NC Lt. Gov. Dan Forest's Campaign Torches Gov. Roy Cooper for Fundraising Email Sent as Jobless Numbers Surge (Watch)

FILE – In a Feb. 6, 2019 file photo, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper speaks with reporters after testifying before the House Natural Resources Committee hearing on climate change, on Capitol Hill. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

I’ve seen a lot of videos done by politicians and their campaigns in my time. Most are run of the mill stuff, standard fare, nothing much to write home about.

But a video done this week by the campaign manager for North Carolina Lt. Gov. Dan Forest’s (R) gubernatorial campaign is an exception to that rule.

Forest’s Democratic opponent, of course, is Gov. Roy Cooper, who has been giving daily press briefings for the last several weeks about how the Wuhan coronavirus has been impacting our state.

Cooper, as you may recall from my prior posts about him, has been one of those Democratic governors who hasn’t been very forthcoming about the data the state has been using to continue justifying their stay at home orders, orders that have left hundreds of thousands without jobs.

Related to that and on the issue of political protests and churchgoing, the governor has acted like an authoritarian, urging counties to be even stricter than the state if necessary.

He’s also given the go ahead for the police to arrest any “Reopen NC” protester or churchgoer who doesn’t follow social distancing guidelines and/or who is part of a group of more than 10 who refuse to disperse.

So with that in mind, and with the knowledge that well over 600,000 North Carolinans have filed for unemployment thanks in part to his continued insistence on keeping all but “essential” services/businesses closed until he finds it “appropriate” to reopen, it was rather tone deaf for the Cooper campaign to fire off a fundraising email last Thursday telling the people of this state that Cooper “fell short of our mid-month deadline by $4,787” and asking for them to make up the difference:

Gov. Cooper sent out a campaign fundraising email late last week asking North Carolinians to get him over a fundraising finish line. How he could send out an email like this knowing over 600,000 struggling NCians have filed for unemployment is astonishing to me. #ncpol #ncgov pic.twitter.com/RsBnD9ovBc

— Sister Toldjah 😁 (@sistertoldjah) April 21, 2020

Forest’s campaign manager Hal Weatherman responded Monday with a scathing video that, while acknowledging the need to fundraise, noted that it was “tasteless” to do it at this time – especially considering it was done on the same day the North Carolina Department of Commerce announced 620,000 North Carolinans had filed for unemployment as result of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.

He want on to state that there were people across the state who, too, “fell short” of their financial goals, but in a much more different, personal, and painful way. Many can’t put food on the table for their loved ones, and business owners were forced to lay off employees who were like family to them. Weatherman also mentioned the staggering amount of people who have been lining up at food banks thanks to the executive orders Cooper has put in place.

Weatherman also pointed out that the Forest campaign suspended all fundraising activities last month, and has since donated a considerable amount of money from their campaign ($200,000) to help small businesses across the state survive the crisis.

Watch the clip below: