North Carolina was not expected to be a hotbed of political activity this midterm season, but both parties are dealing with unexpected drama and intrigue in the race for the House seat held by Democratic Rep. Larry Kissell.
A union-backed effort to start a third party in the state to punish conservative Democrats has stalled, but Wendell Fant, an Iraq War veteran and former member of Mr. Kissell’s staff, is being wooed by the state’s labor movement who want to back his independent run for the seat.
On the Republican side, the “tea party”-backed candidate Tim D’Annunzio is locked in a primary runoff with former television sportscaster Harold Johnson, who is backed by the party establishment. GOP leaders are fearful Mr. D’Annunzio’s colorful background will undermine their effort to unseat the freshman Democrat in a district the party had dominated for decades before 2008. The GOP runoff will be held June 22.
On Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that party leaders publicized court documents about Mr. D’Annunzio’s past legal, marital and business troubles and denounced him as unfit for office.
“Mr. D’Annunzio has disqualified himself by his background, his record and his behavior,” said Tom Fetzer, North Carolina’s Republican Party chairman. He said the party embraces the tea party but doesn’t believe a person with such a checkered past should be the party’s nominee.
In Hoke County divorce records, Mr. D’Annunzio’s wife said in 1995 that he had claimed to be the Messiah, had traveled to New Jersey to raise his stepfather from the dead, believed God would drop a 1,000-mile-high pyramid as the New Jerusalem on Greenland and found the Ark of the Covenant in Arizona. A doctor’s evaluation the following month said Mr. D’Annunzio used marijuana almost daily, had been living with another woman for several months, had once been in drug treatment for heroin dependence and was jailed a couple of times as a teenager.
Mr. D’Annunzio, who outpolled Mr. Johnson in the primary but did not reach the threshold to avoid a runoff, responded Wednesday by canceling a previously scheduled debate with his Republican rival.
“Based on our attorney’s advice and due to the collaboration between the Harold Johnson campaign and the news media to use partial truth, innuendo and accusations to unfairly smear me, I have decided to withdraw from the debate,” he said.
Mr. Fant’s relationship with Mr. Kissell, his former boss, is also tangled. Mr. Fant said he resigned from Mr. Kissell’s staff to avoid being fired, but insisted he had not been fairly treated.
Mr. Fant said he stepped down after being accused of using his position in the lawmaker’s office for “personal gains.” He said he used his House e-mail account to ask about his Veterans Administration injury claims, but he said the agency had already made a determination about his case before his inquiry.
“My goal was not to get the office involved,” said Mr. Fant, a deputy director who worked in a district office.
Mr. Kissell’s office did not return a call for comment.
Mr. Fant may be getting support from North Carolina First, an alliance of the Service Employees International Union and local affiliate State Employees Association of North Carolina. The union groups originally announced plans to form a third party to challenge three House Democrats who opposed President Obama’s health care law - Reps. Heath Shuler, Mike McIntyre and Mr. Kissell.
But organizers of the proposed North Carolina First party failed to collect roughly 85,000 signatures by May 17 needed to establish a new political party. Still, the campaign has not given up on recruiting independent candidates to take on targeted incumbents.
North Carolina First must collect about 17,000 signatures by June 25 to put an independent candidate on the November ballot.
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