A Republican Party official in Buncombe County has been forced to resign after making inflammatory remarks for a segment on The Daily Show.
In the interview, Don Yelton, a Buncombe County precinct chair, spoke about North Carolina’s recently passed voter law and how it would affect future elections.
“The law is going to kick the Democrats in the butt,” he told The Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi. But Yelton also spoke about how it would affect particular voting groups.
“If it hurts a bunch of college kids that’s too lazy to get up off their bohunkus and go get a photo ID, so be it,” he said. “If it hurts the whites then so be it. If it hurts a bunch of lazy blacks that wants the government to give them everything, so be it.”
But state Republican officials immediately denounced and demanded his resignation.
“The North Carolina Republican Party finds the comments made by Mr. Yelton to be completely inappropriate and highly offensive,” said N.C. Republican Party Chairman Claude Pope in a press release. “I would like to make it very clear that Mr. Yelton does not speak for either the Buncombe County Republican Party or the North Carolina Republican Party.”
Perhaps Yelton should have listened to Mandvi when asked, “you know we can hear you?”
View from the Hill is a political blog by Daily Tar Heel staff writers. Any opinion expressed in it does not represent the Daily Tar Heel. Email the blog coordinator at dthviewfromthehill@gmail.com.
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