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By Ron Fitzwater
With friends, family and well-wishers standing at his side in
the rotunda of the Ashe County Courthouse, Roy
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Friends, family and supporters join
Democratic Congressional Candidate Roy Carter in a moment
of prayer in the rotunda of the Ashe County Courthouse
before his official filing for the 5th Congressional District
seat cur-rently held by Republican Virginia Foxx. Photo
by Ron Fitzwater
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Carter officially threw his hat in the 5th Congressional District
ring and put incumbent Congresswoman Virginia Foxx on notice.
"I am filing on the first day possible and at the first possible
moment because I feel our district cannot afford to suffer even
one more day of Foxx's failed leadership and callous disregard
for her constituents," Carter said.
Carter's appearance at the courthouse was a formality in the administrative
process of entering the race and filing was to be completed in
Raleigh later in the day.
Following the short ceremony, the candidate and his supporters
gathered at the home of Diane and Mark Johnson in Jefferson for
a reception. Mr. Johnson is a Jefferson town Alderman.
At the reception Carter spoke about his hopes and plans and about
what brought him to the decision to run for the traditionally
Republican seat.
"After living in this district for the last several years
and being involved with young people for 40 years, the cal-lous
votes of Virginia Foxx just kept stirring me emotionally,"
Carter said.
Carter pointed out that shortcomings in education and healthcare
had gotten to unacceptable levels and that the only way to address
the problems was with a fresh approach.
On the two hottest topics of this election cycle Carter called
the war in Iraq a needless war that is killing the US economy
and depleting the preparedness of the military and something "we
need to get out of as fast as we can."
"I am prepared to support an end to the war as soon as possible
and within a matter of months. Some people are saying that we
are making gains with the surge. I say the surge is getting us
back to where we were before it started. We cannot stay in Iraq
with a tremendous force for the next five or ten years without
destroying our total economy. And as far as our military readiness,
the Pentagon said this week that we are not ready to face the
next wave of terrorism because of our involvement in Iraq."
Carter believes that the US dropped the ball when they transferred
their attention from Afghanistan to Iraq and would support the
redeployment of US forces to Afghanistan and Pakistan to root
out terrorist groups and cap-ture Osama Bin Laden.
"We are the greatest nation on the face of the earth and
we can't find OBL? I find that hard to believe. If we took all
the people out of Iraq and send them into Afghanistan and Pakistan
in two weeks we'll have him," Carter said.
On the issue of illegal immigration Carter said that there was
just no simple answer to the problem despite what some people
might think. The first step according to the candidate is to secure
the borders.
"We must secure the borders first, but people like my opponent
think they can load up the school busses, Trail-ways, vans and
trucks and haul them all back to Mexico without securing the borders.
Well, half of them are go-ing to beat us back."
Carter feels that for the security and economic wellbeing of the
country there must be a good guest worker pro-gram.
"If we don't have a good guest worker program people are
going to be paying $7 for a head of lettuce because we don't have
the workforce. We must also have a way of knowing who is in our
country and who is doing the work and the only way we can do that
is through a good guest worker program," Carter said adding,
"right here in Ashe County, according to one of the high
officials in the Christmas Tree Association, there are big farms
employing 75 percent illegal workers. But yet some of the farmers
who want to employ legal workers can't get them because of the
backlog and paperwork and the poor administration of the H2H program."
Carter said there is no easy solution and it was going to be a
long and involved process to correct the mistakes of the past.
Carter had no comment on Diane Hamby, the other Democratic candidate
for Foxx's seat saying that he was fo-cusing on defeating the
incumbent.
"I'm focusing my entire campaign on running against Virginia
Foxx. I am confident I am going to be the candi-date and I don't
think I need to spend a lot of time getting into some kind of
divisionary battle about another primary candidate. I'm not going
to do that. I am running against Virginia Foxx and I don't feel
any pressure about the other candidate," Carter said.
Carter said his priority upon arriving in Washington would be
to "truly represent the people of the 5th Congres-sional
District from the poorest to the richest. I will not be tied to
big oil, I will not be tied to big drug companies and I will not
accept congressional health insurance for myself until every single
person in this country is in-sured."
Recently, Carter received the endorsement of Democracy for America
as a result of his runner-up finish in DFA's national Grassroots
All-Star competition.
Democracy for America is a national organization that promotes
grassroots activism, progressive ideals, and fis-cal responsibility
at all levels of government. The competition originally featured
98 congressional candidates from districts across America and
was narrowed down during two rounds of online voting. According
to the DFA, an astounding 51,000 total votes were cast in the
competition.
Carter's DFA endorsement and runner up finish in the competition
has put the national spotlight on a congres-sional district that
has previously been considered difficult for Democrats. Roy Carter
received more votes in the DFA competition than over 30 campaigns
that were identified as competitive by the Democratic Congressional
Campaign Committee.
According to Carter's biography at roycarterforcongress.com the
candidate has lived in the NC mountains all of his life.
In 1965, Carter married Patricia Burleson of Barnardsville, NC.
and upon graduation from East Tennessee State University, embarked
on a coaching and teaching career that spanned forty years.
Using leadership and innovation Carter has worked on several student
and community programs to combat drop-out rates, drug and alcohol
abuse, and illiteracy. In 1997, one such program was instrumental
in Andrews High School naming Carter as its Teacher of the Year.
Carter has been a member of the North Carolina Coaches Association
for over thirty years, being chosen as Con-ference Coach of the
Year in 1993 and Coach for the annual East / West All-Star game
in 1998. Additionally, he has been actively involved in the North
Carolina High School Athletic Association, and was elected to
the North Carolina High School Association Re-Alignment Committee
in 1999, receiving the Merit Award and receiving the Award of
Achievement in 1995.
Carter has taught and coached in Ashe, Wilkes, and Surry counties-all
of which are in the 5th Congressional District. He currently resides
with his wife in Ashe County, near the Wilkes County line where
he maintains a crop of 4,000 Fraser Firs.
The Carters have three children: Todd Carter, Andrea Carter Gimlin,
Stacey Carter, and son-in-law, Wiley Gim-lin. They also have a
grandson, Tristen Carter Gimlin, and recently welcomed a granddaughter,
Eva, into the family. |
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