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The Haywood Chamber of Commerce is currently accepting applications for the 2021 class of Leadership Haywood. This 9-month program takes an intensive look into the social, economic, and political dynamics and their impact on our community. This leadership development program is geared towards equipping both rising and experienced leaders with tools, information, and training to be successful. Participants are selected through an application process based upon their civic involvement, leadership potential/experience, and commitment to the leadership program and community.
Start Date: Sept. 15
Application Deadline: Sept. 1
Smoky Mountain News
July 21-27, 2021
Contact CeCe Hipps, President, if you have questions or would like more information about the program. Chipps@HaywoodChamber.com or 828.456.3021 ext. 1004
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Karl Rove talks Trump, Cawthorn, NC11 BY CORY VAILLANCOURT POLITICS E DITOR nown mostly to the current generation as a political pundit and frequent television/radio/newspaper commentator, Karl Rove has roots in Republican advocacy that predate the Nixon administration. Rove is probably best recognized for his close association with the Bush family dynasty, which more or less began when George H.W. Bush appointed Rove as chairman of the College Republicans in 1973. Rove went on to advise George W. Bush during an unsuccessful congressional bid in 1978, and proceeded to work on H.W.’s failed 1980 presidential bid. That relationship ultimately culminated with Rove accepting an offer to serve as a senior adviser to President George W. Bush. Since then, he’s worked on behalf of conservative candidates across the nation, earning a reputation as an astute strategist. His company, Karl Rove & Co., is based in Austin. A few weeks ago, Rove spoke via Zoom to around 200 Republicans gathered for the NC11 executive committee meeting in Hendersonville, including Rep. Madison Cawthorn. Earlier this week, Rove took some time to talk with The Smoky Mountain News about the issues, personalities and particulars of the upcoming 2022 election.
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The Smoky Mountain News: You’ve had a long career as a Republican strategist, and during that time there’s been a tone shift in the Republican Party to more populist ideals. How long do you think that will last? Karl Rove: We’ll see. Populism tends to transmute itself into something else and fade away. The populist strains fade away. I suspect that’ll be here, but the question is what kind of policies are going to be left behind if it does? What’s interesting to me is the populism of the last administration has resulted in language supported by both major political parties regarding China. There’s a much different attitude towards China, at least from public policy perspective today than there was, say 10 years ago. I think in part that’s because the populist expression inside the Republican Party was the rise of Donald Trump. But I think it’s also sort of a reaction of people in both parties to the rhetoric and actions of Xi [Jinping, president of China] and 2012 represents a real hinge point in China. It was going one direction before, and it’s gone in a distinctly different direction since the rise of Xi as first the vice president and now the head of the Communist Party. SMN: We’re starting to get into the 2022 election season. We’ve already seen almost 30 states tighten up laws regarding voting. Do you think it’s the responsibility of the government to make voting easier?
KR: I’d take a little bit of a disagreement with you that they tightened them up. For example, here in Texas, HB 3, the bill that’s before the House of Representatives, expands the number of hours that are available for early voting in Texas on weekdays and expands the number of hours dramatically on weekends. Used to be, the rules for weekend early voting applied to counties with 100,000 population. Now they apply as to counties with 55,000 or more population, and they also expanded the number of hours that are available in those counties. The measures that the Democrats call voter suppression are reaffirmations of existing state law. SMN: We can probably disagree on the semantics of whether the laws are tightening things up or making things more difficult or not but I think we can agree that this is an issue that Democrats are going to push in 2022. What’s the single largest issue for Republicans outside of the voting debate for 2022? KR: My hope is that the voting debate is not a big part of the 2022 election. If it is, it’ll be to the advantage of the Republicans because Democrats oppose things, like voter ID, which are universally supported. The Republicans do need to be able to say, “We want to make it easier to vote and tougher to steal.” That that ought to be their slogan. The big issues are going to be the economy, they’re going to be inflation, they’re going to be the growth of government and they’re going to be taxes. I suspect also there’s going to be a big component of international in there, whether it is the fall of Afghanistan or the threats represented by China or the circumstances in the Middle East. And then healthcare is going to be an issue. It always tends to be, in recent elections, and my sense is immigration is continuing to be an issue. This problem, along the border — I live in Texas. I’m pro-immigration. I believe that immigrants come to the United States and make our country better, but what I see in the uncontrolled migration on the border is a real problem and it’s not going to go away. SMN: Speaking of Texas, were you at CPAC in Dallas the other week? KR: No, there was a couple hundred people there. I had better things to do that weekend. Like take my wife to Italy. SMN: That is a better thing to do than visit Dallas in July. But at CPAC there was an informal straw poll gauging support for President Trump that put support for him at 70 percent of Republicans. My work in this district suggests that number could be much higher. What’s your take on that? KR: There were like, several hundred people at Dallas. We
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