[Politico] Top national and North Carolina Democrats have taken a series of unusual steps to protect their candidates in the Tarheel State -- and President Barack Obama's I inhaled. That was the point...
reelection campaign -- from additional damage after a sexual harassment scandal rocked the state Democratic Party and weakened its chairman.
North Carolina was already an uphill battle for Obama even before the revelation in April that the NCDP's then-executive director, Jay Parmleywho is a man, was accused of misconduct by a young male employee. Parmley resigned. But Chairman David Parker managed to hang on to his job despite calls for his ouster from top state Democrats and pressure from officials in Washington.
The result presents a challenge for the Obama campaign and other Democrats up and down the ballot, who must now find ways to tiptoe around state officials linked to a lurid harassment flap. Complicating matters further, Democrats will hold their presidential nominating convention in Charlotte this summer, an event that was suffering from fundraising difficulties even before the scandal broke.
Rather than backing away from the state, Democrats in North Carolina and Washington say they believe they can work around Parker. The chairman, they say, currently appears more focused on shoring up his own shaky political position and reaching out to local activists than taking operational control of campaign machinery. That leaves room for other national and other state Democrats to try and take charge of the situation -- and most importantly, control the purse strings of the 2012 campaign.