

After coming to Washington, D.C., earlier this month to discuss his possible candidacy with the National Republican Congressional Committee, former Carolina Panthers star safety Mike Minter has decided to pass on the race, a spokeswoman said last week.



Minter had contemplated challenging freshman Rep. Larry Kissell (D) in his Charlotte-based district. While Kissell took 55 percent against then-Rep. Robin Hayes (R) last November, President Barack Obama carried the district with just 52 percent. Some Republicans believed that Minter, who is black, would have performed well and would have been able to cut into Kissell’s base in the district, which has a nearly 27 percent black population.

You may have noticed that a couple weeks ago I was worried that the GOP had actually managed to recruit a top tier candidate somewhere-- and in a crucial race no less. Well-liked ex-football star, Mike Minter, was making noises about running against Larry Kissell in North Carolina. He went up to DC and met with Pete Sessions and his crew of desperate losers at the NRCC. Kissell doesn't have much money and the NRCC promised Minter that they'd break open the piggy bank if he ran. Friday we reported the rumor that Minter was so unimpressed with the NRCC that he actually changed his mind about running!Well, today Roll Call confirmed the rumor, although they didn't mention that Minter thought Sessions was the stupidest honky glad-hander he'd ever met in his life.The NRCC has been trying to recruit viable candidates in Republican-leaning-- and even solidly red-- districts, but they keep getting the doors slammed in their face. Idaho Treasurer Ron Crane backed off running against the weakest Democrat in the House, Blue Dog Walt Minnick, in a district where Obama only won 36% of the vote. McCain also won in the central Florida district represented by Suzanne Kosmas but the head of the Florida Republican Party, Jim Greer, begged off even after the NRCC told him that he's the only Republican with a shot at beating her. State Rep Adam Hasner was sniffing around Ron Klein's district but the second he figured out that Klein wasn't going to run for the Senate, he stopped taking the NRCC's calls. And any hopes the GOP had to take back the huge New Jersey CD that stretches from the Philly suburbs through Burlington and Ocean counties to the Atlantic Ocean, were sunk when prospective self-funding multimillionaire John Culbertson begged off.Instead the Republicans are going to wind up with a gaggle of KKK and lunatic fringe nutcases as their 2010 candidates which will further weaken the already dim prospects of statewide candidates for the Senate like Richard Burr (ID), Jim Bunning (KY), Charie Crist or Marco Rubio (FL), Rob Portman (OH), Roy Blunt (MO) and the rest of their sad-sack cases.

Labels: 2010 congressional races, Larry Kissell, Mike Minter, NRCC