OCEAN ISLE BEACH, N.C. \u2014 Surrounded by fans at a beach town bar, Mark Robinson addressed his absent critics. \u201cMark Robinson is not running to be governor to be a bully over anybody,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Left unmentioned: The deluge of offensive comments that made such a declaration necessary. There was the time he called school shooting survivors \u201cmedia prosti-tots\u201d for advocating for gun-control policies. The meme mocking a Harvey Weinstein accuser, and the other meme mocking actresses for wearing \u201cwhore dresses to protest sexual harassment.\u201d The prediction that rising acceptance of homosexuality would lead to pedophilia and \u201cthe END of civilization as we know it\u201d; the talk of arresting transgender people for their bathroom choice; the use of antisemitic tropes; the Facebook posts calling Hillary Clinton a \u201cheifer\u201d and Michelle Obama a man.<\/p>\n
Even in a Republican Party that, under former president Donald Trump\u2019s leadership, has often rewarded crude insults, baseless claims and incendiary language, Robinson stands out among candidates this year for the volume of his bigoted attacks and vicious diatribes. The lieutenant governor of North Carolina and the first Black person to hold the office, Robinson is heavily favored to clinch the GOP nomination for governor in next Tuesday\u2019s primary.<\/p>\n
He is expected to advance to a November showdown against Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein, who has a much more measured tone \u2014 setting up a clash that echoes the choice between Trump and President Biden. To many Republicans, Robinson, 55, is a conservative Christian firebrand with Trump-like appeal \u2014 a charismatic, brazen outsider who burst onto the political scene just a few years ago with a viral video. To others, he is a glaring liability in a battleground race where centrist voters are influential, and critics are alarmed at what he could do in the state\u2019s top job.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is history\u2019s latest example of someone trying to rise to power through hate,\u201d said Dale Folwell, the Republican state treasurer, who is waging a long-shot campaign against Robinson.<\/p>\n
With the general election nearing, Robinson is trying to move past his most inflammatory comments and focus on issues such as the economy. \u201cIt\u2019s sad but not surprising that there\u2019s no low the Democrats and their allies in the media won\u2019t stoop to smear Mark Robinson,\u201d Robinson campaign spokesman Mike Lonergan said in a statement. He said Robinson presents a sharp contrast with Stein as \u201ca conservative outsider\u201d who understands voters\u2019 economic struggles and \u201cwill work every day to make our state a better place to live, work and raise a family.\u201d<\/p>\n
GOP foes regard his ascent as a damaging departure from other contests where party leaders boxed out risky candidates, and they note that efforts to restrict transgender rights have been an albatross for Republicans in North Carolina.<\/p>\n
Wealthy attorney Bill Graham said he jumped into the gubernatorial race believing that national Republicans would help sideline Robinson, and he felt betrayed when they didn\u2019t step in. \u201cThey\u2019ll just play the Mark Robinson top-10 hit parade. They won\u2019t need to say a word,\u201d said Graham, predicting the Democratic strategy if Robinson is the nominee.<\/p>\n
Supporters shrug off the reporting on Robinson\u2019s most outrageous comments as smear jobs and \u201cfake news.\u201d When asked about one of Robinson\u2019s most-scrutinized Facebook posts \u2014 a 2018 screed against the film \u201cBlack Panther\u201d that references Israeli currency and uses a Yiddish slur for Black people \u2014 Ed Broyhill, a Republican national committeeman from North Carolina, said, \u201cI can\u2019t help but think that that\u2019s been manufactured by some opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n
The post is still accessible online.<\/p>\n
Robinson says he has \u201cnever been antisemitic,\u201d and allies point to his trip to Israel last fall and talks with Jewish leaders as evidence he has sought to address concerns.<\/p>\n
Some of Robinson\u2019s comments have left a negative impression with voters that might be hard for him to undo. Nell Casper, 74, an independent voter from the Raleigh area wasn\u2019t moved by Robinson\u2019s recent efforts to back off from some old comments he called \u201cpoorly worded.\u201d She said she would likely support the Democratic nominee.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t feel one thing and say it in front of the public \u2026 and then draw it back and not have people think about what you said in the first place,\u201d Casper said. \u201cBecause you\u2019ve hurt those people.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2018, Robinson was a longtime factory worker who raged against the political left on Facebook with homemade memes and bombastic insults.<\/p>\n
He chafed at assumptions that Black people were Democrats. He railed against Barack Obama\u2019s unconventional presidential portrait \u2014 \u201ca reflection of the nightmare of Marxist Socialism\u201d \u2014 and embraced false claimsObama was not born in the United States. He joked that DACA, the acronym for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children, actually stood for \u201cDumb Ass Communist Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n
At a time when many Republicans in North Carolina believed a bitter fight over transgender people\u2019s restroom use had cost them the governorship, Robinson was defiant. Responding to a trans protester with a poster asking where they should go to the bathroom, he uploaded a picture of himself smiling with his own cardboard sign: \u201cOUTSIDE WITH THE DOG!\u201d<\/p>\n
In February of that year, a gunman killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Fla. Robinson began posting near-daily retorts to celebrities, politicians and surviving students who wanted new firearm laws.<\/p>\n
When his hometown of Greensboro, N.C., considered canceling a gun show in response to the Parkland outcry, Robinson showed up to a city council meeting and gave a fiery, four-minute speech.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve heard a whole lot of people in here talking tonight about this group and that group and domestic violence and Blacks,\u201d he said. \u201cThese minorities and that minority. What I want to know is, when are you all going to start standing up for the majority?\u201d He pushed a finger to his chest. \u201cI\u2019m the majority. I\u2019m a law-abiding citizen who\u2019s never shot anybody!\u201d<\/p>\n
A video of Robinson spread on social media and caught the attention of the National Rifle Association, which put him in a commercial and brought him to Dallas to address its convention. Two years later, in 2020, he sailed to the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve pushed back against the narrative that North Carolina\u2019s a racist state, that America\u2019s a racist nation,\u201d he told a local news station that fall.<\/p>\n
He alluded to the family story of hardship and perseverance that now features in his gubernatorial campaign pamphlets. They introduce Robinson as the ninth of 10 children who grew up amid poverty, alcoholism and domestic abuse and, at multiple points, declared bankruptcy.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly in America could a story like that exist, and I just count it as a huge blessing from God,\u201d Robinson said.<\/p>\n
When Trump rallied in Wilmington, N.C., before a crowd of thousands ahead of the 2022 midterms, he declared Robinson \u201cone of the hottest politicians\u201d in the country.<\/p>\n
Trump has continued to praise Robinson, who visited the former president\u2019s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida in December for a fundraiser. At that event, the former president recounted once telling Robinson he was \u201cbetter than Dr. Martin Luther King,\u201d the Black civil rights leader, whom Robinson has criticized as a \u201ccommunist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robinson\u2019s appeal on the right has resonated well beyond North Carolina. His reception at national conservative conferences rivaled that of some presidential candidates.<\/p>\n
Campaigning at home,, Robinson has tried to focus on bread-and-butter issues. At his rally last month in Faison, he spoke at length about the economy and lamenting students\u2019 low levels of proficiency in reading. He saved his sharpest rebukes for the media, gazing around to find the reporters present and accusing them of fixating on hot-button topics.<\/p>\n
\u201cNotice,\u201d he said, \u201cI haven\u2019t said anything about transgender people. I haven\u2019t said anything about any bathrooms. I talked about our economy, and now I\u2019m talking about our education system.\u201d The audience whistled and cheered as he grew combative.<\/p>\n
\u201cLick your pencil and write facts!\u201d he yelled.<\/p>\n
But the audience cheered loudly when he raged against \u201cdiversity, equity and inclusion\u201d and \u201cagenda-driven junk\u201d in schools. Down-ballot candidates \u2014 who flocked to campaign with Robinson \u2014 warned that the \u201cfamily unit is under assault\u201d and called to put \u201cBible and prayer back in the schools,\u201d like in the early 1960s.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like how outspoken Mark is about values,\u201d said David Crumpler, who attended Robinson\u2019s event in Faison. He said he thinks a lack of \u201cfamily values\u201d is \u201cthe main thing that\u2019s hurting us, not only this state but this country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plenty of other Republican officials are uneasy about the prospect of Robinson leading the ticket.<\/p>\n
\u201cListening to Republicans on and off Jones Street\u201d \u2014 the hub of state government in Raleigh \u2014 there\u2019s a sense that \u201cwhile he may be the voice of the party, he\u2019s not the voice of North Carolina,\u201d said Jonathan Bridges, who managed former GOP congressman Mark Walker\u2019s now-shuttered campaign for governor.<\/p>\n
The GOP has swept Senate and presidential races in the Tar Heel State in recent years, yet Democrats have won the governor\u2019s mansion in seven of the past eight election cycles.<\/p>\n
The last Republican governor, Pat McCrory, faced massive blowback for signing a 2016 bill that required transgender people to use the bathroom matching their sex at birth. The law cost the state billions in business and was ultimately repealed \u2014 and Robinson\u2019s critics say he will regret pushing LGBTQ+ issues to the forefront again.<\/p>\n
A ban on gender-affirming care for minors took effect in North Carolina last year with much less public pushback. And Democrats, who see Robinson as a formidable rival, are largely focusing this year on his record on abortion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care if you\u2019re 24 hours pregnant. I don\u2019t care if you\u2019re 24 weeks pregnant. I don\u2019t care. If you kill that young\u2019un, it is murder,\u201d Robinson told a church in 2021. (Robinson has said he paid for the abortion of his \u201cunborn child\u201d in 1989 \u2014 a decision that he says was wrong.)<\/p>\n
He \u201cwill be the most extreme candidate that is nominated for governor by either party in the last 50 years in North Carolina,\u201d said Morgan Jackson, chief strategist for Stein, the state attorney general who is likely to face Robinson in the fall.<\/p>\n
Lonergan, the spokesman for Robinson\u2019s campaign, retorted that Stein \u201cwill be nothing but a rubber stamp for Joe Biden and the Democrats\u2019 failing, far-left agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robinson\u2019s rivals have tried to convince Republican leaders and voters that he is damaging to their brand. Graham said he met with the Republican Governors Association last summer to explore a candidacy \u2014 offering himself as an alternative but arguing that he could only succeed with major, third-party spending against Robinson.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe RGA was worried about Robinson. They may deny that, but they were,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n
Graham said he moved ahead under the impression that an outside spending campaign against Robinson was in the works. His chief strategist, Paul Shumaker, said the same and added that the RGA sought the Graham team\u2019s input on a team to lead the effort. But no such spending materialized.<\/p>\n
Courtney Alexander, a spokeswoman for the RGA, said the group has \u201ctraditionally stayed out of non-incumbent primaries\u201d and \u201chas had no involvement\u201d in the GOP contest in North Carolina. She said the RGA has met with all of the Republican candidates and that any of them would be a stark contrast to the likely Democratic nominee.<\/p>\n
Graham put his own money behind primary ads attacking Robinson for, among other things, \u201cdemeaning women\u201d and \u201cdefending sexual predators.\u201d Robinson asserted on a 2018 podcast that the political left is going after \u201cthe Harvey Weinsteins and the Bill Cosbys\u201d to replicate Soviet-era intimidation.<\/p>\n
They also highlight Robinson\u2019s 2022 suggestion at a church that men, not women, are meant to be leaders. Acknowledging that he was \u201cgetting ready to get in trouble,\u201d Robinson exclaimed to the congregation: \u201cCalled to be led by men!\u201d<\/p>\n
When \u201cit was time to face down Goliath,\u201d he added, God \u201csent David, not Davita.\u201d<\/p>\n
He later suggested it was \u201cridiculous\u201d to conclude he did not view women as leaders and that he was only \u201cencouraging men to stand up and take on the role of leadership as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
OCEAN ISLE BEACH, N.C. \u2014 Surrounded by fans at a beach town bar, Mark Robinson addressed his absent critics. \u201cMark Robinson is not running to be governor to be a bully over anybody,\u201d he said. Left unmentioned: The deluge of offensive comments that made such a declaration necessary. There was the time he called school […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1695,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}