WataugaWatch

From inside the local Republican machine comes news that a recent county executive meeting was attended by one Joey Stansbury, currently a registered voter in Wake County, a self-described "political organizer," and currently a student at Campbell University's School of Law.

Stansbury is a 1994 graduate of UNC with a degree in political science. He's worked for Congressman Walter Jones's campaign and with the John William Pope Foundation, principal funder of the John Locke Foundation, and the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, various fronts for an extreme right-wing political agenda. In 2004 Stansbury was appointed the new director of the Pope Center's satellite office in Chapel Hill. It's primary function, one block off the UNC campus, appears to have been the monitoring of "liberal bias" among the academic elite. Some called such "monitoring" intimidation.

(Prior to Stansbury's appointment to the Pope Center satellite in Chapel Hill, the Pope people launched a very public crusade against Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickle & Dimed," chosen as a book for university freshmen summer reading in 2003 -- the same book was also chosen for ASU's summer reading program that year too. "Nickle & Dimed," a first-person account of working for hourly wages in America, was attacked as part of a liberal plot to indoctrinate students against wage slavery.)

For a handle on the sort of political activism Mr. Stansbury has advocated in the past, at the 12th Annual Eagle Forum Collegian Summit on Capitol Hill in 2005, he "offered methods by which conservative students can pressure their campus administrators. He emphasized that the most powerful way to fight campus liberals is off campus, taking legal action when necessary. He stressed the power of embarrassment, urging students to contact various forms of local media, including talk radio programs and newspapers to publicize liberal atrocities. He wrapped up his speech by encouraging students to solicit donations from people who would be excited to donate to a conservative cause, explaining to students that there is much more money 'out there' that would be willing to support their endeavors than they might realize."

Is Mr. Stansbury's presence here part of the revitalization of the Republican Party we've been hearing so much about?