"Formal Appeal" or Desperate Plea from McCrory Campaign as Cooper lead grows

Roy Cooper's lead in the NC Governor's race ballooned on Monday as more updated vote totals rolled in to the NCSBE.  As of Monday night, the lead stood at 9,716 votes according to the NCSBE website.

And almost as if on queue, Monday afternoon Pat McCrory’s campaign manager, Russell Peck, sent out an email asking for money to fight the tide. Regular readers of aShortChronicle will remember Peck from these posts here and here.

In an email titled "Formal Appeal", Peck makes what sounds more like a desperate plea for cash as time appears to be running out.

Over the weekend, attorney and registered Durham County voter Thomas Stark filed a formal appeal with the State Board of Elections in relation to the ‘malfeasance’ in tabulating approximately 90,000 ballots that were reported just before midnight on Election Day.

It was concerning to learn that the Durham County Board decided to not approve Tom Stark’s protest to recount early vote totals from election night.

The malfunctions and irregularities in Durham have been extremely troubling to this campaign and the people of North Carolina, and the State Board confirmed several errors. 

We are now left with no other position but to request the State Board of Elections expeditiously order a full recount of Durham County early vote totals.

We need funds to help us finish the job. Please contribute to the Legal Defense Fund TODAY!

Russell Peck
Team McCrory

The "malfunctions and irregularities" in Durham County may be troubling to Peck but they weren't the biggest problem for the campaign he was managing.

Take a look at the below numbers from the counties with the 4 largest cities in NC.

Of the four metro area counties, the vote share for the Democrat candidate was up the least in Durham County compared to 2012.  That's both in percentage terms and in raw numbers.  You'll also notice that Durham is consistently overwhelmingly Democrat with the Dem candidate capturing over 70% the past three election cycles.

Even if the recount request eventually does goes forward in Durham and even if it finds some issue, it doesn't pass the smell test that enough erroneous votes could possibly be found there to overcome Cooper's growing lead.

Rather than writing a check to Mr Peck, the fiscally conservative thing to do would be to keep one's money safely in their own bank account.

Roy Cooper's Political Bombshell

This past weekend the good folks over at WidenI77.org made public an Investigative Demand letter sent from AG Roy Cooper's office to I77 Mobility Partners/Cintra.

It's a very interesting read.

16 different demands for documents are made covering 3 main categoies.

• Information about I77 Mobility Partners' public communications plan.  For a project that was supposedly a "done deal" the firm has been sending out a lot of ads and press releases still "selling" the plan.
• Cintra's other failed projects in North America.  This would seem to be largely in reference to the issues brought up by Cornelius resident Diane Gilroy in a letter to Governor McCrory. Read the previous coverage at aShortChronicle on Gilroy's research here and here.
• Financial related questions about the project.  The AG's office wants to know more about how much money Cintra expects from the state as well as communications to the ratings agencies.  Read the previous coverage at aShortChronicle on the HOT lanes debt here.

All of these things have been questions/subjects aShortChronicle has been covering for months, so it's nice to see the AG's office finally catching up.

However, we want to point out something specific related to the first bullet listed above.  The one related to the ads.  The fifth demand is specific to lobbying and ad placement.

"5. All communications between You and Ross Communications, Mercury LLC, and any other firm engaged to advertise, lobby, or communicate to the public or third parties regarding the I-77 Express Lanes project."

Regular readers of aShortChronicle will recognize the name Mercury LLC.  The firm and its "man in NC", Russell Peck, have been covered here, here, and here over the past several months.

If Peck's name is ringing a bell more recently, that may be because he's reprising his role from 2012 as Governor Pat McCrory's campaign manager.

Having your campaign manager's firm involved in an official investigation conducted by your opponent can not be a good thing!

If/when that political bombshell gets dropped on the campaign trail by the mainstream media, it will be fun to watch.

Ad exposes Governor McCrory's very own "Den of Thieves"

"Den of thieves" was how one Facebook  poster responded to an ad from the Statesville Record & Landmark this Wednesday.

How could an ad engender such a response?

It can when it's another ad for the I77 HOT lanes, and it's an ad apparently placed by a company whose local point of contact has close ties to North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory.

Readers will remember this post from last month outlining all of the lobbyist connections surrounding the I77 HOT lanes project - connections that point to the state's highest elected official.

One of those connections was to a company named Mercury, LLC whose North Carolina point of contact is listed as one Russell Peck.  Peck served as McCrory's campaign manager in 2012.

In that original post, the only connection mentioned to Mercury was that the firm had done work in the past for one of Cintra's frequent business partners, an Australian company named Macquarie Infrastructures.  However, it now appears that Mercury may be doing work for Cintra on the I77 project.

The ad in Wednesday's Statesville paper closed the loop on this connection.

Below are images of two PDF files of the Statesville.com ad.

The first one is from Wednesday morning.  As you can clearly see, the heading on the file says Mercury, LLC - the same name as the governor's former campaign manager's firm.

Sometime Wednesday afternoon, the site changed to the image below.  The only difference in the file was who placed the ad.  It now says I77 Mobility, the Cintra subsidiary building the HOT lanes.

Can you say "Oops!!!"

Someone recognized their "error", then went in and made the change.

Folks, this explains a LOT.

Last year, Governor Pat blew off a letter from a majority of Lake Norman's Commissioners asking to delay signing commercial close with Cintra.  Most of those who signed the letter were fellow Republicans

Earlier this year, he ignored a rising crescendo of opposition to the project when he let his NCDOT sign the financial close.

Now, he is going around the state telling everyone there is no turning back.

These types of ads have been popping up everywhere.  Campaign-style mailers.  Web ads.  Letters.  It is hard to turn around these days without coming across something from Cintra/I77 Mobility/Mercury(?).

In addition to the ads in the Statesville paper, Cintra/I77 Mobility/Mercury(?) took out full page ads this week in current weekly papers in North Mecklenburg.

They are in hardcore selling mode on a project that supposedly cannot be stopped.

The question is "Why???"

At least part of that answer would now appear to be good old fashioned cronyism.  Somebody pays for these ads.  Somebody gets paid to make them.  Somebody gets paid to place them.

Now, it looks like that somebody may have a direct connection to the Governor's Mansion.

The fact that the "error" on Statesville.com just happened to involve a company with the same name as a firm with close ties to the governor sure is a big coincidence if it were in fact not the actual case.  It is too big a coincidence for any reasonable person to believe.

So, next time you see one of these ads, do this.

While channelling your best archvillain Gru from the Despicable Me cartoons, add this tagline...

"Brought to you by Governor Pat McCrory and his band of minions."

Doing that will make all of this make a lot more sense.  Using the Gru voice might also make you feel the slightest bit better about such a villainous situation.

Speaking of villains and dens of thieves...

"Den of Thieves" was the title of a book outlining corruption on Wall Street in the 1980's - insider trading and the like.  People will remember forever the names Ivan Boesky and Michael Milkin as the real-life archvillains of that era.

One has to wonder what names will be remembered similarly here in North Carolina before this tale of I77 HOT lanes is all over.