CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
MEETING MINUTES OF
4 SEPTEMBER 2012
Meeting was held at Jing Giannia’s Trattoria in Morehead City, NC
Meeting was called to order at 6:05pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by TOM AUSTIN
Invocation by NANCY BOCK
Attendance – 30
BOB asked what everyone thought of the convention (Republican) last week. Great speeches and speakers. He said he finally broke down and went to see the 2016 movie last week. He is glad he did. It really explained the source of Obama’s anger and the mindset that he had coming out of his early years and the baggage he is carrying. He understands a lot better of where his hatred of the United States is coming from and why he wants to bankrupt us. He saw the movie in Havelock. TOM said it had been carried over in Jacksonville. BOB said he went to the 10:00pm showing last night, got out around midnight, and even that late there were six other people there that late. Usually when he goes to a 10:00pm movie, he is the only one there.
HOWARD said we need to keep our meeting short tonight so we can all get home and see Michelle speak tonight. (laughter) BOB said it is appearing to him that this convention (Democratic) is one angry group. Discussion on which speaker at last week’s Republican convention did the best job. Everyone there had an opinion from Clint Eastwood to Rubio, to Ann Romney, to Paul Ryan to Romney with their reasons why they felt the way they did. All felt it was very upbeat and they felt that this week’s Democrat convention is going to be more angry – pro-abortion, pro gay rights, pro women’s rights, etc. Nothing about what is really important with matters like the economy and excess spending. Discussion on the Democrats removing “God” and “Jerusalem being the capital of Israel” from their platform. Big mistake. TOM said they may of removed “God’s name” from their platform but they had mentioned Obama’s name over 100 times.
BOB said we have the rest of September and October (2 months) or around 60 days to the election. As you know, we man as many polls as we can at the election to pass out our ballots. He passed around a sheet of polling precincts and asked those who planned to work the polls during the election to please sign up. STEVE BEST asked if they were planning to have the same polls open as the last early voting (three places he thought). BOB said he was not sure but he felt that for early voting it would probably be just those three places (Fort Benjamin Park in Newport, Church of the Nazarene in Morehead City and Cape Carteret). On election day (which is what this sheet of volunteers is for) all the polls will be open. LYN BAKER said she had heard that they were mailing out absentee ballots to all voters in the next few days. Discussion followed.
BOB called on NANCY to give us a Treasurer’s report. She said we have $1,480.00… that we had received some serious donations last week. (Anonymously) We are very appreciative of the donation and thank whoever was so kind.
BOB acknowledged our visiting dignitaries – Dave McFadyen and Clint Rowe, who are running for District Judges. (applause) BOB said Kirby Smith (who was running against McFadyen but announced he was dropping out of the race) had stopped by before the meeting to thank the TEA Party for having given him an opportunity to speak to us and does not plan to be a stranger but is taking a lot of down time right now to spend with the family. He had told BOB that he was being recruited by the Craven County Republican Party to change parties and he thinks he may go that route. BOB said he told him when he made his decision and his announcement, to come on down and talk to us. BOB thinks the switch might be a wise choice because he thinks the pendulum has swung over to the Republican side and the Democrats are on their way out. Both DAVE and CLINT said they liked to come to our meetings and keep in touch because they know where their strength lies and they are going to need our support for the election.
BOB wanted to know how many thought that Obama is going to win the election. Several hands went up. They all are hoping he won’t win but don’t trust him or his supporters. They felt those people will use any means to win. Someone said they had been seeing where some are thinking that there will be a fake assassination on Obama, creating riots in the streets and Obama will declare martial law and stop the elections. Everyone is praying for our country. Those who are thinking it will go to Romney, are still concerned. They think he may win the popular vote but not sure of the electoral college. TOM HARMON wanted to know if everyone had seen that commercial where Obama is giving his 2008 speeches and finishes it in 2012…same speech. TOM said he can’t figure out why he needs a teleprompter then. He guesses it is to keep his lies straight. PEGGY said today while she was listening to TV, Shepard Smith said that a new poll was out that showed Romney with 47% of the vote and Obama 43%. With a 3% margin of error that made it well within the margin of error!!!!!???. Apparently he thinks the people in the south are so stupid they don’t know what he is talking about. Duh!! 4% is NOT within a 3% margin of error. Just some more of those GREAT Media statistics we are supposed to believe, I guess. Discussion on the left wing media and not being able to believe anything they say. Examples: Scott Walker election – they had it a dead heat and he won by something like 15%, LUKE KUKULINSKI said look at the last Carteret County Democrat primary – 30% voted ‘no preference’ over Obama . That should tell you something right there. BOB said we live in a very conservative cocoon in this part of North Carolina. He imagines if you hung around Raleigh or Charlotte then possibly you would think the whole country was liberal.
BOB asked our two guests from Winston Salem (PAT and DAVID KLEINMAIER) how were things out there. PAT said the city was very liberal, very democratic. Outside area is very Republican. They did pass the marriage amendment in their county which they did not expect. While working the polls that day, the amount of people that showed up, the Independents picked up Republican ballots. Almost every precinct ran out of Republican ballots and they had to bring in more. That was an encouraging sight. BOB asked if they had an active TEA Party there. PAT said, ‘Yes, we are active. We meet once a month. We started about a year ago. We are relatively new but we are getting there.’ BOB said ‘we meet weekly here. We have outgrown ourselves, so we have split into two groups. What does the TEA Party do on election day. Do you all man the polls….PAT said, ‘we’ve only gone through the primary, because as I said, we just started last summer, so this will be out first big election. Our active people work the polls, as judges, poll observers, etc. We have everybody doing that.’ BOB asked about the size of their group. PAT said they had about 60 normally, to show up for things, sometimes less, sometimes more. BOB recommended that if possible that they go to a weekly meeting format or even a twice a month format. BOB said our second group in the western part of our county meets twice a month, the first and third Tuesday down in Cape Carteret and they have at least this many people at their meetings (approximately 30). We’d like to get a third group going in the eastern part of the county, but we just haven’t been able to get anyone to step up to the plate. PAT said they had several active groups around them in the various counties (Surry, Davidson, Greensboro) so they hit all the different groups arranging it so that there is always something going on. BOB asked if they had incorporated up there, like 501 C3 or C4. PAT said they were under the radar right now. BOB said what we do as a TEA Party group down here in Carteret County is we publish a ballot of candidates that we recommend. In order to get around the campaign finance laws of not being able to use ’vote for’, or ’support’, we word our recommendation ballot so that the wording is the candidates support us. “The following candidates support the TEA Party’s three principles, Fiscal Responsibility, Limited Government and Free Markets. We pass these out at the polls, as well as publish them in the local paper several times prior to the election. We man as many polls as possible and we find that many of the voters have already cut the ballot out of the paper, or if not, come up and ask for a copy. By using this in the races we had here, the candidates on our list won by huge margins. Dare County, after the primary, was questioning how we had managed to have such enthusiasm down here and how we got the big voter turnout. He told them that number one you had to go to weekly meetings. With fewer monthly meetings, if someone misses a meeting or two, they feel left out of the loop and don’t know what is going on, so they fall by the wayside. With meetings every week, if you miss a meeting, you can get caught up at the next and stay involved. PAT asked how long we had been a group. BOB said early ‘09. We organized and filled 5 buses to go to Washington that year. Next Monday, we are starting a group in Onslow County. TOM AUSTIN has moved down to Onslow County where he works and he has been getting a lot of inquiries from people in Jacksonville about the TEA Party. They had had a group ‘Americans for Prosperity’ but it had sort of fallen by the wayside, so TOM is working hard to get things going there. We have a lot going on down here on the coast.
LUKE wanted to know why HOWARD thought Obama was going to win. HOWARD said he did not want Obama to win, but he was afraid of fraud. There is going to be a lot of vote stealing. A lot of dead people voting. As to what someone had previously said about declaring martial law, he was afraid of something like that happening and that this could be the last election he or this country will ever see or if we will even have an election this year. ED SUESSLE said look at what he did to all the military people within weeks of being in office…he considered all of us to be terrorists because we have specialized training in the military. He has kept on pushing and pushing and nobody has pushed back. HOWARD said Congress will not stand up to him. Many in the audience said “We will”. BOB said he has been hearing that word filtering out of the Homeland Security is that there will be a fake assassination just prior to the election which they hope will stir up rioting in the big city streets and all that, allowing Obama to impose martial law and suspend elections. He said he did not take anything like that as gospel, but when you read something like that, it harkens back in your mind that things like that have come to fruition and you get your guns and buddies and head for the woods. LUKE said this has been on Twitter for the last few months. HOWARD said ‘another thing he was concerned about was, yesterday, the last poll shows Romney has jumped ahead and so did Pat McCorey. Peak time in an election in critical and he is afraid that if you peak too soon, it will start to go down instead of continuing up. He doesn’t think that peaks can be controlled but it is very important. As to LUKE wanting to know why he thinks Obama will win….he has never wanted to be so wrong as he feels like he is today, but his trust in our political system has died.’ SUSAN RYNAS said she had agreed with HOWARD about Obama winning because she had heard so many Ron Paul supporters say they were not going to vote if they couldn’t vote for Paul. That will mean a vote for Obama, if they don’t vote. BOB said he agreed that there will be some like that, but you also have some on the Democrat side that are so disgruntled about Obama that they are not going to vote either. HOWARD said he thought a lot of the Ron Paul supporters, may be brought back to the Republican party due to Romney’s VP choice. He thinks Paul Ryan will bring back a lot of the young voters, that he is getting through to the youth. He thought that seemed pretty obvious yesterday at the Paul Ryan Rally in Greenville. BOB said he heard there were a lot of young kids in attendance. HOWARD said it was a very enthusiastic crowd and there was a pure mob there. LUKE said if Obama has in mind using martial law, he knows he is going to lose anyway. HOWARD said, but he will do anything to win. BOB said he thought the panic had set in up there, because he read a story a few weeks ago, that they were over stuffing the Justice Department with handicapped people, physical and mental, because once they are in there you can’t fire them. If you try to fire them they bring out worker’s disabilities lawsuits. He thinks they are just somehow trying to sabotage the efficiency of….FRED DECKER spoke up and said, talking about starting a group down east, he thought he might have somebody down east that might help out down there. This guy came into the Republican headquarters today raising cain. He is 30 years old, and real conservative. BOB asked if FRED got his name and phone number. FRED said No, but he would find out. (Joking and laughter about good job Fred). He (FRED) and ERIC BROYLES are going to check out the voting register to flush out those who are dead but still on the voting rolls. Like if he has this guy on his list that is deceased and was 90 years old, and a young, 20 year old comes in to vote using that person’s name, then we can challenge them. Anyway, he plans to talk to that guy from down east and see if we can get him involved in the TEA Party. BOB asked if FRED knew which precinct that guy was in and FRED said Straits (Otway/Straits). BOB said wasn’t that the precinct that the Gillikins were in. (Discussion followed about not having seen them in several months and if anyone knew if there was anything wrong. TOM said he had sent them an email but it had been returned. Someone else said they have been up in Kinston with a relative.)
BOB said another item to bring up is the Newspaper for Education program. He asked NANCY to brief everybody on this program. It is a pamphlet that the Newspaper is going to provide to high school students within the county. Actually they are calling it a workbook and I think it is going to all the high school students sometime this month.
They are taking ads for it. What it does is get the kids involved with the election process by asking them examples: ’if you registered to vote would you register to vote as Democrat, Republican, Libertarian and why. Do you know where your polling place is? It asks different historical questions throughout… the election news, making choices, facts about presidential candidates, understanding the roles, choosing a running mate, identifying candidates for congress, asking good questions. The advertising manager at News Times called her and wanted to know if we wanted to put an ad in the workbook. The Democrat Party has an ad. The Republican Party is going to have an ad on the back. Several other spots have already been reserved. She thought it would be a good place for us to explain what the TEA Party stands for. The parents will be reading it as well as the children. The ads run from a quarter page to full page. A full page is $645.00 and that is in color. NANCY feels that a quarter page would be enough for our message. NANCY thought it would be nice if we could also give each student that receives this workbook a copy of the pocket constitution that we pass out. She doesn’t know how many high school students there are though. BOB said he thought this would be part of Constitution Week anyway, right? The advertising manager didn’t say that but she thought it would be a good time. She thinks Constitution Week is the third week of September, but not sure. VERNE wanted to know if this was going to be an insert in the Carteret County News Times. NANCY said she didn’t know about it being an insert but would be going into the classrooms. A half page is $300.00/black and white only – no color. A quarter page in color is $190.00 and a quarter page in black and white is $162.00. BOB discussed what we had on our calling cards….more discussion on what we would like to have in the ad. Too much information was suggested. Would not be encouraging the reader to stop and read the ad. VERNE said the reason he wanted to know about the insertion in the News Times was – it would reach more voters than just being passed out to the students, many of whom do not vote. Also if we could craft the ad in someway it would inform people that we have a list of candidates to pass out at the polling places. It would help to let people know that they do not have to research the candidates, that the TEA Party had already done so and they could rely on ours. A lot of suggestions were passed around. BOB said he agreed with VERNE that it was an opportunity to teach high school kids about what is the TEA Party. He thinks that if we state that we support the three TEA Party Principles ’Fiscal Responsibility, Limited Government, and Free Markets’ and we do that by electing public officials who support those principals also. That is accomplished by voter education. HOWARD reiterated that we don’t want to put too much in the ad. You want to hit them hard with just the basics. Make the ad attractive and enticing to the eye to attract attention. BOB said on the back of our card gives the three core principles and times of our meetings. He wanted to know if we wanted something like that. More discussion followed. BOB wanted to get a half page in black and white. Others liked a quarter page in color. BOB said we have to let them know by the 7th which is Friday. BOB called for a vote on a half page ad. Then he asked if there was anyone who did not want to do it at all. He told NANCY to tell them we would volunteer for a half page and we will get something to them for it. NANCY said the paper would lay it out, we just had to get them the information. They do the ads that we put in the paper for our ballots, with the flags and the ‘do not tread on me’ emblems. They will do something like that for us. BOB said he would take the information and workbook down to Cape Carteret and get their input after we close our meeting tonight.
HOWARD said he wanted to report that yesterday at the Ryan Rally, it was announced that Walter Jones was not in attendance. He and Beverly Perdue were in Charlotte to the Democratic convention. Several said they wouldn’t doubt that. BOB said where did we hear that? HOWARD said it was announced from the stage. (Discussion and comments)
BOB asked who went to the Ryan Rally yesterday. He asked SCOTT CARPENTER to give us a summary. SCOTT said he had gotten there at 11:30 and he couldn’t get in. It was maxed out, so he followed some college kids to something like a theater/auditorium on the back side of the main building where Ryan was speaking. He saw a live feed on a screen and after Ryan spoke at the main event he came to the area where he was and spoke again to them, maybe about 10 minutes or so. Couple of things that stood out when he spoke to us in that auditorium – he emphasized hard work, wants people to work hard because that is what America is all about…pull yourself up by your own boot straps…and also ‘it is good to be successful’. It is not something to apologize about. SCOTT said to him it was well worth it. Some people next to him got there shortly after 11:00 and they had not been able to get in either. Someone asked if there were many young kids there. SCOTT said yes, there were a lot around him. He thought there was a good crowd of various ages there. HOWARD said we got there around quarter to 10:00 and the line was already about 100 feet long and we wound up in about the 4th row standing in front of the stage. Most of those around us were helpful and friendly and gave us old folks a break and tried to make sure we could see. We were very appreciative towards the attitude shown toward us. However, there was a line of college students on the front row (complete row) who had been let in early before the others that refused to budge. Several college students behind them, who were trying to be helpful, were embarrassed by their actions. One young student pushed her way ahead of the lady standing next to PEGGY and started taking pictures with her hands in the air, blocking the view of those behind her. The lady told her to go ahead and take her pictures and then to please move so that others could take pictures also. The girl said she had no intentions in moving. The lady said ‘yes, maam, you are’ and took her by the shoulders and nicely moved her aside. The student was thoroughly —– (upset) but did not cause any more disturbance other that to warn everyone around not to get in that lady’s way, she meant business. SCOTT said he understood that the area where HOWARD and PEGGY were only held about 1700 people and from the robo call he had gotten he estimated about 5,000 to 7,000 people were in attendance, so there was a large overflow of people. He understood there were a couple of other places where the overflow was held also. HOWARD said he couldn’t guess how many were in attendance, but everyone who entered the area we were in were ID’d, so someone knew how many were there. BOB said, you mean you had to show ID? HOWARD said yes, we had to show our drivers license and also take everything out of your pockets and they took his pocket knife. (He had forgotten he had it with him since he carried it all the time) They told him he could pick it up after the event or contact the local police. The knife was gone when we came out and we didn’t see any local police to talk to. There was such a mob when we got out, he didn’t bother to try to find someone to ask. We had been told not to bring bags, even camera bags, pocket books, etc. so we had left those things in the trunk of the car, but HOWARD forgot about the knife. (Bet he’ll think about it next time.) HOWARD reported that Causey and Ed Goodwin also spoke at the Rally and Ed told him afterward that it was raining so hard coming from Edenton he could hardly see how to drive. BOB asked how Pat McCrery’s speech went and HOWARD and PEGGY said it was very good. HOWARD talked about the state Republican Chairman, (who also spoke) and how down to earth he is. He is very rich but when you meet him, you think he is just an old farmer. He opened the meeting and also gave the invocation.
TOM AUSTIN reminded BOB about our visitors tonight from Winston Salem – (PAT and DAVID KLEINMAIER). TOM welcomed them saying he was a neighbor originally from Greensboro. He told them he had gotten some emails from down there about a mass rally in Pilot Mountain. PAT said the rally was going to be on the 22nd of September. Surrey County TEA Party was putting it together. It would be from 11:30 in the morning until 4:00. They were going to have speakers from 1 until 4. It will be at a campground (didn’t catch the name of the campground). Come and spend the weekend. You can have a picnic if you want, however Chic Fil A is catering. A lady named Jan Morgan, (she thinks is from Texas and has a radio show down there), and Judge Newby will be there, and a lot of the candidates will also be there to speak. It is going to be a fun day. If you all want to come to Pilot Mountain, we would love to have you. BOB asked her if she knew if any of her group was going to Edenton on the 10th, that Romney’s group was going to meet with the TEA Parties. She said she didn’t know, that she hadn’t heard anything about that.
HOWARD said that while we were discussing get togethers, that Tedesco was going to be at Parker’s Barbecue (the one on Memorial Drive) in Greenville on September 17th. BOB said also on the 17th we have the Insurance Commissioner’s debate at the Sanitary Restaurant on the waterfront in Morehead City. Lunch Special $10.00. 11:30 – 2:00pm. Reservations required by emailing ncdoidebate@gmail.com. HOWARD also announced that at 6:30 that same day, the Craven/Pamlico Christian Coalition will meet at the Defense Center in Havelock. Newby, also, said he would be there. Don’t know who else. This is a very conservative group. He thinks that Norman Sanderson was instrumental in getting this started. We have been to a couple of these and they always have outstanding speakers and excellent food. He doesn’t know how many tickets are still available right now.
TOM AUSTIN talked about his getting the TEA Party organized and up and going in Onslow County. Their first meeting will be at the Golden Corral this side of Jacksonville, (on Hwy 24 near the Piney Green Road) on September 10th. They will meet and greet at 6:00 and meeting at 7:00pm. He plans for them to meet once a week like we do here and also incorporate a lot of the things we do here into their meetings. For example one of the groups he had spoken to said they operated under the Roberts Rules of Order. TOM told them we had enough trouble just holding our rowdy group together. He asked them how many they had in their organization and when they said about 10, he told them we had about 30 that attended our meetings here in Morehead and about that same number meeting in Cape Carteret, and a mailing list of about 900 to 1,000, so we must be doing something right. He hopes they can do as well in Jacksonville as we have done here in Carteret. LYN BAKER said she thought they should hold a rally. BOB said you need to have money first before you can afford to put on a rally. TOM said he is more interested right now in getting people involved. He has talked to some people from Sneads Ferry that are interested in attending the meetings, so he is encouraged. They are planning to meet on Mondays, so TOM will be coming here occasionally on Tuesday to be with us and keep up with what we have going on.
BOB again recognized Clint Rowe and David McFadyen who were with us tonight. They said they enjoyed coming to our meetings and intended to make sure we did not forget them. They appreciated everything we had done for them and were hoping they could continue to depend on our support. It is very important to them.
Meeting adjourned at 7:14pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.