In today’s Uptown paper of record, Melissa Manware and Greg Lacour try to go back and piece together Nikita Mackey’s campaign for sheriff, but do not get very far before they run into some serious dissembling. They report:
Mackey told the Observer he made that happen by working every night and all day on the weekends — from two days after Pendergraph’s announcement until the Dec. 6 election.
“I did what politicians used to do,” Mackey said. “I went to every community meeting I was made aware of and I … asked for support.”
The attention made a difference. Dierdre Reid, the chair of Precinct 219 on Charlotte’s eastside, said Mackey’s opponent, acting Sheriff Chipp Bailey, never contacted her or any other member of her recently organized precinct.
“I got a letter telling me (Mackey’s) background and qualifications and things like that,” Reid said. She declined to say how she voted, but said, “It seemed to me that Bailey assumed he had it in the bag without talking to anybody.”
I got a letter telling me his background and qualifications and things like that.
Really.
Dierdre Reid was Mackey’s campaign chairman for his 2006 district court race. State election records also show a $110 contribution to the campaign from Reid.
I’d wager that were you to go back and cross-check Mackey’s 06 supporters with the newly organized precincts you’d find still more overlap. But The Charlotte Observer has shown an odd reluctance to go back to the campaign 2006 for answers.
Last week I emailed editor Rick Thames asking why Mackey’s 06 campaign did not bring forth all the background information that his 07 sheriff’s bid did. Afterall, the bankruptcy and tax lien happened in 2005 and his troubles with CMPD predate that as well. Thames has yet to respond.
There are, it seems, two possibilities: Either the Observer did not check Mackey in advance of the 06 campaign, or the paper did, found issues, but decided the public did not need to know them.
We are still playing catch up on the full-disclosure front.
