CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
MEETING MINUTES OF
30 OCTOBER 2012

Meeting was held at Rolands Barbecue in Beaufort, NC
Meeting was called to order at 7:02 by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by HOWARD GARNER
Invocation by NORMAN SANDERSON, Candidate for NC Senate
Attendance – 48

BOB announced “This is it !!!  We are down to the wire !!!  Next Tuesday, if you are not aware of it, is  ‘The Day’,  Election Day.  We are going to be busy at all the polls passing out TEA Party Ballot Recommendations of Conservative Candidates.

He asked that those that would help to please grab some constitutions and place the TEA Party  data sticker on them.  They are to be passed out at the Veterans Day Parade…..not at the polls.

BOB read the list of volunteer poll workers he had developed:  (He said if you would like to work a poll and he does not call your name, please see him after the meeting.)
He asked if anyone here tonight lived east of Otway and Bettie….Atlantic,  Sea Level,
Cedar Island????  We have a whole area down there with no volunteer.
Atlantic Beach Precinct – David Cox
Broad Creek – Bob Cavanaugh and Roy Musser
Beaufort I – Eula Parkin, Madeline Schaw, (Eula asked wasn’t that at the school now,
rather than the Board of Elections where it has been being held.  Yes), Bill
Griffith, Roma Wade.  (Gladys Suessle wanted to know if there if anyone at
South River, Merrimon, at the fire house?  BOB said that had all been combined
into one big precinct. – Bettie is a precinct now, Stacy, Davis and Williston, is a
Precinct, Smyrna, Marshallberg is a precinct, and Atlantic, Sea Level and Cedar
Island are now combined into a precinct.  Gladys Suessle said she was under the
Impression that if they waited until election day, they would be voting and the
South River/Merrimon fire house.  Fred Decker said they do have their own
Precinct now.)
Beaufort II – Gladys and Ed Suessle.
Bogue – Verne Thompson  working in the afternoon and Libby Brown morning shift.
Verne is a poll worker and when he gets off, he will take over then.
Cedar Point/Cape Carteret – Jim Nalitz
Davis – Weston Willis
Emerald Isle – Charles Moore,  (from the other TEA Party group)
Harkers Island – Wayne Willis,
Indian Beach – Roseanne Thompson
Mill Creek/Merrimon – No one listed.
Morehead I – Rick and Mary Ann Goff
Morehead II – Eric Broyles
Morehead III – Luke Kikulinski, Garrison Swigart, and Susan Rynas
Morehead IV – Fred Decker
Newport I –  Steve Best and Sherrill Goodwin
Newport II – Howard and Peggy Garner and Ron and Belva Manning
North River – (East Carteret High School) No one
Otway/Bettie – Clayton Gillikin
Pelletier – Asked Libby Brown if when she got through at 2:30 when Verne Thompson
got there if she would then go to Pelletier.   Howard said Ken Lang may already
have someone from Cape Carteret group scheduled to work.  Ro said she felt
sure that they do.
Pine Knoll Shores – No one
Stella  – Ken and Diane Lang
Wildwood – Jere Guerin, Ruth Parker, and Scott Carpenter
Wiregrass/Harlow – Nancy Bock

If anyone finds or hears of anyone who is willing to help on election day, please contact Bob Cavanaugh so he can adjust his list and help the new volunteer.

BOB verified that everyone here tonight, that are working the polls, had sufficient ballots.  Peggy had brought 1600 to the meeting tonight.  They also had another 600 or 700 still in the truck, which Howard went out and got and passed out.   (If anyone who is working a poll on election day, and did not get any ballots, please call Peggy at 223-5240 or Howard’s cell 725-1578 and we will try to get some to you in time to use. )  BOB passed out the TEA Party signs to be used at our polling sites.  Bob reminded us all that the polls will be open from 6:30 to 7:30 on election day……long day!!!  We will not have a meeting next week, since many of us will still be at the polls at 7:00.    Bob said since we will probably be too tired to do much celebrating, we’ll celebrate at our next meeting.

Bob asked those who had been working early voting, what kind of feed back were they getting.
Most said they were optimistic.  Steve said Ken Humphrey had come by where he was working and apologized for his actions last week.  A lot of shocked ‘what’s’, but all were glad to hear he had been gracious enough to admit his wrong.

Bob asked Nancy Bock how we were doing in the Treasury.  She said we have about $3,000.00, but still have outstanding bills to pay.  Bob said he understood the advertising was going to be about $2,700.00.  Nancy said she didn’t think it was going to be quite that much.   Bob said we have been working really hard since 2009, meeting almost every week, hoping for success on November 6, so we really need everyone to turn out and work the polls just as long and as hard as you can.  I think you will find the public very receptive, a lot of folks will bring their ballot they have cut from the newspaper.   Bob asked how many had worked the phone banks at the GOP headquarters yet.  If you haven’t been down there and you have an hour to spare, just show up at the GOP Headquarters, across from Kurtis Chevrolet.  They have a telephone for you to use, a list of names to call, and a script to read.  Bob said most of the calls he had made were to numbers that had been disconnected.   Luke said they need more phones.  While he was there they had 16 waiting to volunteer and only 4 phones.  Bob said that was beyond our control, but it creates good rapport with all who are working for the same cause.   Maybe you can use your own little cell phone to help out with.

Bob was having a little chore trying to keep the enthusiasm from completely taking over the meeting.  Everyone was hyped up and excited and can’t wait for Tuesday to get here.

Bob called on Norman Sanderson to give us a little “pep” talk (like we really need one).

Norman said, “From a candidate’s perspective it is so tremendously encouraging to walk into a room filled with this many folks, who I know have at least a 100 different things that they could be doing on Tuesday nights and yet you are here in this room; here to get your marching orders; we are within sight of the end of an error (as the bumper sticker says).  This is just to me, and I have been working / campaigning since February when we had filing and as many of you know we went through a very contentious primary (Howard and several others said ‘but we won big time’ – we kicked some butts).  Norman said, Most people don’t understand and they still can’t understand how that happened.  I’ve tried to tell them but they won’t listen to me.  I don’t have to tell you how important the next five days are.  Or six days, whatever it is until Tuesday.  We’ve got this week and Saturday morning.  Everyone of you knows how important it is.  Everyone of you knows how important it is to get rid of the mistake we made in Washington, DC.  And we’re going to get some folks up there that is ready, willing and able to move forward; because we have been stuck for four years.  Not only in Washington, but in Raleigh also.  Raleigh is not quite as bad because we were able to overcome some of the vetoes our governor did but there were some that really needed to be done that we were not able to overcome like the voter ID and some of the regulatory reforms that we wanted to do.  I was with Mayor McCrory on Tuesday at lunch and he and I were having a conversation and he said we are not going to Raleigh and sit on our hind quarters and take it easy.  We are going to hit the first 100 days.   We are going to get things done and changed because that is what the people have sent us up there for.  I am excited about working finally with someone who sees things pretty much the way that we do.  And I think you are going to see some things happen in North Carolina and in our country.  I don’t believe the liberal press.  I don’t believe it is nearly as close as people say it is.   The new media,  they want you to believe it is close so the liberal side will still come out and vote.  I’m not going to call it a landslide, but I think it is going to be probably 20 to 25 electoral votes and about 18 or 20 percent of the vote will go to Romney.  This is just my own personal beliefs that we are going to maintain the majority in the House here in this state and we are going to win the governor’s race.  We are going to win the Lt Gov. race.  And as many of you know, one of the most important race in this state is our race for Supreme Court Justice.  If we don’t re-elect him, then everything we do in Raleigh is going to be met with Supreme Court opposition.  When you know that the laws that you are writing have to go before the Supreme Court to be okayed, you begin to subconsciously write those laws weaker than you would like so that you can get them through.  And that is not what we want to do.  Eastern and western North Carolina are doing their part.  It is the central part of the state that I am concerned about.  Where we have one representative for two counties, and one senator for three counties, Wake County alone has 12 representatives and 3 senators.  Down the central part of the state is where the power is finding itself.  So we have got to counteract that and it takes every vote in this room and everybody that we know to come out to try and counteract that.  But I believe that if we work together with our friends on the other end of the state that we can come out victorious and we can move North Carolina out of this dead spot that we have been in for the last ten to 20 years and we can more our nation on the same way.  Like my dad said growing up on the farm, ‘we are in the short rows now.’  That’s those two or three little rows that you put right on the side of the field that aren’t as long as the rest of them.  So that is where we are so, just a few more days of fighting the wind…I know it is tough out there.  Thank the Lord the sun came out today and we are going to do this thing, because we have already proven one time that we can take $40,000.00 and beat $400,00.00 and we can take all the power that the caucuses in Raleigh that were against what we were trying to do and we beat them too.   And we sent a resounding message to Raleigh and we are going to send one to Washington, too.  It is truly a pleasure to be a part of this group.  (Applause)

Bob said ’I would say when you get up there and you all get in your groups, our advice is to be bold, be aggressive, and be quick.  The midterm elections always favors the party that is out of power.  I don’t know how well that will play in North Carolina but certainly at the federal level, I expect the Democrats will come back with a vengeance.  So for two years the Republicans are going to have a bulls eye on their back if we own all the chambers of the government.’

Howard said, ‘there is one thing we want to remember, if we get our people in Raleigh, someone advised us that once we get them up there then we didn’t need to cover their backs…cause they are going to have a whole lot of lobbyists pushing for things we don’t believe in….so we are going to have to go to Raleigh to support what we believe in.

Clayton said we need people like Norman to come back and let us know those that we put into office that are not doing what we want them to do, we need to know so we can take them back out.

Bob told Norman to be sure and let the TEA Party know when we need to turn up the heat and start making phone calls and sending emails and snail mails.  Norman said that will be needed because some of the things we are looking at, new taxes, revising our tax codes, cutting back on entitlements, some of the things we are going to have to do are not going to be popular.  Howard said we definitely need to change some of the insurance laws.  We need to take some of that power from the Insurance Commissioner.  Those high dollar lobbyists will be in there fighting them all the way.

Bob said he guessed we had all picked up some of the stuff on the internet about Debra Goldman’s two year old story where she was supposedly having an affair with another member on the Wake County School Board.  There was a robbery of her jewelry and stuff.  The News and Observer is bringing that up….to him they are just trying to stir the stew.  That thing was investigated two years ago, so don’t cast your vote based on allegations.  Howard said they also endorsed Obama (the News & Observer) …. Need any more be said !!   Bob said some folks had asked that we take Goldman off our ballot and he told them no.  We have already passed out several thousand ballots with her name on it, run it in the newspaper several times already, and we are not changing now.  We are not going to change our decision based on an allegation.  We will require some proof.   We all voted on this ticket, so we need to stay united and back it up 100%.

Bob said he was about to run out of things to say.  He has been saying them for two or three years now.  It has been a real pleasure to work with this group.  We started out with just a handful of us around one little table at Cox’s.  Look at us now.  Peggy reported that we have the largest attendance tonight of any night since she has been keeping record….48.  We don’t have quite this many down in Cape Carteret but we have a good 35 to 40 people meeting there  and we only meet every other week there.  So the TEA Party is growing .  He said he is still having a hard time getting the one in Jacksonville moving, but he hasn’t given up hope.  We started out small here too.  They have a good core group of 9 or 10 people that show up each meeting, so he is encouraged.  He has told them that we went through the same growing pains.  With the population 4 times the size of Carteret County, that group can’t not grow.

Clayton said just because the election will be over Tuesday, we can’t stop our fight.  Bob said we still have a lot of issues we need to stay involved with.  We also need to support those candidates that we elect and ensure they continue to support our ideas.

Roma said he saw something happen today that you all may not believe.  They were setting there talking at the polls.  A guy walks over, talks really nice, and wanted to know about voting.  Roma explained the steps to take.  The man said he had a felony.  But he had done his time.   Would that matter.  (Drug related)  Roma said as long as you have done your time and have no other felony, then you can vote.  They talked a while and he left and went back on the other side.   A lady came out and he followed her down the street.  They go to the same vehicle and she slides open the side door of the van.  She opens an animal cage and the guy crawls into that, shuts the door, locks it, and pushes the sliding door shut.  There were four of us sitting there watching this event.  All of us asking ‘Did you see that?’  Roma said if it wasn’t for the TEA Party, there would be no Republican Party.  We are a strong, viable force to be reckoned with.  They need us.  He said he was particularly impressed with McFadyen’s mother.  She was there every day.   When he had to leave his post, even though she was not supposed to, she would take his ballots and while he was gone pass them out with the explanation that she was just filling in for a TEA Party member who had to leave for a while.  He is hoping to get her to come talk to us after the election.

Bob said next Tuesday is Election Day, but next Saturday is the Veteran’s Day Parade.  Peggy reported that she has not received anything acknowledging our entry.  She got a phone number from one of the attendees and promised to get some answers tomorrow, and would keep trying until she did.   Bob wanted to know if we wanted to have a meeting here on Wednesday after the election.  Answer “NO”.  We need to be out picking up signs.  We do not want to leave them up.  That is not the right thing to do.  They then become trash.

Peggy said she had a question.  If as the media and pollsters say, that Obama is ahead in North Carolina, why is Pat McCrory 60 something to 30 something against Dalton.  I just don’t believe that people who vote for McCrory are going to cross over and vote for Obama.  Most agreed.

Susan Rynas said she had a lady who told her she voted for Obama but voted for all Republicans after that.  Isn’t that crazy.  Bob said just because more Democrats than Republicans have voted, does not mean they all have voted Democrat.  He still feels that Romney is going to win by a landslide.

Bob said as he said earlier, we have been working on this since 2009 and as American citizens we have done all we can do.  We are doing what every body should be doing. …getting involved.  He would still like to see more young folks here.   The young group that used to meet with us, once they found they could not make us go with Ron Paul, abandoned us.

Howard said “DON’T FORGET TO BUY YOUR PARADE CANDY, THURSDAY AT WALMART, WHEN IT GOES ON SALE”.
Meeting adjourned at 7:02.
Minutes submitted by Secretary PEGGY GARNER