Photo : Chuck Burton ( AP )

Last year, Dan McCready was the Democratic congressional candidate for North Carolina’s Ninth District. Because of election fraud which helped the Republican candidate barely “beat” him in November, McCready is running in a new special election for the seat. Dan McCready is also not a very smart man.




On Wednesday evening, the Charlotte TV station WSOC reported that McCready had returned a $2,000 donation from fellow Democrat Ilhan Omar that was made on the day of the first election, November 6. Why? Per WSOC:

﻿A spokesperson said McCready refunded the donation because he believes there is no place for divisiveness in politics, and McCready did not feel it is appropriate to accept the donation.




There is no place for divisiveness in politics. There is no place for divisiveness in politics. There is no place for divisiveness...in politics. I’m having a goddamn stroke.

The more likely scenario: On March 26, one of the Republicans vying to take on McCready, state Sen. Dan Bishop, whose campaign appears to be centered around the fact that both he and McCready have the first name “Dan,” released a web ad which attempted to tie McCready to the Democratic left, including Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Bernie Sanders. McCready returned the Omar donation four days later, on March 30. (Omar, who raised an eye- popping $832,000 in the first quarter of 2019, has also made several other donations to swing district Democrats.)

To be clear, you would have a hard time finding a more milquetoast moderate in Mecklenburg County than Dan McCready. Nevertheless, this was the response from Bishop, who’s best known in North Carolina for authoring the infamous anti-trans, anti-worker HB 2 in 2016 and also funding the Twitter-for-white-supremacists website Gab:


McCready then tweeted out his own explanation, that he returned the donation before Omar had been deluged with attacks from President Donald Trump, and that he did so because he disagreed with “any anti-semitic comments.”


Omar’s attacks, as she’s clarified repeatedly, have been aimed at AIPAC and the pro-Israel lobby in the United States.

This isn’t just dumb politics; it’s remarkably cowardly. Returning the donation and then throwing Omar—a Muslim woman already facing a mountain of death threats—under the bus, all in an attempt to not be seen as one of those “crazy” left-wingers, is just incredibly shameful. How can anyone in this district expect McCready to stand up for their healthcare when he can’t even stand up for a fellow Democrat against bad-faith attacks from bigots like Dan Bishop and the like?


The special election is September 10. Hopefully by that time, McCready gets some perspective.