One Republican candidate for North Carolina’s U.S. Senate seat has won a statewide primary.
Lexington attorney Jim Snyder defeated two other Republicans by a wide margin to claim the party’s nomination for lieutenant governor in 2004. One of his opponents was Thomas Stith, who is now chief of staff for Gov. Pat McCrory.
Snyder, an interesting and thoughtful challenger to Democratic Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue, earned the News & Record’s endorsement and made a good showing at the polls that November but ultimately lost.
The News & Record endorses him again this year as the most worthy candidate among the GOP’s crowded U.S. Senate field.
His entry into the race to challenge Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan was driven, in part, he said in a recent interview, by what he considers excessive responses to the war against terrorism.
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Those include rendition, torture and assassination by drones — “practices so abhorrent I turn inside out with anger.”
His repulsion hasn’t wavered depending on which party’s president has been at fault, he said, expressing disappointment that the subject of rendition — transporting terrorist suspects to other countries for torture or other harsh interrogation — “doesn’t resonate with the right wing.”
“I sense a decay of the American spirit,” the 68-year-old Snyder said. “I really do, and that’s why I’m running.”
Snyder, who’s written a number of books on legal subjects as well as his “political manifesto” titled “The Conservative Mind,” doesn’t follow the pack in seeking the Republican nomination. He may hold similar views on some issues but addresses many others that his rivals don’t. Those include:
l Conservation. Snyder is worried about the use of coal, the rapid loss of water from the state’s aquifers and the kind of contamination that poisoned drinking water at Camp Lejeune.
l Monopolies in banking, utilities, air travel and markets that reduce competition.
l Profiteering among health insurance and pharmaceutical companies as well as “the military industrial complex.”
l “Static government” caused by partisan wrangling, and “perpetual government” stemming from gerrymandered districts that keep the same people in power for decades, with detrimental results.
Snyder also criticizes excessive executive authority by President Obama; the Affordable Care Act, which he says replaced a system in need of repair with a program that’s too complex and wasteful; unrestricted free trade; too much federal intervention in education; and an unsustainable retirement system. He proposes to replace Social Security for newborn Americans with a $1,500 grant to be invested at birth, which could grow to appropriately $1 million by the time the individual reaches age 65.
These ideas haven’t given Snyder much traction against better-financed opponents. But, while Thom Tillis and Greg Brannon, who are leading in the polls, and other Republicans contend for ground on the farthest right edge of the party, Snyder offers creative solutions to the nation’s problems. He also has a personal manner that would never embarrass North Carolinians.
Tillis, speaker of the N.C. House of Representatives, is tied to a legislative agenda that cut funding for education, left teachers without pay raises, enacted “tax reform” that favored the wealthy, eased environmental regulations and restricted voting access. Some of his Republican rivals says he’s tainted by special-interest money.
Brannon, a physician, is a tea-party favorite who puts himself in the mold of U.S. Sens. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee. They make up a small club in the Senate. Brannon calls for repealing Obamacare and passing a human life amendment that essentially would ban all abortions — no exceptions. He has not run for office before and lacks a public record, except for a recent finding by a Wake County jury that he misled investors in a company in which he had an interest. He was ordered to pay two investors more than $450,000 but said he was treated unfairly by the court and plans to appeal.
Republican voters can do better than Tillis or Brannon. Jim Snyder has integrity, a sense of fairness and ideas worth bringing to a national stage — which he will have if he wins the Republican primary and the opportunity to challenge Hagan in November.
