Editor’s Note: Over 100 years ago, the Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr. from Shelby, referring to Bible verse Jeremiah 13:23 noted that a Leopard cannot change its spots as a corrupt person used to doing corrupt things is not likely to be able to start doing good things. In this vein of thinking, the Cleveland County Republican Party’s core and mostly secret leadership, like leopards, just may have changed their spots. But, maybe not? You can decide on that yourself.
For as long as I can remember, the Cleveland County Republican Party’s main celebration and fundraiser was the Lincoln Day Dinner. Named for President Abraham Lincoln, the first ever President from the fledgling Republican Party of the late 1850s. Lincoln was called the “Great Emancipator” for freeing all slaves in the United States by virtue of winning the bloody Civil War. Later legalized by the Thirteenth Amendment. The Civil War killed 650,000 American citizens. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina once joked, “we don’t do Lincoln Day Dinners” in South Carolina.”
But we do in Cleveland County. Or, at least we used to.
Now, the Cleveland County Republican Party, Lead by former Shelby Councilman Dennis Bailey, have advertised for the Reagan-Douglas Day Dinner to be held October 10, 2019 at the American Legion in Kings Mountain. The featured speaker is the Rev. C. L. Bryant. A black Baptist Preacher from Louisiana.
When you consider:
• the “Douglas” of the Reagan-Douglas Day Dinner is Fredrick Douglas, a former runaway self-educated slave who became well known as a prominent abolitionist leading up to the Civil War,
• a black Baptist minister is advertised and scheduled to deliver the featured speaker at the Reagan-Douglas Day Dinner,
• the fact that Cleveland County was on the Justice Department’s Civil-Rights “Watch-List” for close to 50 years due to previous examples of racial suppression during voting registration and elections,
• previous statements from prominent white Cleveland County Republicans, during a previous election for Mayor of Shelby when Andrew Hopper ran for mayor, saying “Do we want a black face as the representative face of Shelby?”
• and now prominent white Cleveland County Republicans are actively supporting the candidacy of a black woman Republican, Mrs. Tanzy Wallace, for the Mayor of Shelby,
Don’t you just know that Leopards can indeed change their spots in Cleveland County!!!???
Or, are we in the throes, no struggle and agony, of more Plantation Politics played out in a slightly different way than what the Plantation Politics Master, Commissioner Chairman Eddie “Massa Eddie” Holbrook, did in his failed bid for re-election last year??? Leaving two failed black candidates in his wake. And, I do mean wake. Like a funeral “wake.”
To even begin thinking about that question, you have to remember this: All politics is local. And, Cleveland County Politics has always been about power and money. “Money” being the key word here. Especially WHO is going to get the money? For those with the money also have the power. That’s how it has always been and that is how it will always be when the voters are not fully informed about what is going on behind the closed doors of the “back rooms.” “Massa Eddie” being the exception because his spending of $68,000 on his failed campaign could not compensate for the lies he told everybody getting out and his many shenanigans exposed by sources and reported truthfully in my articles.
So, could the prominent Republicans pushing Tanzy Wallace for Mayor be, in reality, just using Tanzy Wallace for some yet sinister and unknown scheme to enrich themselves at Tanzy’s political expense? A corrupt scheme that I believe that I have already figured out and will report on soon. Or will, or has, Tanzy already figured out that these “Leopards,” who want Tanzy and voters to “think” they have changed their “spots,” been discovered by Tanzy and she is secretly using them in return. What a Hoot that would be? Indeed, what a Hoot that would be!!!
Stay tuned for the real schemes and reasons for all the Leopards in Cleveland County, Republican and Democrat, changing their spots. It is simple once all the pieces of the puzzle are all put together. Hint: It’s about money, who is going to get it and more.