Roy Cooper, a Democrat, which had already drawn fierce opposition from Bennett and other conservatives. In one interview he surprised me by saying he supported the pandemic mask mandates ordered by Gov. In an interview with Maggie Astor of The New York Times, he was specific: “I believe I can carry the message of conservatism in a way that doesn’t seem so abrasive - that has better packaging, I would say, better messaging.” He said he could be to his party what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the popular self-described Democratic Socialist from the Bronx, is to hers. He said that as an outdoor enthusiast - mostly as a hunter - he could persuade environmentalists to see conservatives as allies, not enemies. In our talks Cawthorn would quote Martin Luther King Jr. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, widely known as AOC. GOP congressional candidate aspires to be the conservative alternative to New York Rep. He would be the “new, fresh face” of young conservatism, he told me. He told me he could transform the GOP by enticing members of his generation to view conservatives in a more appealing way. But Bennett, perhaps confident in the endorsement embrace from Trump, had no time for me, nor for most other reporters.Ĭawthorn, in contrast, was eager to chat by phone (this was at the height of the pandemic) and to emphasize how different he would be from Bennett and the stodgy GOP, which he called “the party of ‘no’ ” and that he said cared little for the downtrodden and sick, or for racial justice. My focus initially would be on Lynda Bennett, a veteran party worker who was the consensus front-runner for the Republican nomination. I volunteered to cover the campaign to replace Meadows, who had resigned from Congress to become Trump’s chief of staff. I arrived in Asheville from Boston in late March 2020 and soon joined Asheville Watchdog, a start-up news initiative run by volunteer journalists like me. He would later say he was “called by God” to do so. He was portrayed as a golden boy who, with seeming courage and grace, would overcome that tragedy through public service. Voters took to his personal story of his battle to rebound from a car crash that nearly took his life and left him in a wheelchair. He pledged to answer only to the voters in Western North Carolina. He told audiences that his lack of a big-name backer proved him independent of those swamp-dwelling power brokers in Washington, D.C. That persisted even though his Republican opponent, the party favorite, had the endorsements of the former incumbent, Mark Meadows, and then-President Donald Trump.Ĭawthorn embraced being the underdog. Though political analysts regarded him - not incorrectly - as wholly unqualified for the congressional seat he was seeking, I admired the fact that he was singularly focused on his goal and exuded confidence in victory. Madison Cawthorn was just 24 when I met him, and he struck me as polite, easy to like, and brimming with ambition.
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