Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy NC, just showed how little one need respect his “nonpartisan” claims for his group. If the current headline on the organization’s website (“Sign the petition against Art Pope’s politics of greed”) isn’t a tipoff, here’s another that indicates he isn’t really the equal-opportunity watchdog he claims.
Hall and the aforementioned Pope (full disclosure: Pope is the chief benefactor of the John Locke Foundation) made a joint appearance on Bill LuMaye’s WPTF-AM radio show show just now. LuMaye pointed out that Hall’s group had a “teach-in” recently on Pope’s political giving, and LuMaye asked him if his group was planning a teach-in on the other multimillionaire who gives to left-wing groups in North Carolina.
A confused Hall said (paraphrasing here), “You mean from outside of North Carolina?” LuMaye said, no, right here in the state, and added (again, paraphrasing), “Goodmon, I think his name is.” He was referring, of course, to Jim Goodmon, owner of WRAL-TV, a vocal liberal and generous contributor to liberal and left-wing causes.
“Goodman?” asked a still seemingly confused Hall, as if he had never heard the name. Pope helpfully offered that, yes, his name is Jim Goodmon, and he gives quite a bit of political money throughout North Carolina, which Pope defended as Goodmon’s right to do.
Hall invited LuMaye and Pope to “send him the research” and he’d look into this seemingly mysterious (to Hall, anyway) Goodmon person. Ironically, Hall had just bragged to LuMaye and Pope about how energetically his organization targets both Democrats and Republicans.
Now, either Hall was being spectacularly dishonest, or he has really never heard of Jim Goodmon. For a so-called watchdog of campaign money’s influence in North Carolina, either one of those is totally discrediting to him and his organization.
UPDATE: A reader points out that Hall and his “nonpartisan” group get big money from Hungarian-born left-wing billionaire George Soros. Here’s a video in which Soros proudly admits to being one of the left’s “useful idiots.” (The interviewer attributes the term incorrectly to Vladimir Lenin.)
