By By JONATHAN CLAYBORNE
Staff Writer
State Rep. Nelson Dollar, R-Wake, could be accused of going far afield in his quotation of Democratic strategist James Carville, but the point wasn’t lost on his Republican audience.
Dollar quoted Carville in remarks to the Down East Republicans on Monday night, noting that the Democrat said the 1992 presidential election gave President-elect Bill Clinton “an opportunity, not a mandate.”
Clinton’s “liberal ideas” caught up with his party when the GOP swept Congress in 1994, Dollar told around 23 members and guests of the Down East political club at a Washington restaurant.
The Cary representative expects to see that scenario repeated — or exceeded — in this year’s midterm elections.
Congressional Democrats have “overreached” since their wins in 2006 and 2008, he contends.
“They took it as a mandate to unleash a liberal agenda,” Dollar said.
Despite his references to national politics, Dollar focused largely on state gains he insists the GOP can make with a disgruntled electorate bothered by a still-faltering economy and the White House’s focus on health-care reform.
He mentioned a number of recent Republican gains, including the capture of the Senate seat — once held by Sen. Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy of Massachusetts — by Republican Scott Brown. Kennedy, a Democrat and known as the “liberal lion of the Senate,” died last year.
“I believe it shows that folks are having buyer’s remorse,” Dollar said. “They are ready for the Republicans to come back a lot sooner than they thought.”
In an interview before the meeting, Dollar said the GOP hopes to pick up at least a dozen seats in the N.C. House, though the party could capture a majority of the House seats by gaining at least nine seats.
The Democrats currently enjoy a 68-52 advantage in that body, he noted.
“We’re interested in picking up seats all across the state,” he related. “A host of members on the Democratic side are vulnerable in this election environment.”
Later, Dollar indicated his party needs to make progress in the east in order to obtain a crucial 61-vote advantage in the House.
He mentioned three key House districts in the area, implying that one of those districts is state House District 6, held by Rep. Arthur Williams, D-Beaufort.
“We need to realistically win at least two of these three seats in order to have a majority in the House,” Dollar stated.
The majority elects the House speaker, who controls committee appointments and has a hand in which bills make it to the floor, he pointed out.
“We’ve been waiting a hundred years,” he said. “It’s time to do it, and this is our time.”
During the question-and-answer portion of the meeting, Hood Richardson, a Republican Beaufort County commissioner, asked why the state GOP hadn’t raised more money for local races from outside state Senate District 1.
District 1 is represented by Sen. Marc Basnight, D-Dare.
Basnight, president pro tempore of the Senate, is the “linchpin” of the Democrats’ control of the General Assembly because he raises large amounts of campaign cash and contributes funds to other candidates in his party, Richardson said.
“He is the most important person in the whole state,” but the N.C. GOP won’t focus on a viable candidate to oppose him, Richardson asserted.
Dollar said local candidates had gone for several election cycles without funds to “properly resource campaigns.”
He said the GOP caucus is coming together “at the state level like I have not seen since ’94.”
He added that Republican office hopefuls don’t have to match their Democratic opponents dollar for dollar.
“You just have to have enough money to get your message out,” he said.