No, it’s not former senator and current presidential candidate John Edwards. It’s that guy in the background there. The Santa Claus-y looking guy with the white hair and beard. His name is Randy Flack.
Some of you may recognize him. He was the man at U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler’s right hand last year during Shuler’s upset campaign in which he unseated Charles Taylor. Variously described as friend, advisor and spokesman, Randy Flack was always right there.
Now Flack appears ready to step out of the background and into the fore to run for party chairman here in Buncombe County. The timing seems right. The local party seems much more together and energized than in recent years. The party exudes a certain amount of confidence. There’s a momentum there, due in part to last year’s local and national Democratic victories.
The party momentum is a far cry from the blood-letting and back-door dealing we recall from some past elections for chairman. It seemed to go either of two ways – either everybody had decided well ahead of time who was going to be chairman, and the county convention held in the Buncombe County Courthouse was a mere formality. Or there was contentious in-fighting that left party faithful split.
There was J. Ray Elingburg running for chairman. There was the young guy running and winning – the former owner of 72 dpi in town. What was his name? There was Bruce Peterson as chairman. Max Haner is chairman now.
So here have Randy Flack, somebody we never heard of in Democratic Party circles until Shuler’s campaign last year. We don’t know Flack. We’ve barely talked to him. So what’s his deal?
The ever insightful Scrutiny Hooligans, who told us about Flack’s run for chairman, sees Flack as a bridge. We think that’s probably right. A bridge between the old forces of the party and the newer blood. Somebody who can keep the party together and moving ahead.
The local party conventions for both Dems and Republicans isn’t until April. So Flack, right now running unopposed, won’t ascend to his new position until then. But the party faithful continue to organize and prepare for ’08. The sense is that Flack’s election to chairman is another victory along the way to bigger wins next year.
4 Comments
Go Randy!
But what’s with the fake bake, Johnny?
Mr. Flack can also be seen frequenting the Green Radio Bistro show on Tuesday nights in the Greenlife grocery at 7pm. He’s a big environmentalist and cares a lot about conservation. I also hear he’s a pretty good musician 🙂
Thanks for writing about this. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Randy Flack was contacting precinct chairs through letters. In the past, these decisions were made secretively, and it’s refreshing to have Randy coming out into the open with it.
Yeah, except for those precincts which are "not organized" like mine.
http://ashevillian.blogspot.com/2007/02/oh-boy.html