Win, Forest, Win
I would’ve bet dollars to doughnuts that Democrat Linda Coleman was willing to take the long slog down recount row in her efforts to steal the state’s lieutenant governor’s race from Republican Dan Forest. Turns out winning once will be enough for Forest. Trailing by nearly 7,000 votes and facing the prospect of sticking taxpayers with a recount bill that could have topped $2 million, Coleman this week conceded the race.
Brant Clifton over at The Daily Haymaker notes the positive implications for the tea party stemming from a Forest win, along with some sobering words of warning for the victor:
Here’s hoping that Forest grows eyes in the back of his head upon assuming office. The knives will be out. It’s worth noting the overwhelming amount of indifference shown toward Forest by the NCGOP apparatus and the Pat McCrory campaign before AND after election day. The chattering classes have all started the eye-rolling and the whispering of epithets like “right-wing extremist” and “religious kook.”
Tea Partiers have FINALLY got what they were clamoring for — a principled non-politician grounded firmly in the real world. Here’s hoping that Forest sticks to his guns and doesn’t “grow in office.” Granted, the lieutenant governor has a limited job description. But Forest’s ascendancy to the office gives him a bully pulpit to cheerlead for conservative reforms in state government.
For the first time since Jesse Helms’s retirement, North Carolina conservatives may very well have a leader and fellow traveler in the halls of power.
Time, as always, will tell. Keep your fingers crossed, and the pressure on, for Forest to stick to campaign promises to push from the fiscally conservative right.
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