Editor’s Note: The cleansing rays of bright sunshine are said to kill germs and bacteria. Maybe even the COVID-19 coronavirus that has everyone so scared. Therefore, we are going to shed lots of the cleansing rays of sunshine on the Cleveland Count4y Republican Party as well as the Cleveland County TEA Party to expose and hopefully cure their “cancer” that likes to grow in dark places and behind closed doors.
Folks, for your better understanding, go back and re-read the previous article titled: CC Republican Leaders Pull Dirty Tricks During 2020 Primary Elections!! Akin to the Democrat Party playing “Plantation Politics!!!”,
Now, Read on!!
Former School Board candidate Matthew Canipe immediately responded to that previous article with the following comment:
Matthew Canipe
March 31, 2020 at 11:20 am
Thank you Robert for the telling the truth. The CCGOP I had to find out the hard way only work for the ones who they claim to be elite and blackball the hardworking citizens trying to do good. I welcome anyone to contact me and I can tell you how the local Republican Party working with the tea party worked against me.
As everybody that cares about the problems at the Cleveland County School Board knows, Matthew Canipe was one of the very first Republicans to sign up to run for the School Board in the 2020 Elections. Same with Junie Barrett. Matthew Canipe (and Junie too) realized that the CCS School Board was the source of the vast array of problems at CCS. Wasteful spending and overt fraud, hiring of incompetent family and friends instead of the best person for the job, retaliation against whistle-blowers and much more. Matthew went as far as to put his children in school at Pinnacle Classical Academy while working to pull Cleveland County Schools out of the mud. And the muck. Matthew attended many school board meetings and spoke during citizens recognition many times. Matthew, Junie and others recognized the problems and quickly and correctly determined where the correction of those problems had to start. Others, like the five Republicans we recommended for this office. did too.
But Elections and politics are games of numbers. The first number being the number of votes a candidate gets. The person(s) with the most votes wins the election.
There are other important numbers too. In the School Board’s case, it is the majority of board members. In the case of the Cleveland County School Board, that number is five. Five of Nine members. Five good members and changes for the better can be made immediately at CCS. Five bad members and everything stays the same. Crooked and lying behavior wins the day. But there are more numbers to consider.
If less than five good candidates get elected, other numbers come to bear.
The School Board, as legally constituted, is presently composed of eight bad members and one good member-Danny Blanton. Danny Blanton is one of four school board members not up for re-election in 2020. After the 2020 Elections there must be five good school board members to institute needed changes at CCS.
So, let’s do some math: Five school board members represent a majority.
• Counting the three bad school board members that re not up for re=election, they only need to win two of the five seats up for election in 2020. And, you can be sure Shearra Miller, Richard hooker and Roger Harris will be well funded by the Kings Mountain crowd who want to keep receiving an unfair big share of CCS spending. Especially on their new Football Field costing taxpayers over $600,000 and counting!!!
• Counting Danny Blanton, the 2020 Elections must elect four good candidates out of the ten candidates running. Five Republicans and five Democrats.
As you can see, reaching the magic number of five good candidates for a majority on the school board is twice as hard for the good candidates as it is for the bad candidates. Very hard, but not totally impossible.
Now, let’s discuss the treachery caused by the dirty tricks caused by the Republican Party and the TEA Party in the 2020 Republican Primary Elections.
The dirty tricks themselves were mostly described in the previous article. If you haven’t re-read that article, be sure to do that.
But, let’s also disclose Republican dirty Tricks in the past several years that show that the self-described “elites” (the Good-Ole Boys as I called them) in the Republican Party would rather have a Democrat win an Election than a Republican that refused to kiss their asses.
Note that until Sheriff Alan Norman recently changed his registration from a Democrat to a Republican, Cleveland County has never had a Republican President in way over 100 years. For most of that time a Republican Candidate just would not file for Sheriff. And for those few that did, the Republican Party refused to support them. But, just a few years ago that changed, for the worse. A long shot Republican Candidate filed for election for sheriff without permission of the Good-Ole-Boys. So, one of the Good-Ole-Boys (a woman) concocted a scheme to recruit, by paying the $600+ filing fee and promises of further support, another respected Republican with serious law enforcement experience to file for Sheriff. The other Republican filed and threw the election into a Primary Election. The Scheme worked and the original candidate was defeated in the Republican Primary. In the run-up to the General Election, the recruited candidate received no further financial support and refused to campaign without it. He lost by a wide margin. And the Democrat Candidate for Sheriff continued the tradition.
Another example is the Office of District Attorney. Democrat held for almost as long as the Office of Sheriff. Also remember that the DA Office included Lincoln County. A Republican dominated county but smaller than Cleveland County. A Republican candidate, without kissing the asses of the Republican Good-Ole-Boys, filed to run for DA. The Lincoln County Republican Party turned out for the Republican challenger. The Cleveland County Republicans quietly supported the Democrat. The Election was held and the Republican candidate won in Lincoln county but the Cleveland County Democrat won with just enough votes to win the overall election.
I will leave out the names of these examples as a test to see if you can remember these examples.
Now, it is 2020 and the Republicans are still up to their dirty tricks.
In the filing period for the School Board, the first five recommended Republican candidates including Matthew Canipe and Junie Barrett, signed up early in the filing period. Of course, the incumbent school board members, Democrats Shearra Miller, Richard Hooker and Roger Harris, are watching too. Crooked Democrats can scheme just as good (or worse) than the Republicans. Then, later in the filing period four more Republicans were recruited to run for the School Board.
This resulted in Nine Republicans filing for the five seats on the school board up for election. A Runoff was required. This is when the Dirty Tricks noted in the previous article actually kick in.
Of course, the Republican Good-Ole-Boys, the RINOs and The TEA Party and the Democrats can count just as well as I did and noted above. All the have to do is knock out at least two of most active Republican candidates for change and the Cleveland County Schools stay full of corruption, waste, nepotism and cronyism with little care about educating children. And just who were the two candidates most ardent for change? Matthew Canipe and Junie Barrett.
So, Matthew and Junie were not recommended by the TEA Party. The Republican Good-Ole-Boys did not invite Matthew and Junie to their functions where they might have picked up campaign contributions, support and votes on election day. The political forums were limited and talk around town about the Republican Primary was hush-hushed, resulting in low voter turnout. So, the results were predictable. Matthew and Junie, both associated with Burns High School were pushed out of the top five.
But, don’t believe me. Call Matthew Canipe and Junie Barrett and hear what they have to say.
Also, stay tuned for the rest of the story. The run-up to the November 3, 2020 General Elections. Expect a knock-down dragged-out election cycle. The Republicans who control the TEA Party and what happens there. The Democrats who just need two seats to maintain the status quo corruption, waste and inefficiency. And the Republican Party that needs four seats filled by change candidates, but who don’t really give a damn whether or not kids actually get educated in Cleveland County School as long as they are the big fish in the small pond.
So, let’s see how the dust settles on Election day, November 3, w2020. My prediction is Matthew Canipe and Junie Barret will be sorely missed when the new school board is sworn in in December, 2020!!! Unless something drastic happens!!!