Election Day is here! You can vote today at one of the one-stop absentee voting sites in Cleveland County – in fact, you can register and vote same day.  For a schedule and locations of early voting sites, click HERE.

The Cleveland County GOP will meet on Monday, October 11 at 7PM in Commissioner’s Chambers in the County Administration Building, 3111 East Marion Street in Shelby. The public is invited.

The Cleveland County Republican Party will officially open its headquarters on September 20, 2010 at 6 PM. The public is invited to an informal drop in. Headquarters is located at 1508-3 East Dixon Boulevard, between Showmars and J&E Auto Sales.

Western North Carolina Victory Director, Amanda Pettingill will present a brief overview of how we will fit into the Victory strategy, and kick off our phone banks. We need all volunteers for all campaigns in attendance.

Headquarters will be open from 10 AM until 5 PM Monday through Friday and 9AM until 1 PM on Saturday. Hours will expand during October.

Please join NCGOP Chairman Tom Fetzer and Republican leaders and candidates as they bring their statewide tour to western North Carolina on Monday, September 13th.

This year represents a historic opportunity for Republicans to win a majority in both houses of the General Assembly for the first time in over a century.  Western North Carolina is uniquely impacted by this election in that several competitive races exist in legislative districts in that region of the state.  As part of their “100 Days That Will Change North Carolina” tour, NCGOP Chairman Fetzer and Republican legislative leaders and candidates will be traveling across Western N.C. to build grassroots and media support for targeted legislative candidates.

In addition to incumbents Senator Debbie Clary (Senate District 46) and Representative Tim Moore (House District 111), the following four candidates will be featured at the event on Monday, September 13^th: Kathy Harrington (Senate District 43), Warren Daniel (Senate District 44), Kelly Hastings (House District 110) and Mike Hager (House District 112).  We look forward to hearing from these stellar conservative incumbents and candidates, and we hope you will join us.

Details regarding the tour stop are as follows:

“100 Days That Will Change North Carolina” Statewide TourMonday, September 13^th6:00 – 7:30 p.m.
Family Worship Center
1818 Shelby Road
Kings Mountain, NC 28086
**Dinner: $5.00 per person to offset food costs, first 50 Young Republicans (full time students) are paid for by Senator Clary!

Please call the NCGOP office at (919) 828-6423, or Cleveland County GOP at (704) 484-2GOP  if you have any questions or need additional information.

Marvin Rogers, author of Silence Makes the Loudest Sound, A conversation between African Americans and the Republican Party, will be the guest speaker at our next meeting on August 9. In his book, Rogers turns his frustration with the “easy answers” into a captivating account of the storied relationship between this American race and American political party. Rogers’ perspective at the intersection of race and politics in America is so unique that it caught the attention of Washington Post syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker and NPR correspondent Adam Hochberg. Both journalists subsequently wrote and broadcasted feature stories about the author.

Rogers has served as a Republican activist and as an advocate for at-risk youth and the impoverished since the late 1990s. Rogers is well-versed in the strong Republican civil rights leadership of the late 1800s as well as the emotionally-charged disconnect that currently defines the relationship between African Americans and Republicans. Personal curiosity compelled Rogers investigate what happened between this American race and American political party between the late 1800s and the early twenty-first century. Silence Makes the Loudest Sound is the result of Rogers’ thorough research. In light of the viral interest that his debut book has generated, Rogers states, “the flood of responses that I’m receiving from all over the nation has utterly convinced me that the theme of this book is stimulating a conversation that America is very eager to have.”

The meeting will be held August 9, at 7 PM in Commissioner’s Chambers in the County Administration Building, 3111 East Marion Street in Shelby.

Representative Thom Tillis will be the featured speaker at the next meeting of the Cleveland County Republican Party, on July 12 at J. Oliver’s in Kings Mountain. The meeting will begin at 7 PM; the public is invited to attend.

Since being elected in 2006, Thom has distinguished himself as a hard-working representative in the legislature.  At the end of his freshman term, Thom was elected to the House Republican Whip, one of two elected leadership positions in the House Republican Caucus.

Thom has been appointed to several important House and joint House/Senate committees, including the Finance, Banking and Financial Institutions, Judiciary, Education, Science and Technology, Ways and Means/Broadband, Information Technology Oversight, Emergency and Disaster Preparedness Oversight, Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Oversight, Internet Access to Rural Areas Oversight, and Local Government committees.

Thom has established himself as a rock solid fiscal/free-market conservative and an outspoken opponent of tax increases and wasteful government spending.  At the same time, Thom has also demonstrated an ability to work across the aisle to pass important legislation, and he has established a solid reputation for professionalism.

Thom will speak on the importance of this election cycle for North Carolina.

For more information, contact Wes Westmoreland at 704-484-2GOP or online at ccgop.com.

June 29- For all Don Allen supporters!

Don Allen will have a meeting on Tuesday, June 29th for anyone who would like to assist in his campaign. The meeting will be held at the Western Sizzlin’, 1712 E Dixon Blvd., Shelby. The meeting is scheduled for 7:00PM but you are all welcome to come early and eat.

Join Hastings supporters including, current, future, and former members of the N.C. House of Representatives – (partial list) U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry, Paul Stam (Leader), Thom Tillis (Whip), Tim Moore, Frank Iler, Darrell McCormick, Ruth Samuelson, Mitch Gillespie, Ric Killian, David Lewis, Johnathan Rhyne, Bill McGee, Bryan Holloway, Larry Brown, Leo Daughtry, Fred Steen, David Guice, Mark Hilton, Jerry Dockham, Hugh Blackwell, Justin Burr, Ed McMahan, John Torbett, John Weatherly

When: Friday, June 25, 2010 – 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Where: 1650 Shelby Highway, Cherryville, N.C. (Highway 150 – at the Cleveland-Gaston line; parking on the property or behind the home off Doc Wehunt Road)

Please contact us if you have already contributed in the 2010 primary and/or general election. Those contributions will be used to meet the minimum amount for this event.

To RSVP, call (704) 473-3468 or use Kelly@KellyHastings.com to e-mail. Visit www.kellyhastings.com or Facebook for more information. (Appetizers and casual dress)

At our next meeting, we welcome back a friend, Hal Weatherman, who will speak on terrorism & immigration. The meeting will be held in the Ritch Banquet Hall in the Dover Campus Center at Gardner-Webb University, at 7PM (building #55 on this map). The public is invited to attend.

Hal Weatherman is the Chief of Staff for United States Representative Sue Myrick. In this capacity, he oversees the operations of Rep. Myrick’s 20 staff members located in Charlotte, Gastonia and Washington, DC. Hal is a graduate of Wake Forest University and received his Masters Degree from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. A published author, Hal’s first book, The Job Search Organizer, was published nationwide by NTC Career Press. Hal chronicles his daily life in politics at halweatherman.com. Hal, his wife Michelle, and their three children, Hayes, Skyler and Kit, reside in Charlotte.

This will be a good program, and a good program to invite someone to attend with you.

The next meeting of the CCGOP will be May 10- and it promises to be one of our most informative of the year- so far.  The topic will be what ObamaCare means to North Carolina. Joe Coletti, Director of Fiscal and Health Care Studies for the John Locke Foundation will be the guest speaker.  Joe will discuss the impact of ObamaCare on North Carolina and our counties. The meeting will be held May 10,  in Commissioner’s Chambers at the County Administration Building, 311 East Marion Street in Shelby at 7 PM. The public and media are invited.

Coletti has authored reports on the state’s spend-and-tax budgeting cycle, better ways to fund roads and schools, the earned-income tax credit, business incentives, tax-increment financing, government employee compensation, and an early look (in July 2005) at the infamous feasibility study behind the Randy Parton Theatre in Roanoke Rapids.

In health policy, Coletti has examined Medicaid spending, offered ways to fund the state’s High Risk Pool without new taxes. He has also written on consumer-based health reforms, long-term care, and the state’s mental health system.

His writing has been in publications such as Health Care News, Global Corporate Xpansion, and the Leland Tribune. He has spoken at health care and tax policy conferences, civic groups across the state, and appeared on radio and television including WUNC’s The State of Things and CNBC Asia.

The CCGOP Executive Committee will meet at 6:30 the same evening in the Lane Alexander room.