A Sometimes-insider’s History of the Chatham Coalition, parts of which may even be true. Part 3: The 2004 election

(note: if you are coming into this series in the middle, please at least read the introduction to clarify the level of journalism or not as opposed to storytelling, that is contained herein)

For the 2004 election cycle the Coalition did not recruit candidates. By the time the Coalition was formally founded and off the ground, there were already multiple candidates in the Democratic primary. In district 1 the candidates were Patrick Barnes from Chatham County United (CCU), Ron Singleton, an engineer, and Uva Holland, a former commissioner and friend and ally of Bunkey Morgan.  In district 2 there was Mike Cross from the Southeast Chatham Citizens Advisory Committee (SECCAC), former Pittsboro Mayor Mary Wallace who was clearly the candidate of the development community, and Barry Gray, an African American minister and sort of a wild card in the race.

So in the 2004 race the Coalition decided to endorse an already-filed candidate.  They sent out questionnaires, which some candidates declined to fill out and from those the Coalition picked their candidates, and they chose Barnes and Cross. 

The Cross campaign (which I was co-managing with David LeGrys) and Barnes campaign (which Barbara Ford and Larry Hicks were running) were grateful and appreciative of the support and help of the Coalition.   However we were not part of the Coalition.  We kept separate campaign teams and worked with them, but were by no means a merged team. 

Some fissures form

In fact there was tension between Mike Cross’s campaign and the Coalition several times during the 2004 campaign.   These stemmed in large part from two things: the Cross campaign team’s belief that we knew what we were doing (David LeGrys had managed several winning campaigns in Chatham County before, including all of Margaret Pollard’s campaigns) so while we are happy to have the Coalition’s help we didn’t need them to tell us what to do, and Mike Cross’s personal unwillingness to sign on to some of the materials and slogans the Coalition was putting out. 

The bottom line is that Mike Cross was more moderate and some of the attacks and slogans he was being asked to sign onto made him uncomfortable, not only politically but also personally and in some cases he refused which caused tension.

One example that is illustrative of this occasional conflict between Mike Cross and the Coalition came late in the general election campaign.  The Coalition had dug up some old dirt on Mike’s Republican opponent.  A member of the Coalition steering committee (the only reason I don’t name the member is I don’t know exactly who)  brought this information to Mike and asked him “what should we do with this information.”  Mike’s response was “forget you ever saw it.”  The information was old, irrelevant to the campaign or the office of commissioner, we were confident we would win without it, and Mike felt it would just make him look dirty to use it.   The Coalition and Mike vehemently disagreed on this point and neither refused to budge.  In the end Mike’s campaign did not use the information, but the Coalition leaked it anyway, which completely pissed off Mike because he figured he would be blamed for the information being used.

Mike Cross also wanted to campaign in Western Chatham County, but the Coalition thought that was a waste of effort (a theme that would come to define the Coalition over time).  There were many disagreements and arguments along these lines but in the end we all worked together reasonably well. 

They knew what they were doing

The Coalition had excellent organizational and fundraising skills and a lot of people willing to work with and donate to them.  They were committed to grass roots campaigning and had the widespread support and pool of volunteers to make that happen.   Every weekend dozens of people knocked on doors and canvassed county events on behalf of the Chatham Coalition in support of Cross and Barnes, and their fundraising parties were huge events drawing dozens to hundreds of people to hear local music, book readings from local authors, and to support progressive politics in Chatham County.

The Coalition was also very good with data. Armed with printouts of registered Democrats and Independents in the county who were either newly registered or had a history of voting regularly in Democratic primaries, we would meet at the General Store Café, divide up canvassing assignments over breakfast, and then go out and spend the day campaigning. It was an asset any campaign would love to have.   And against it, the situation was reversed from 2002 – the other side didn’t stand a chance. 

Pushback

As the effectiveness of the Coalition was becoming apparent, the other side in desperation started attacking the Coalition, focusing on Jeffery Starkweather.  Many of Mary Wallace's and Andy Wilkie's supporters took to calling it the "Jeffery Starkweather coalition" and some of them even tried to claim he was a communist, a charge he effectively shut down as discussed in the previous entry of this series. These attacks didn't get much traction, but over the years it's a tactic that the other side never let up on.

The result

Combining the effectiveness of the Coalition with the expertise and experience of David LeGrys and Larry Hicks and others on the campaign teams, Mike Cross and Patrick Barnes won their 3-way Democratic primaries with over 50% of the vote each, and Mike Cross won the general election by 1400 votes (Patrick Barnes did not have a Republican opponent).

The Coalition also endorsed candidates in the school board election, who also all swept into office, winning over 60% of the votes in their races.   This Chatham Journal editorial by Chatham Coalition steering committee member Roland McReynolds captures the feeling of the time.

In its debut campaign, the Coalition had run the table and was starting to look like an unstoppable force.