NC Revolutionary History | Hour 2

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all of the links, become a patron, go to thepeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. Certainly, one of the biggest headlines of the year is North Carolina's US Senate race, pitting former governor Democrat Roy Cooper and Republican Michael Wattley. Let new poll numbers out show that race tightening. Joining us now Alan Wooten, managing editor of The Center Square, to talk more about that poll. Good afternoon, Allan. Hi, don's good to talk with you, No, good to. Talk to you. All right, let's talk about this headline. Here the latest poll you can see it there on the Center Square. The latest Paul shows Roy Cooper has a lead over Michael Ratley with Public Policy Institute Public Policy Polling. But is that race tightening? Where do you see it going? Well, this is the closest poll we've seen really since they started. The margin of era was three point six percent, So at four percent, just barely out of a statistical tie. So an incredible turn because just in early June a poll out of Catawba said that it was fourteen percent. But we've seen seven to ten percent most of the way, so I don't know. I thought fourteen percent was a bit of an outlier. I think the next time we see some polls, including maybe from the Carolina Journal this month, I'm not sure if you guys are asking that question, but we are, it'll be interesting to see where it is as some other polls began to come out this month, to see if this is an outlier or yeah, maybe it is tighting up right. And you know, that's one of the things that I've noticed. I have not seen a ton of ads from the Wattley campaign just yet. I see you starting to see some from Cooper. Do you think we're just still early in the process, because I've been surprised to see there be kind of limited I thought we'd be bombarded by now. Yeah, you know, and you're very right on that because one of the big things that all of the polls ever since, this thing ever since. Both declared at the end of July last year was people don't know who Michael Wyley is. They know who Roy Cooper is. He's a career politician, got on the scene in nineteen eighty six and in General Assembly and he's been there ever since. So it was the name recognition factor. And in fact, in this poll that was ninety two percent to sixty nine percent. I mean just wapping a margin there for name recognition. But that's been the bugaboo. For the Watley campaign from the gar it goes. So how they were going to address that, I'm not exactly sure, but my sources tell me that all along the plan was to paint Roy Cooper as the soft on crime governor and then at some point to turn it into he's just going to be another Democrat like the other national figures we know, like Chuck Shermer and Elizabeth Warren and that bunch. So we must be we must be getting close to that because seven weeks from Friday, the ballots will go into the mail to North Carolina voters. Right. I can't believe what Jogie said. It really is. I mean, it's coming up quick today, just today On Tuesday, Michael Watley's campaign said that they are launching their first ad, first ad here in July. I thought it would be sooner, but there. They've got a seven figure ad buy across streaming services. They're running an ad now called my and they're talking about what LEAs is his first time on the ballot, his first time candidacy, even though he's been involved with Republican politics for quite some time. And he's talking about the working family's tax cut, no tax on Social Security provision, a lot of those trump key issues. And he's been, you know, trying to hit all one hundred counties. So this new ad Miles is very focused on what he's been doing, not necessarily on Roy Cooper. Do you think that that will help him or hurt him? What do you think? Well? I had a chance to check out the ad earlier this morning, and it does. It's got that picture of his truck with his more than forty one thousand miles ten thousand miles on it right, and he has hit all one hundred counties. Kudos to him. That's something I think you need to do. But but the ad does take a look. It is a ad that attacks Cooper for his position on the policies that are not in line with with Donald Trump's America First Agenda. I mean, he talks about the taxing and things like that. I know when Michael Whitley was with the Center Square on the States earlier about a month or so ago, he mentioned that the Cooper's never seen a dollar he didn't want to spend, and Michael says, I've never seen a dollar I didn't want to get a tax cut on. It's very interesting to see how this is playing out. And the other thing about polling we know is Republicans typically do not poll well, and it's just inherent that their supporters are not as likely to answer the polls. So you get whatever a poll tells you is their margin of error, and then probably the savvy veteran journalists figure, well, it's probably another point or two in there, because you know, going one way or the depending on who's winning and who's losing. For sure, We've actually found at Carolina Journal that historically governor former Governor Cooper, he underperforms at the ballot box compared to what the polls are. And I think it speaks to exactly what you're saying. I think that a lot of those Republicans are harder to reach for posters, so you don't get quite as as close. You know, what, what are you looking for in the next few months? What are some of the key benchmarks? Is it fundraising, advertising, you know, polling? What are your thoughts on what we should be paying attention to in the next few months. I think for the I think for the voters, the smart thing to do is look through what's being said and find the truth and consider where your sources are. I've dug into some of the things that both campaigns have said, and you know, there's some there's some good fish stories out there in eastern North Carolina where I live, and uh, and these guys, their campaigns are are pushing the envelope on the way things are. A prime example yesterday Roy Cooper and a gaggle with reporters after a campaign stop. I mean, he's clearly stepping away from responsibility for the historic prisoner release. You know, he said his quote was and it's out there is the court ordered it. Well, his name is on the lawsuits, so in his capacity as a governor, so I'm not sure how he didn't approve that, and it wasn't a trial decision, it was a settlement before the trial, So clear step there uh something for voters to consider. You know, there's a lot of accusations on who was and was not in the prisoner release, but there's there's been since early in the year, there's been databases made available. There's some Stephen Horns, the accomplished journalists who's done that. I mean, there are a number of places people can go and look. If they really want to go find out who is on that list and what those people have done, they can do that. You know, it's out. There absolutely, and you can find those poll numbers on the Center Squares website and then of course on Carolina Journal dot com. We're gonna have some fresh numbers coming up in just a few weeks on that Cooper Wattley race. But I do it does I do get a sense of that's tightening, particularly as those ads come out. Alan Wooten from the Center Square managing editor over there, thanks so much for joining me. Thank you, don I hope you have a great day, Stay cool, all right. All right, For over a year now you've heard me talking about create a video. Great local company in Minhill that has helped more than two million families preserve their memories by turning old photos, VHS tapes, film reels and slides into lasting keepsakes. Now, creative video is helping families and groups create brand new memories while they're traveling, introducing group travel videos perfect for family reunions, church mission trips, group vacations, destiny nation weddings, student trips, senior adult groups, sports teams. I mean, really any gathering of people that you care about that's traveling together. 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You can email Katie Katie at group travel videos dot com. Group travel videos from old memories to new adventures, preserving life's moments for a lifetime. We're just ten days out from America's two fiftieth anniversary. I hope you had a wonderful July fourth, But you know what, it doesn't just end there. It's not a one day celebration to talk about this. Bob Rosser from the John Locke Foundation, who's heading up the NC two fifty project, is going to join us here. Bob good to talk to you. Hey Donald, how are you doing today? Doing well? Doing well? Did you have a nice fourth I did? I did. I hope everybody else did. It was a big day. Yeah. But you know what, though, it's not just a day. Right when the smoke clears from all the fireworks, what is the message you want to make sure that we walk away with that? This isn't just one day. Tell me more, well, I. Kind of look at it like the birth of a child that's just beginning, and hopefully we can celebrate the rest of this great anniversary of the birth of our country two hundred and fiftieth for the rest of the year at least. You know, the war wasn't over till I think seventeen eighty two or three, but there was fierce fighting going on for another six years after the declaration, and without winning the war, who knows whether this would have mattered a whole lot, whether the decoration of independence would have mattered very much. So it's a great thing for us to be celebrating. Most of all, I think we celebrate our independence, which a lot of people don't really have a clue what that's really about if you've never been not free. But people, I think from other countries who have come here a lot of times have more appreciation for that. But we're a deacon of freedom because of the decoration to be independence. We might still have a king if if we didn't have. That, that's right. I saw a T shirt over the weekend when I was down at the beach, and it said it's only treason if you lose, And I think that speaks to exactly what you're saying, right. Exactly exactly. I mean, I think none of us have any clue the risk and sacrifice, the danger that whether you picked up a rifle and or a musket I guess in those days and went and fought and made that choice, or whether you went to a I guess what we would call a rally today, to go out and speak your mind and you know, get to hear a crowd. You would really be creating or committing treason in those days, and it was a serious offense. Sure, sure it was a painful price if you got in trouble. For that, right. I mean, that's a great example. How did ordinary North Carolinians experience the Revolution? Because right now we see it as a big celebration of summer in two hundred and fifty years. I mean, you know, god willing another two hundred and fifty, another seven hundred and fifty years. How did ordinary North Carolinians experience the American Revolution? Well, the the activism, A lot of it was more on the coast where you had where you had the commerce, where there was a lot of agricultural goods being shipped off into that to England or other countries, and that's where the tax station had no tax station with that representation that the fees. You know, we've heard of the Tea Act, you know, where there was a tax on tea, there were taxes on the other things. There was the Stamp Act, which actually heard occurred early in seventeen sixty five, where there was stamps on a lot of goods and letters and legal documents and things like that. In the interior, the way that it may have reached you or touched you were there was in religious terms, the Anglican Church was the state church, and if you were a Presbyterian or a Baptist or some other denomination besides anglic and your marriages and other things that were tied to your religion were not legal. And so that touched a little bit of everybody in the colony. But in the areas where there was more activism were in the town's Hillsborough, Charlotte State School, I mean Salisbury, excuse me, Wilmington, Newburn, Edington, all those different places there was a lot of activism. And when that was a lexing concord actually occurred up in Massachusetts, work spread down to our colony to North Carolina and people said, you know, we want to join in with this too, and so they started creating militia groups. There was a provincial congress that was called together of Assembly basically what became our General Assembly I guess would meet and it was called the Provincial Congress, and they started creating a message the more they met. That led to what we now know was important towards the creating creation of the Decoration of Independents. Which. With the Halifax Resolves. In Halifax, there was a provincial Congress there that that occurred from I want to talk. More about the Halifax Resolves after our break, but before we go out, I which real quick, what why is North Carolina so special in the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War? Why was our role unique among the thirteen colonies? Well, we had it was a couple of events that we probably should remember that that were part of our our effort in the revolutionary effort, even before the Halifax Resolved, before the Mecklenburg Declaration, two things which by the way, are important because we were reminded every day because we see him on our flag, these dates on the flag. A lot of people don't know from the Mecklenburg Declaration and the Halifax Resolves. But before that, there was the Edenton Tea Party where fifty one women signed a letter to the King in seventeen seventy four that was very similar to the Boston Tea Party, basically a protest. So there was the first efforts organized by women to protest in writing in America, led by a lady in Kidelphie Barker. That was important. We also had the Battle of Morris Creek Bridge that occurred in seventeen early seventeen seventy six down near Wilmington, and that was the first the first armed conflicts where our militia men fault against Hollander Scott's primarily who were loyal to the king. We're talking a little bit about the American Revolution. When July fourth comes, it's not necessarily over. This was a long standing revolution and certainly something that North Carolina should be proud that it took the role that it did. And we're joined by Bob Rosser of NC two fifty and the John Locke Foundation. We're talking about the Halifax Resolves. If you've ever looked at North Carolina state flag and wondered what those dates mean, well, Bob's got the answer. Bob, thanks for sticking with us. Thank you, don a glad to be with you all right. For those of us who don't remember this from our history class, what were the Halifax resolves. Well, you had had the battles of Lexington and Concord in seventeen seventy five. Leading up to seventeen seventy six, of course, and there was a lot of grievances among the different colonies that were starting to become a kind of a united message against King George the Third, and the British Parliament and the Assembly in North Carolina started meeting what they called provincial congresses in the seventeen seventy five and they met periodically and would try to create different entities that they could use to protest what they thought were grievances from Great Britain. And in the fourth Provincial Congress, which occurred in Halifax in April seventeen seventy six, eighty three delegates got together from all across the colony. And that's an important part because before that, as we know, the Meckelburg Decoration was very important, but it was a local, local group by a small group of people. Uh protesting the King and showing their displeasure with what was going on. But this fourth Provincial Congress represented the whole colony with representatives there. And they. Met and decided they wanted to put a stronger message out. And I will read this because worded a little interestingly, but basically the most important thing they said was resolved that the delegates for this colony and the Continental Congress be empowered to concur with the delegates of the other colonies and declaring independency. And the key thing there is that word independency or independence as we would say, had not been voiced before a lot of the resolutions were very strongly worded in protests, but they all had some kind of element of reconciliation that they wanted to work things out with the king. This announcement was the first one that gave the word independence where there would be an actual break with England, and that was hugely important, and no other colonies had done that to that point. This the first official action in the colonies calling for independence from Great Britain. Is why it's important. Sure sure now, was that widespread support for that in North Carolina or was this controversial at the time? I'm not sure word got back. We didn't have the social media and internet in very few newspapers, so I'm not sure how how fast that action spread. But there it was a representative It's a clear act of representative government where delegates from all over the colony were at that Congress for that purpose. And then soon after that, Joseph Hughes, who ended up being one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, he took that to Philadelphia, the Halifax Resolves, and it became a model for the rest of the colonies to go beyond this what I would call the reconciliation stage to independence, which was a new concept. You didn't hear people talk about independence back then, so that was a huge creative process that then was taken by the Continental Congress where they created a committee of which one of the members was Thomas Jefferson, to go in a room and write the declaration. In Halifax, there were they had a similar situation, similar process with Cornelius Hornett, Thomas Burke, Alan Jones, Thomas Jones, Abner Nash, John Kenshin, and Thomas Person were the committees that went and drafted the Halifax Resolved the same way. A few couple of months later, the Declaration of Independence was done in that same process. Very interesting. North Carolina always seems to be leading the charge on this. This is our history, right, Bob Rosser, thanks so much for everything and for joining us for this and a lot of good, good view of why we need to be celebrating the two fiftieth throughout the year. Have a great afternoon, and. Donna, I would yeah, I would love for folks to join us on NC two fifty dot org if you want to learn more about what some of the efforts we've been writing about and talking about about them. Absolutely Org. Thanks so much, Bob. I'm Donna King from the Carolina Journal. I'm filling in for Pete Calendar today on the Pete Calendar Show. Glad to be here, Glad to be with you, but we also want to hear from you, so let us know what you think. We've talked a lot today about the Cooper Watley campaign, lots going on in education, of course North Carolina's role in the American Revolution. You can reach us here at seven zero four five seven zero one zero seven nine, and of course you can text us at seven zero four five seven zero one zero seven nine. The WBT text line is driven by Liberty Buick GMC. Also, please check out our website WBT dot com and our social media at WBT Radio. So lots of ways to reach us here. Always glad to have you with us, and we're going to be continuing in the next hour to talk a lot about what North Carolina's top headlines and news, what's happening in our state. Keeping a real close eye, bringing you all the information you need. Something we've talked about earlier this afternoon, new poll numbers the US sent North Carolina's US Senate race between Democrat Ory Cooper, former governor, and Republican Michael Wattley. So one of the things that bubbled up this week, Cooper is facing renewed questions over a twenty twenty one settlement that resulted in the early release of thirty five hundred North Carolina inmates. Cooper, who was governor at the time. In twenty twenty one, was named as a defendant in the lawsuit brought by the NAACP challenging prison conditions during COVID. If you think back, you remember that we were talking about it at the time, certainly during all of those lockdowns well this week. On Monday, Cooper pushedback on some of that criticism of the settlement that resulted in the release of thirty five hundred inmates. He said that he fought the release and argued that a court could have ordered the state to release even more prisoners. We did sign off on it. The settlement was reached between the state and plaintiffs after years of litigation over prison conditions during COVID. At the time, Cooper's administration chose to settle rather than proceed to trial. So Cooper said on Monday that prison officials, not his office, made the decision which inmates qualified for release and which didn't. Those thirty five hundred on that list did get released in that settlement, so it applied to certain inmates who met criteria, including those with a projected release date in twenty twenty one, those who were on work release, or some inmates who were on home leave. Critics appointed to reports that some people released under the settlement later faced new criminal charges. There's been an analysis by The New York Post reporting that eighteen people released through the program were later charged with murder. Other reports have cited hundreds of additional cases, including violent offenses, but Cooper's campaign has rejected criticism of the settlement, saying that opponents have misrepresented the facts surrounding the release. Well why is this an issue, Well, it's become a key point in the US Senate race where Cooper is challenging Republican candidate Michael Wattley. Cooper is focusing his campaign. He's had a pivot highlighting more on crime and pointing to the laws that he signed and involving bail and gang offenses, and Republicans have criticized Cooper's broader public safety record, including several vetos of Republican back bills that involved issues like cooperation with federal immigration authorities, you know, ice, cooperation, gun laws, and public disorder. Now all of this comes as a new poll, also out Monday, indicates that this race might be getting tighter. Cooper's lead is now forty eight percent to forty four percent for Whatley in the sampling from Public Policy Polling, So there's less than half a percent if you look at it from a statistical really a statistical tie. Cooper is a former two term governor with thirty eight years in public office across five decades, and really has nearly ninety little more than ninety percent advantage in name recognition, which has been the big challenge for the Wattley campaign. So this poll at Public Policy Polling sampled seven hundred and fifty nine voters over the weekend and carries a three point six percent margin of error, which indicates that that forty eight to forty four percent is even tighter than it really looks. So this Senate race is considered pivotal nationally as Republicans try to keep the majority in the Senate Chamber. And there's been speculation that we're looking at big, big money in this race, spending between say five hundred million and a billion dollars. And this of course all comes as a Watley campaign announces they've got a brand new ad, a seven figure ad buy announced on Tuesday, and they should be focused on streaming services. So if you've been waiting for those ads to start really populating and bombarding you, here they come. So this new ad is titled Miles, and it highlights Whatley's first time candidacy in his recent statewide effort trying to visit all one hundred counties and highlight key Trump America First policies working families, tax cuts, no tax on tips, and social security provisions. This all comes We've got seven weeks, y'all, just seven weeks before absentee ballots go in the mail for those making requests for them. North Carolinians will the November election is going to be critical. North Carolinians will choose a US Senator. We're going to choose all fourteen members of the US House and all one hundred and seventy members of the North Carolina General Assembly. This is something we've talked a lot about over this legislative session, as lawmakers in the North Carolina General Assembly looked to this budget to say, okay, we are eighteen months out. We haven't had a budget since twenty twenty three. What are we going to do, What are we going to bring back, and what are we going to tell our constituents as they head to the polls. Seven weeks to go before those absentee ballots come out. So we're going to be talking a lot about this election as we go into the November twenty twenty six elections, and a lot of will Donald Trump's coattails carry it in an off season? You know, traditionally midterm election don't bode well for the party that's in the White House. But it looks like President Trump is working to try and make that change. And that's the big question that everybody's been talking about. Will his coattails carry folks like Michael Wattley into office or will Roy Cooper's name recognition and his background, his campaign, his enormous fundraising ability really be able to carry the day for that. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.