By By JONATHAN CLAYBORNE
Staff Writer
For some people, it’s vacation season — but with critical midterm elections approaching, Beaufort County’s two main political parties aren’t taking the summer off.
November’s balloting could determine which party holds control of governing bodies from Congress down to the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners, and, with prizes like those up for grabs, neither party is taking the sweltering campaign months for granted.
The Beaufort County Republican Party is preparing to deploy 12 promotional signs around the county — perhaps as soon as Friday — as part of an attempt to rally voters to its cause.
According to party Chairman Larry Britt, the 4-by-8-foot signs will sport messages like, “Had enough taxes? Vote Republican.”
The GOP will assess the effect of this endeavor, and it might post more signs later if public response warrants such a move, he said.
“I think our job is to promote the Republican Party,” Britt commented. “The candidates, we’re going to, of course, promote them, but our main job is to promote Republican ideals and the Republican Party.”
The Beaufort County Democratic Party is planning a phone-bank session for July 10, said Alice Mills Sadler, party chairwoman.
The initiative, sponsored by the local party and run through its Market Street headquarters in Washington, will focus on getting voters to mark ballots for Democrats in state-level races, Sadler related.
“We’ve not done anything local yet,” she said, speaking of phone banks. “We’re trying to let our candidates get all of their kick-off affairs done.”
One thing both parties need is the oil that lubricates political mechanisms — money.
With this in mind, the Democrats will hold a fundraiser in Sadler’s backyard July 27.
Titled “a backyard bash,” the event will pump much-needed funds into the party’s coffers, Sadler hopes.
Right now, the Dems’ executive committee is doing its work in the most cost-effective manner possible, she indicated.
“All we’re doing is handling everything through the normal expenses of having the headquarters open,” she said, adding the cost of a headquarters should run around $4,000.
The party has yet to pour cash into printed materials and advertisements, she said.
The GOP hopes to surpass its earlier-revealed, $7,000 fundraising goal, Britt confirmed.
“We’re going to spend everything we have,” he said. “This is the kind of election that’s worth everything we have.”
Some candidates have reported being short of vital cash for their campaigns.
At last report, commissioner candidates Jerry Evans and Bertie Arnhols were the only two candidates to surpass the $1,000 campaign-reporting threshold so far this election cycle.
Evans, a Democrat, had raised $2,800, while Arnhols, an unaffiliated candidate, had raised more than $2,600 through the next to last week of April.
As campaigns become more expensive with each passing election cycle, it’s common for commissioner candidates to spend more than $1,000 apiece.
Yet, with the economy still in the doldrums, some candidates are reporting difficulty convincing their supporters to open their wallets.
State and local candidates’ next quarterly campaign reports are due July 12, said Kellie Harris Hopkins, Beaufort County’s elections director.
Last week, during the Down East Republican Club’s monthly meeting, GOP executive committee member Jackie Van Essendelft pointed to this need for money, asking Britt if the county’s Republican clubs could place office-seekers’ fundraising envelopes on tables at their sessions during the next few months.
“Maybe without feeling it too much we could support their campaigns a little bit,” Van Essendelft said.
“Absolutely,” Britt replied.
Another topic that emerged in last week’s Down East meeting reads like an extension of the ideological-purity tests being applied to conservative candidates nationwide.
“We’ve made a mistake in the past of electing people and letting them go out and do their own thing,” Britt told club guests and members.
On Wednesday, Britt illuminated his belief that the GOP has elected a number of Republicans who turned out to be too friendly to Democratic ideals, especially in the state Legislature and in Congress.
“I think candidates in the Republican Party, for the most part, have gotten the message,” he said. “That isn’t going to happen again.”
For her part, Sadler still thinks the Dems have a good chance of recapturing a majority on the county board, one of the party’s stated goals for the year.
“We’ve got some strong candidates on the ticket that are popular among Democrats and Republicans,” she said. “We’ve got candidates, I think, that have a pull across party lines, and that’s helpful.”