In Burke County voting, the 'R' beside the name is all that matters

One of the more dismissive comments my Old Man would use when talking about a candidate who stood no chance of success was, “That feller couldn’t be elected dog catcher.”

Another dismissal of a doomed candidate’s prospects was, “That feller won’t hear the gun go off.”

Although it would pain him to do so, if the Old Man were still alive today, he could make the same comments about anyone running for any office in Burke County who does not have an “R” beside their name.

Not one of them could be elected dog catcher, and not one of them would hear the gun go off, no matter their credentials, their background, or their record of success.

Flip that scenario around and any Republican can carry Burke County no matter how flimsy his credentials or how discredited his campaign may be.

Case In Point Number One: Don Hemstreet, unaffiliated candidate for the Burke County School Board.

Hemstreet founded Morganton Animal Clinic more than five decades ago and has been a literal pillar of this community for more than 50 years.

Equally well known for his kind and compassionate nature and his lively sense of humor, Hemstreet is a clear-eyed realist who has always sought pragmatic, workable solutions to our county’s problems.

A man of Christian faith, Hemstreet has put that faith into action through service to his church, through leadership roles at Burke United Christian Ministries, and through outreach ministries at local prisons.

Back when school board elections were nonpartisan, Hemstreet ran for the board in 2015, was elected without opposition, and was reelected, again without opposition, in 2019.

He racked up roughly 99 percent of the votes in both of those elections against scattered write-in choices.

Yet in 2024, running as an unaffiliated candidate against a Republican, Hemstreet received all of 33 percent of the vote.

Case In Point Number Two: Mark Robinson, GOP candidate for governor.

Mark Robinson’s entire political resume was built on a speech he made to the Greensboro City Council in 2018 defending gun rights.

That speech propelled him to election as the state’s lieutenant governor in 2020, despite the fact that he had never held political office and had never really held a steady job.

Bluster and anger are Robinson’s hallmarks and he translated them into winning the Republican nomination for governor last spring. His campaign fell apart in September when it was revealed he had a long history of making inflammatory comments on a pornographic website.

Among other things, Robinson proclaimed himself a “Black Nazi,” called Martin Luther King Jr. a “commie bastard,” and admitted to peeping at women in a public shower.

Robinson, a disgraced man who had been abandoned even by Donald Trump, received nearly 60% of the Burke County vote simply because of the “R” beside his name.

I won’t argue today about the relative strengths or failings of either of our major political parties. Neither would get a vote of confidence from me.

I will argue, however, that it’s unhealthy for a county and its people for one party to have absolute control over every elected office.

Nearly four and a half decades ago, I was the county government and political affairs reporter for what was then the county’s daily newspaper.

That newspaper then, like this newspaper today, took seriously its role as a watchdog on local government, but that watchdog role was made easier by a board of county commissioners that was split between the two parties.

Let the Republicans try to do something in secret or that skirted the boundaries of propriety, and a Democratic commissioner made sure that I knew all about it.

Let the Democrats make a similar effort or hatch a similar scheme, and I would get a phone call from a Republican commissioner before the sun went down.

More importantly, commissioners and other local officeholders knew that elections could swing either way in Burke County, and the party that triumphed in one election could easily be kicked out the door in the next one.

When one party has absolute power, no voices are raised in dissent.

When one party has absolute power, no “anonymous” calls are placed to reporters, no internal whistles are blown, and most decisions are made long before board meetings are gaveled to order.

My Old Man had a phrase to cover that situation also.

“Son,” he would say, “that just ain’t healthy.”

No, I would agree, it isn’t.