23 April, 2022 by Eric Dunkelberger

It’s that time of year. You can tell by the non-stop political ads on television and in the mailbox. Most of the tv ads get fast forwarded through and the mail mostly goes straight to the garbage can. In my state of North Carolina, our Primary Day is 17 May, with early-voting starting on 28 April. Let the fun begin!

My sample ballot was available several weeks ago, so I began the process of vetting my candidates. As I was checking everyone out, I was amazed at how many of the candidates didn’t even bother to have a campaign website. We have 14 people running for US Senate on the Republican side. Only three of them were known by me. Five, at the time I was vetting candidates, had no campaign website. I don’t know about Facebook or Twitter, as I left both of them January of 2021. I had a friend who tried to run a US Senate campaign exclusively through Facebook in 2016 and ended up with about 3% of the primary vote. I don’t see this method of running a campaign to be very viable. I wonder why they even put up the money and expend the effort to get the required signatures to file for the race.

Now, our State GOP is not what anyone would call Conservative in their views. They make it as difficult as possible for Conservative candidates to win. Could that explain the candidates with no information at all? (Asking for a friend!) We have two or three candidates rated as very conservative and one moderate who probably has the state’s favor. The moderate would basically be another Mitt Romney (or another Tillis or Burr, our current Senators). But he sure does crow about how Conservative he is. It always amazes me that Republicans run as Conservatives for the Primary, but go way left for the General election.

Choosing Judges is a whole different problem. Unless you are in the profession of law, how do you know who the choose for the various vacancies we vote to fill. I had to ask a couple of lawyers I trust. Obviously, I want an originalist, someone who respects the US Constitution, as well as the NC Constitution. The last thing I want is a judge who legislates from the bench!

Anyway, I finally got through my sample ballot and, after a change or two, I’m ready to vote. I’ll be spending the remainder of my time prior to Primary Day trying to get out the vote! If anyone needs help deciding for whom they should vote, I’ll be there to offer my opinions. I would like to offer my sincere thanks to several of the resources I used. First, thanks to the Heritage Foundation Sentinel Action Scorecard for grading those who have been or are in office. It was invaluable! Second, thanks to Grass Roots North Carolina for their evaluations and/or endorsements. Their evaluation helped me with one of the choices for judgeship. Thirdly, but far from being last, iVoter Guide helped, put out by American Family Association Action. It only came out for my state on 19 April, but their in-depth analysis backstopped my choices!

The Primary Election is your opportunity to choose which candidate goes on to the General Election. Shouldn’t you do your part in choosing that candidate? GO OUT AND VOTE!

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