Roche: 'The low-information voter was tricked again'

Congressional candidate Frank Roche blasts "the GOP establishment" for favoring incumbent Rep. Renee Ellmers over "a true conservative leader."

Posted 7:10 p.m. May 8, 2014 — Updated 8:52 p.m. May 8, 2014

Mark Binker

RALEIGH, N.C. — Often, those who lose a party primary end their campaign with a call for party unity, congratulate the winner and perhaps line themselves up to serve in some lesser public capacity such as an appointed board until the next election rolls around.

That is not the approach Frank Roche is taking.

The Republican who challenged 2nd District Congresswoman Renee Ellmers in this week's primary used a missive emailed to supporters and posted on his website to criticize the GOP establishment, the media and particularly Ellmers.

On the 15 percent voter turnout in the district, he says,"Pathetic."

Of those who did vote, he writes, "The low information voter was tricked again."

And on Ellmers, Roche calls the incumbent "poorly informed."

Few are spared.

"Somehow, the establishment even got Mark Zuckerberg, the left-leaning media and conservative think tanks to do their work to deceive the 2nd District voters into re-electing the incumbent," Roche writes. He also writes, "The left-leaning media outlets nationally and around the 2nd District refused to acknowledge me as a candidate."

While Roche praises his campaign team and says any campaign shortcomings were his responsibility, the bulk of his piece targets Republican leaders, who he says helped elect Ellmers, and the incumbent herself:

Rep. Ellmers attended only a handful of GOP meetings and events; always sure to arrive late and leave early. She would not accept invitations by various media outlets to talk issues side-by-side with me. She would not accept any invitations by our campaign to debate the issues in public. She would not allow herself to be exposed for being so poorly informed on the issues that matter to the voters in the 2nd. The few times she did appear in the same room with me, it became clear who the qualified candidate was and who the group supported.

The GOP establishment will be proven wrong again with respect to their effort to re-elect Renee Ellmers. They are now even more complicit in the ruin of our great country. Shame on them. How will they explain this to their children and grand children? “Sorry about the state for our economy and your future tax burden, but you see, Ellmers could raise more money and Boehner liked her.”

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