Three. One to screw the bulb into the socket and two to kick the chair out from under him and then start kicking each other.
That’s what it’s come to with the county GOP. Or rather, the three county GOPs. One of the parties is led by Co-Speaker of the House Richard Morgan of Eagle Springs, another by insurance broker and gubernatorial candidate George Little of Southern Pines, and still another by — well, we’re not exactly sure who, but a Matt McWilliams of Southern Pines, a 24-year-old golf professional, is its most visible member.
McWilliams signaled the addition of a third Republican Party to what had been a mere two on Wednesday, when he announced that he would attempt to unseat Morgan in a 2004 party primary in House District 52, which includes most of Moore. McWilliams has joined the ranks of those Republicans who are highly peeved at Morgan for forming a coalition with Democrats in in the House this year that resulted in Morgan and Democratic Rep. Jim Black of Matthews sharing the speakership.
Williams says politics has “corrupted” Morgan. He says Morgan “has lost sight of why he was elected and who he represents” and engaged in a “blatant abuse of power” with his decision to withhold funding for summertime legislative assistants of his opponents in the House.
Now all this is coming from someone who until fairly recently was a vocal supporter of Morgan. McWilliams spoke passionately at the recent state Republican Convention against the enactment of a set of resolutions condemning Morgan for cozying up to House Democrats. The resolutions were approved.
“Richard has forgotten why he was a Republican in the first place,” McWilliams now says of Morgan.
Ahem. At least Morgan was a Republican in the first place. McWilliams, on the other hand, was until last year a member of the Libertarian Party. He was even Moore County Libertarian Party chairman before he switched to the Republicans at the urging of local GOP Chairwoman Elizabeth Kelly and ran unsuccessfully for the supposedly nonpartisan county Board of Education with the support of the local Republican organization.
After McWilliams’ defection, some of his former Libertarian brethren said he sold out his principles for purely political reasons, that politics had corrupted him. Imagine.
McWilliams insists that no one recruited him to run against Morgan, that he made that decision on his own as a matter of conscience. In other words, he wasn’t brought into the race by the group of Republican House members who have been vowing for months that Morgan will get Republican primary opposition. Just a coincidence, don’t you know.
And McWilliams disavows any connection with a Web site known as porkymorgan.com that has been put on the Internet by Morgan’s Republican opponents to ridicule the co-speaker. McWilliams criticized the site as being a lame attempt at humor. “It makes a joke out of something I take very seriously,” McWilliams says.
For his part, Morgan plans to make next year’s Republican primary his own version of Porky’s Revenge. For him, politics has always been a contact sport. “I don’t shy away from a political fight,” he says. “Bring it on.” Do you get the feeling that Morgan is not exactly shaking in his boots over this McWilliams thing?
Some of us in these parts have been around long enough to remember when there was one Republican Party in Moore County, and some old yellow dog Democrats fondly reminisce about the days when that one Republican Party couldn’t win an election for, well, dog catcher.
How times have changed. Now the Republicans rule the county to the point that they feel they can afford the luxury of not only a party split but a three-way split. And they probably can.
Some serious Republican light-bulb changing is about to commence. And the process figures to generate a good deal more heat than light. But it’ll be a good show. As Morgan says, bring it on.
