the NC House Republicans. With another one or two, we will once again have a super-majority—sufficient to override Leftist-NC Dem Governor Josh Stein’s vetoes!
Most Conventioneers had arrived on Thursday afternoon and we got our officially-vetted Delegate badges to participate in the weekend’s official proceedings.
That evening, current NCGOP Chairman Jason Simmons (who was previously Executive Director under previous Chairman Michael Whatley), hosted an on-stage conversation with special guest, Jason Miller, who served as a senior advisor for DJT’s 2024 presidential campaign. Many readers have probably seen him appear numerous times on both the fake news networks as well as on Newsmax and Fox News.
It was an often-humorous exchange between the two Jasons, but also some fascinating insights into the DJT White House. Miller noted that when a person gets the privilege to be the Oval Office with any number of other people with POTUS, that it does not matter what your status is, or where you might rank in the pecking order, DJT will look at you and ask for your opinion on the matter under discussion. And it is not merely perfunctory; he listens intently to what everyone has to say and considers it all before he makes a decision.
Friday afternoon was the first Business Session. Here are some excerpts from a brief summary from our newly-elected (at our March County Convention) HC GOP Chairman Greg Beam in his Report to our Henderson County GOP members.
QUOTE: The Convention addressed two primary items of business: the proposed NCGOP Plan of Organization (Plan) and the NCGOP Chair and Vice Chair elections.
Concerning the Plan, perhaps perceiving that the proposed Plan was unpopular and would likely not be approved, someone had developed about 10 amendments intended to improve the proposed Plan.
It is debatable whether the amendments would have improved the Plan, but interestingly, the Convention Rules prohibited amendments to the Plan. An attempt to suspend the rules to consider the amendments failed, so the next step was to vote the proposed Plan up or down.
At this point, the Plan of Organization Committee Chair moved to withdraw the proposed Plan and take it back to committee for revisions. This motion passed overwhelmingly. Most of the people I have talked to believe the proposed Plan is fatally flawed and the best next step would be to start over.
The race for NCGOP Chair turned out to be much closer than most would have expected given that incumbent Jason Simmons had President Trump’s and Ted Budd’s [US Senator from NC] endorsement. He was challenged by Brooke McGowan, a former Congressional candidate. Jason might have seemed comfortably in the lead until Brooke made her powerful speech, which swayed many voters to consider her. The election was close, with Jason winning with 52% of the weighted vote. … I believe the results will give the NCGOP a strong, capable leadership team. END QUOTE
There is so much more I would like to report on in greater detail, but time is lacking for that.
One more thing. Our Congressman, Chuck Edwards, and his wife, Theresa, were there and spent some time greeting delegates from the 15 counties which are part of his 11th Congressional District. That is almost all of Western NC.
Over the past few years, I have been present in numerous meetings where Chuck is a speaker and I have often asked questions, as well as had quite a few opportunities to be one-on-one with him for a few minutes here and there. I am pretty sure he knows me now, certainly by face, if not immediately by name.
I have never “pestered” him for a selfie. However, as Theresa was in the aisle just before the Saturday afternoon session and the Sergeant-at-arms was calling the Convention to order, Chuck was greeting people in my row.
Randy—whom I had just met—asked Chuck for a selfie, so Chuck said “sure,” and asked Theresa to take the picture. He saw me seated a few seats further down the row, so he beckoned me to join the photo. I gave Theresa my number and she sent me the photo below.
~END~
