Episode 10: Bob Lewis - Candidate for NHC GOP Chair

Summary

In this episode of the Wilmington Conservative podcast, hosts Reuel Sample and Nikki Bascome engage with Bob Lewis, a candidate for the New Hanover County GOP chair. The conversation covers Bob's journey into politics, his relationships with local leaders, strategies for keeping Republicans competitive in elections, and the importance of community support and volunteer recognition. Bob emphasizes the need for unity within the party and outlines his vision for effective leadership and engagement with constituents.

Takeaways

• Bob Lewis has a strong background in conservative values and community service.
• Building relationships with local leaders is crucial for political success.
• Increasing volunteer numbers is essential for election competitiveness.
• Recognizing and valuing volunteers can enhance party engagement.
• Bob Lewis emphasizes teamwork over individualism in his campaign.
• Effective communication and outreach are key to connecting with voters.
• The GOP needs to address internal factions for better unity.
• Fundraising events can significantly boost party resources.
• Community involvement is vital for political candidates. 

Sound Bites

• "I'm a big Trump supporter."
• "We need to get more volunteers."
• "We're a team, not just a slate."

Transcript

Reuel Sample: 0:00

Welcome to the Nikki and Rule podcast experience. I'm Reuel Sample joined by Nikki Bascom. Hi, Nikki, how are you today?

Nikki Bascome: 0:08

Hi, Reuel. I'm well, how are you?

Reuel Sample: 0:11

I am doing just just great. This is a very, very special podcast that we've got going on. But before we get into this, I want to remind folks that the Wilmington Conservative is completely funded by folks like you. We need your help to keep the Wilmington Conservative literally on the air and on the airwaves and on the net. We have started a Patreon account, and we'll make sure that we have a link to our Patreon account. We have different levels of subscription plans from a very basic, uh, all the way up to a position on the editorial board where you can give us input and direction of the Wilmington Conservative. We have merch that you can get along the way, and all levels actually get access to the live podcast feed every week so you can listen to the live podcast, give us questions while we're doing it at very minimal cost. But everything that you that you subscribe to helps us keep the Wilmington Conservative on the air. So make sure that you check out that link in the in the show notes. And we really, really do appreciate your support. Nikki, we've got a GOP convention coming up. It's March 3rd. Registration is already live on the NHC GOP website. You have to be at Northside Baptist Church by 630, but you also have to pre. Well, you really should pre-register because it'll save you a ton of bucks. Uh, but that is and this year we are electing officers to lead the New Hanover County GOP for the next two years. And for this very special podcast, we've got the chair of both slates who are who will be running for office. Nikki. Go ahead and introduce our first first contestant for tonight.

Nikki Bascome: 2:07

Our first. Our first victim of. I am so happy to introduce Mr. Bob Lewis. Thank you for joining us. Bob. It's great to have you.

Bob Lewis: 2:22

Hey, thank you both. Thank you for inviting me.

Reuel Sample: 2:25

It's great to have you here, Bob. I want to tell folks about the the setup that we're going to be having is that we've got, uh, five real big questions for each candidate, and then a sixth where you're going to tell us about how to get in touch with your with your slate and more information. We have not shared these questions with either candidate, uh, and with either slate. And neither will we release this recording until the other slate is done. We also have 30 minutes, uh, 30 minutes on the clock right here. I'm actually going to bring it up. Um, so it's 30 minutes right there. Oops. Right there on the clock. That's my that's my that's my alarm clock. 30 minutes. And that will start after Nikki asks the first question. Uh, we're going to, uh, save any follow up questions until the end. So if, uh, if Bob takes the whole 30 minutes to get through the questions, then there's no follow ups. So, uh, but, uh, we try to keep it as, as fair to both parties. And so even though Bob is going first, he really isn't, because neither party, neither party knows what's going on. So with that being said, uh, Nikki, go ahead. I'm going to bring the questions up on the, uh, here's the first question for Bob.

Nikki Bascome: 3:50

Which is why I'm wearing my glasses so I can see are. And please forgive me for my dog barking. Okay, Mr. Lewis or Bob, would you like Mr. Lewis or just plain old Bob?

Bob Lewis: 4:06

I'm good, I'm great.

Nikki Bascome: 4:08

So how did you decide to run for the chairman of the New Hanover County GOP?

Bob Lewis: 4:15

Well, I think that's a great question. Uh, you know, over the years, I've. I've been a very strong, passionate, conservative Republican. You know, even when I was in office in Carolina Beach as the mayor and the council, as I ran for election, I was probably one of the only people that really ran as a Republican. Everybody, everybody else in the beach towns want to run as an unaffiliated person. So basically, I've always had this passion to promote the Republican Party, our conservative values and our Christian values to the whole community. So in doing so, uh, over the years, I've been a big supporter also of the Trump campaign, you know, so I've been a big Trump Trump supporter. I've donated We've donated. My wife and I have donated money to the Republican Party over the years, mostly to promote Trump and his his whole approach to what we need to really do to make this country great again and great and great at one time, basically just to be great again. Uh, so those are kind of two things there. And then as I got involved, most of the time I've been involved in the election process or with the GOP has been just as an election year. You know, first it was I'm a I'm a I live in the f what's the FP oh seven. So first I did some volunteering for at the early voting and the polls for that particular precinct in years past, probably 216 to 220. Uh, and then came back again and 224. Uh, and basically, there really were I was really doing a lot of excellent electioneering down in Carolina Beach, because I know a lot of people at the beach. Um, and then on top of that, you know, I've done some other things. So I signed up. My wife and I signed up for the Trump Force 47. Took the training, went out and got our tent. Great friends who said they're going to go out and vote. And from there, we then started doing other things by helping go into the office there at the GOP center or whatever you want to call it, and then putting putting signs together, taking the signs out and putting the signs up in my neighborhood and basically then going door knocking and coming and doing, you know, the phone bank basically to try and get people out to vote. When we had the, you know, the call to go out to vote in that whole process, people kept saying, Bob, why don't you become part of the the GOP, get more involved in the GOP? You know, I'm going to be totally honest with everybody. I'm totally transparent. So I had never been to the GOP office or whatever you call it, the in here in New Hanover County till probably, maybe, probably in August. In August we then went in and my wife went in and we and we signed up basically to volunteer for Trump, of course, the Trump Force 47 because Hamilton was the only person in the building at the time. And then every, every time we did visit the building. Hamilton, who was running the Trump campaign, was the only person there, but we'd also signed up to be part of the GOP to promote people like Nikki and people other really conservative valued people who are really should be in office driving this thing, especially as as it relates to our school district. You know, I think there's been problems in our school district for years, and it's always I've always felt bad because I run a nonprofit in the lower part of of New Hanover County, and we contribute tons of money and tons of technology to children's programs, including the school. And when I see what goes on there and what's gone on over the years, it's been heartbreaking. You know, so I'm really excited about the people that we have now. We have five great Republicans on there and I'm hoping they all vote together. They all stay together as a team and go forward. But, uh, was it the precinct chair down in the In the area. Down in Carolina Beach. Currie beach area basically asked me if I would be part of her slate. So I said okay, I'll consider being part of her slate. And she actually initially wanted to be to be part of the slate as the treasurer. And my background is in really sales and marketing. But there's been a division vice president, group, group director of various companies in the technology industry. But I'm also very I'm also very adept at reporting. So if you want to know about software, I'm in and out of that software business. So basically I'm a like a certified QuickBooks person. So I've helped a lot of small businesses from the financial side just to get them get their books corrected. So in that process I said I can do this. I've actually run for office, used the same same software years ago, in 2009 when I ran for town council in Carolina Beach and won. So I know what the system is, how it works. Unfortunately, it's a manual system. We're way behind the, you know, we're way behind in years with what's going on in our election. North New Hanover County Elections Board up there, but in a sense it still works. It's just a lot of manual efforts. So I can do that for you and I'll get your reports. That was initially and then they were looking to work with somebody. Actually, they're looking at talking about John. John was considering being the being the chair of a slate. And at the time he was he was looking he was really kind of looking around, who does he want to work with? And decided he was in the middle. And at that time we all decided, well, if you're in the middle, I think you should just move on and do whatever you want to do. And he did, and I and I'm glad he did. I see he actually formed himself another slate, which is great. So at that time, all everybody in that, uh, our group, we had been meeting for a couple of months, everybody in the group had been meeting for months. They said, Bob, would you take over and be the chair? You know, you're retired, got a lot of experience. You got a lot of business experience. You're probably the only person in the area that's actually been elected, that's running for an office. Uh, I think that would be smart. And, you know, I told him, well, I would be interested. I said, but I don't know a lot about it, but what I did is I was studying and came back and said, okay, I'll be the chair. And from that point on, we just started building this slate, which I think is very powerful, and it'll be very successful for the GOP.

Reuel Sample: 10:05

Okay. Nikki's got the next the next question for you. Hang on just a second. Let me pull that on up for you.

Nikki Bascome: 10:18

Okay, Bob, what relationships do you have with district seven and our state leaders? And how will that how will you use those to benefit New Hanover County.

Bob Lewis: 10:33

From the district seven side? Basically, I know Mike Lee, basically. Basically, I'm introduced to Mike Lee. I've known him probably for a period of time since he's been running for election. Our relationship is as as you know, he I think he's seen me numerous times out on early voting at the polls. Basically, that's where I've really seen Mike. I don't have a personal relationship with them. But, you know, over the years I've also have, uh, you know, really good relationship with Charlie Miller. I've known Charlie for a long time. Ted Davis, I knew Ted Davis and Bill Rayburn. They're not in our district, but basically those people. Bill was the senator here at the state. And Ted is is is on the legislature. He's a legislator in the state. Um, I knew Bill probably back when I was in office as mayor. Him and Ted helped us along with Carolyn Davis and Carolyn Justice. I'm sorry. Carolyn Justice and Tom Goolsby helped us secure $1.2 million in grant money to redo and rebuild and redesign the Carolina Beach Boardwalk. At the time, we were looking to kind of replace it. It was in distress. We looked at how can we how can we take a look at this thing and make it better? We designed we designed a new boardwalk with seven wheelchair accesses. And so the $1.2 million was strictly for the seven wheelchair access, as it wasn't for putting up a new boardwalk. What a great thing to do. At the same time, we needed we needed another 500 $500,000 to complete the infrastructure for the project. I went to the county. At the time we had fortunate for me. We had great Republicans there. We had Beth Dawson, and we had Woody White, who took up basically the charge and basically pushed half $1 million grant back over to us as well. And we had they had never done that at the beach in all the years. We've never seen that kind of money come to the beach. But there's a real there's a real value in the beaches and there's a real value within. Wilmington is in the tourism. Right now we're getting what, $27 million comes involved, comes back to the New Hanover County in various ways for the room tax. And if you take a look at the room occupancy tax, it generates that tourism generates about $1.5 billion worth of tourism for businesses and everybody in our community. That's the lifeblood. Unfortunately, right now, the Corps of Engineers have decided they're not going to put sand on the beach, you know. They're not putting sand on the beach when they're supposed to have it this year. And based upon the cost, the cost used to be when I was in office, and that was about ten years ago. So it was about 10 to $11 million to Renourish Carolina Beach and Curry Beach, and another $4 million that would do Wrightsville Beach. Well, that money all of a sudden is tripled. So just to do Carolina Beach and Curry Beach is now $31 million and basically that those dollars aren't there. And so the court decided, well, we're not going to do the project. So they had they had allocated about 15 or 16 million and it was double that cost. So they just run away. This is going to greatly impact tourism if we don't get sand on the beach, one of these big storms come through. They're going to suck out that sand. There isn't going to be much left for us during the summer. So everybody's concerned. Uh, and the fortunate thing is, I know people at the feds that are still at the feds and I and I know, I know our state state support. So if you take a look at how those dollars work, work for us that the feds are supposed to be doing, don't. Basically, it's supposed to be providing about 70% of the dollars to make that happen. The state is supposed to provide 17.5%, and the community provides 12.5%. At the end of the day, those numbers are huge now because of the size of that project. So those are the people that I know. Those are people I've worked with over the years. Have I worked with anybody else? Well, I work with the county commissioners. Leann Pierce, I know her very well. She's a friend of mine. Um, over the years, I've known Bill Raven, Raven bark. But I really don't know him that well. I've got to meet Dane. Basically, in the election process. He came numerous times to Carolina Beach to help really drive drive his own success. So that was great. I think I saw Nicki, I saw you down there a couple of times when I was down there at campaigning as well. But that's that's kind of about it.

Reuel Sample: 14:34

Okay. Next question is from me, actually let me bring that up.

Nikki Bascome: 14:41

Take these off now.

Reuel Sample: 14:45

Uh, Bob, according to the latest numbers from the Board of Elections. New Hanover is fairly split between Republicans and Democrats, but we have a large independent bloc that votes Democrat. How will you keep Republicans competitive at the polls?

Bob Lewis: 15:03

Well, that's kind of a I look at it as a two part question, really. Uh, right now, uh, and I'm using this from numbers that have been put out. So I don't know if this is true or not, because there's questions by the audience at the last town hall meeting, do we have 1200 volunteers? Do we have a list of 1200 volunteers that are actually going out and doing something at the polls? And if we had 1200, my opinion is we need a we need to reach out and we need to make that 2500. We need to double those numbers. If I look at if I and then we, we also gotta be really brave and go down to the inner city. We gotta get down to the city of Wilmington and start putting people down there and people down there at campaigning during the early voting as well as during election day. I know I was doing early voting and everybody kept coming back, whereas nobody downtown, there was nobody downtown. It happened 3 or 4 times. I probably was in Carolina Beach campaigning as electioneer, uh, about almost every day in the early voting. 2 or 3 hours here, four hours here. It was morning, noon and night type thing. And the reason I did it is because I run a large nonprofit down in at the beach area. Well, actually it's in from Monkey Junction South and we have 250 men members. And I would say the 250, there's probably a good 60 or 70% are Republicans. And then there's a real big area of unaffiliated. And then there's a small group of Democrats. In my opinion, that's just the way I see it rolling out. Uh, but I was able then to call people basically, or text people and say, hey, the line is slow, the line is short, come on up. And so I could get people, friends of mine in the community to come up and vote. Uh, I think right now, if you take a look at that, really take a look at what's going on. We need to get more volunteers. We need to make sure every single one of our precincts has a leadership team in place. I don't have the numbers because I'm only listening to what Nevin said and other people in the in the executive board that's there today. But they said we didn't have all of the precincts, did not have a leadership team, or if they had a leadership team, some of them quit. So you had really an example you probably had. They said there was 10 or 11 precincts that had no leadership there driving them. I don't know if that's true or not, but that was what they admitted to. There was like 10 or 11 of those. We need to fill those before you do anything. We need to fill those to get out there. Um, the last thing I'll say is that that I was really I one thing I saw when I was in early voting is that, unfortunately, I could tell the people who were voting for Democrats and people were voting for Republicans because you have a red and blue tent. There were a lot of people that really weren't voting for our for basically down ticket, but they were voting for Trump, and they would come over and take a picture with the Trump placard. At the end of the day, when I take a look at that, it would have been great for us to capture those people with their phone number and name said, we'd like to really invite you in to the Republican Party, learn a little bit more about what we do and what our mission is, because it's falling along with what? Trump, Vance. We're trying to support them 100%. The things that we're doing. We're conservative and we're basically what we're doing. We're doing, we're following what they're doing. I think we would have been able to find we might have picked up, I don't know, maybe a couple, 500 people that we'd be able to identify now and get out to and communicate with. That was my opinion.

Reuel Sample: 18:13

Okay. Our next question again. I'll give Nikki a break here. Uh, so, uh, evaluate what the county leadership has done right. And I'm talking about the the county Republican leadership, the NHC GOP leadership has done right, and where they could have improved over the last couple of years.

Bob Lewis: 18:36

Well, having having run a large nonprofit, we started out with a dozen members and now we have 250 members. We raise almost $200,000 a year and give it back to the community. Give it back to children's programs, but give back to the community. I can tell you right now, I really appreciate the efforts that Rick did. You know, if I look at Rick Wilkins being able to really be able to raise$300,000 in what he said 16 or 17 months, 16 months, that's that's an impressive get. Because actually, if I take a look at it, there's two different things when you're fundraising. So when I'm fundraising for children, fundraising for people who are disabled, fundraising for people who are families that need food or need, you know, need assistance, it's a little easier to get than going out and say, I want, can you help us fund the Republican Party? Can you help us fund the GOP here? So I really give him a lot of credit. I think he did a marvelous job. I mean, I don't know if anybody else could have done a better job than that. And I keep hearing this number. Well, we're going to raise 400,000. We're going to raise this. I, I'm going to tell you right now, if anybody duplicates that, I think you get I think you could duplicate that number. I think you had to have a couple more events than just the gala to make that thing work. But I run a lot of events. We probably run five core events in our nonprofit. Each one delivers 25 to $35,000 net. In that process, you need to figure out can those types of events fit within the GOP? Would it fit within the restrictions you have basically for collecting money? I'm not sure. I think it would. I think those were. That was really good. I think unfortunately, you had people who were elected, didn't finish their term, their two year term. So you had other people were appointed. So I can't tell who was appointed. I do know who was appointed, but basically I can't tell what their what they what they did and what they didn't do. I think they did a good job of getting out the vote for the people that they had in the field. I thought getting out the vote seemed to do very well. I in my opinion, I think we can do better, but I think they did a very good job of getting out the vote. I think they were they were organized. I think the tools, when I saw the tools that, uh, Bert and his team put together, I thought they were pretty impressive. I think he's done a great job of integrating and pulling the data. Because I'm a data guy pulling that data together, I think there's maybe there's some improvements now with AI and there's some other things we could do, probably to get information to people in real time versus waiting overnight. But I'm not sure the county will be able to process the information fast enough. You know, for us to really leverage that. Uh, I need to take a look at that. But I think that's something those guys, I thought did a marvelous job when I was listening to him, what they were doing, how they did it. Being able to look, look up on your phone and basically sit there and look up and be able to figure out, hey, I got a knock on that guy's door. We've already had somebody knock on that person's door. He's already or that person's already voted. Go to the next door. Really significant value. I think Bert and his team did a great job. Uh, I think the improvements are I was disappointed in the fact that you have out there in the Republican Party itself. So, you know, if I go down the list of like the you have the Lower Cape Fear, uh, Women's Club, great people, Republicans, women's club, great people down there we talked to. Then we have the Cape Fear Republican Women's Club. Great group of people there as well. We then went. I've never really talked with the with the Cape Fear Men's Republican Party, but they seem to have a slow, low membership. But they're out there doing something. Then you had Tide Turner's and of course, then you had the, uh, the faith, faith based voters. So there's like, there's a lot of people that kind of work with, but trying to bring those together and unite them together in one team would be really great. I think that's a great improvement. We could look at, uh, I think there are volunteers out there and precinct chairs that don't feel they're getting recognized and don't feel that they people are listening to their ideas. They don't feel like they're valued. I think we need to we need to really value the volunteers, the ground. The ground game is what wins it. I think if you can double that, uh, what we have today in the field at the same time provide them recognition. I just listened to before as you were talking. You were talking about you want people to come back to your podcast and donate, but you're giving them something you know you might give them a cap. I'm not sure what a, you know, a bottle opener. We give them something, a coin. I don't know what you guys are giving out, but those are ways to pull people in and then also recognize them. Very small things to do the attaboys work, but it's nice to have something that recognize what's going on here. Everybody I talked to as a volunteer and we had I met with people for about, well, almost eight weeks. Everybody came to a meeting, said the same thing. I would like to have some identification that says, I'm a Republican. I don't know what it is. When I go out to a fall festival or I want to go out to something in downtown Wilmington, one of the major events, and I'm there a lot myself, I said, it would be great to have you can see your brother or sister, basically, hey, here's what, here's where we are, you know, and it really does what really help. And we just haven't done that. Those are things that I think I would improve communication wise. I think the communication team does a pretty good job. But I think, uh, well, even John identified areas where they thought he thought they were really things kind of fell down the last 4 to 6 weeks. Some people left, left the executive board in the last six weeks that that left openings there that didn't get done. Our slate that we're we're promoting, we're all committed to being there for two years. Now health could change that. Somebody's health could change that. Something could happen to somebody's family and that changes it. You know, you have people who are in the middle of their family and their middle of their career, and you have other people who are retired. Myself, we have about three of us retired from that group. So most likely we're going to be here unless something else happens to us, but most likely we're going to be here. But we have a couple other members who are right in the middle of their career. So they're they could be moved, but those people actually have businesses here. So they're really stuck in this community. They're in this community for for a long time. They're not going to be moving without moving with their business. So.

Reuel Sample: 24:29

Well, Nikki has the next question. Let me get that up on the screen for you. She's got to put her glasses back on.

Bob Lewis: 24:36

Yes. Did you wear that during the election?

Nikki Bascome: 24:40

I did not, maybe I should. Maybe I could have one. Seeing that I was handing out a ballot that didn't have my name marked. Yeah. Okay, so the New Hanover County GOP relies on committees like you had mentioned, Bert with his data team and the communications committee. Um, to get a lot of the work done. I'm adding stuff in here. Um, how will you structure the committees in order to get Republicans elected?

Bob Lewis: 25:12

Well, I think one of the things I think you need is you need to we're talking about Republicans. So let's talk about candidates. Once we recruit good candidates, is getting them involved. And then basically bringing the teams and committees around them say these are the 4 or 5 people. Well, I'm looking at next this year's elections. You got a mayor up in in the city of Wilmington. You got three positions up on the city council. These are going to be very important going forward. You got $242 million. Just got in for a bridge grant from the feds. Some Thom Tillis actually brought to us for a change. But I love Thom after he brought the money to us. Because now now the county has some decisions to make, along with the state that make that make that thing and get it to to reality. Uh, I was on the I was on the MPO WMPO for two years, and it was frustrating for me. I like Bill, I've met Bill a number of times and I've met some other people that are on the, the the facts are no longer on the city council, but city Council and Bill were all around getting, getting, building this big sky bridge for $1.2 billion ten years ago, which would be more than ten, 11 years ago. And basically today that would be like a two and a half to $3 billion type project that no one's going to fund. We had also we also had a a bridge replacement identified at about 275 million at the time, which looks like it's going to be 750 million. Now, I think what you need to do is we need to really we need to get some Republicans on that, that council. You know we need to get we definitely got to get the Reichenbach in Waddell. We need to get those two elected for sure. But let's go take the third position out there that's sitting out there. We need to we need to get into the city and put some people down there to vote. Uh, the things that we do on the committee is also would be combining it. Really a person who's running for election should have a list. These are the people you need as part of your team. That whole list, every committee births, team comms team. You know, as you go through those committees, you need to have a list for the candidates and educate them what these all do. And here's how they can help you. Because you look at the comms team and I look at Bert's team, he's got they've got valuable tools that every single contestant or candidate can really use. And I think it's very important that we get those out there and get them using those things, because they're very valuable. Anybody who is out knocking on doors will tell you this thing here was the most valuable tool, and it was because of Bert and his team, not because, you know, because you have a phone number or you have a GPS on here, but it just makes it easier to kind of get out there and know what's going on. Uh, the other thing that I would look at is, is what committees could we improve? I will say this in talking to a lot of volunteers, they're frustrated because they would like to be on these committees and they get passed over. I keep and I would like to be on the comms committee. I would like and they probably don't understand exactly what are the criteria for the people you're trying to put on that team. And if I use the communications committee as a good example, there are people that even my wife, she's she's a web designer. There are people that can help the comms team. And they you can kind of look at what are the job levels that you have and what could you do on that committee. You could bring more people in. So I think there are a lot of volunteers that kept saying, I would like to get more involved before I'm out there just doing a campaign. I'll get out the vote campaign. I would like to be more involved on a campaign, but every time our committee, every time I put my name in, I don't get called or people don't really want me involved. So I would really look to all the volunteers and say, hey, can we get you on a committee? So it's because when people meet on a regular basis and I'll use an example, would be the gala. People are meeting thanks to Rick. People are meeting every Wednesday at noon and he's providing lunch to everybody. Crazy enough. But in that process that that team is coming together, they're thinking of what they can do. How can I get this? How can I get it? How can I get something that they can auction off? How can I get people to get a table? How can I get people signed up to even just to come? So I think if you have more people on the committees, I think that definitely would be of value.

Reuel Sample: 29:04

Final question for you. And we are at five minutes left, so we're doing just fine. Uh, the final question for you is how can people find out more about your slate, for instance, your website, emails, so on and so forth? How can people find out more about your slate?

Bob Lewis: 29:23

Uh, right now we have we have our own website up. We've had it up for a long time. Um, and so you're really going out to but we just did a web page because once, once the slates are decided, whoever wins the slate or whatever happens, the web web website's going to be gone because the website's got to be the NHC GOP. Com. It can't be. Can't have a slate, you know, website sitting out there. It's going to confuse people. So ours is actually a web page. So it's a landing page. That landing page basically is www.nhcgopresults.com Results. Results.com. So it's nhcgopresults.com and you can get to the page and there's information. The other thing is their contact information on there. You can talk to any one of us. You know right now it's talking about we actually been talking about publishing phone numbers. So people can just call us and talk to us. Everybody that I hear from says, I don't know, Bob. I've never met him. I haven't been there. I don't know him. I said, well, you know, all I can tell you is that, you know, I'm probably a little different the way I manage. You know, when I was in, uh, when I was at, in the business community, out in corporate community, there were times when people die because I ran large sales organizations, in consulting organizations where people say, Bob's one of those guys that says he wants to lead, follow or get out of his way type person. When I moved over and started working with a nonprofit over the last ten years, the Island men, you know, we have 250 men and we have a great time together. When we go to an event or we we do fundraising event, we're like, it's a party for us. Everybody wants to get involved. I got 250 members. We do what is now traditionally the Dragon Boat Regatta in Carolina Beach. It's become a core event for the beach. Actually, it's not just us. And I put that thing together, uh, almost 12 years ago. And basically, when we started that thing, you know, we started we started making we started netting around 3000 bucks today. We we net $25,000. We give it to Ocean Cure, who works with disabled people. You probably know Kevin Murphy works with disabled people on getting them on the water. So we you know, which is so he's either on dragon boats, it's on surf boats and surfboards or it's out. And they had a they have a I think they might have got rid of it. They used to have an outrigger, but I think they got rid of the outrigger. But you're going to see like every, every weekend these teachers volunteer their time every weekend with Kevin. And they're taking, you know, people from the military come in who have had issues over the years, people who are to say kids are disabled, they take them out. Um, it's a great, great thing that's happening in this beach. And Kevin also has been very instrumental in getting people from using the beach access to wheelchair access that we have in, in, at the beach areas in Caroline and Curry Beach. And now I think in Wrightsville Beach and using them basically once you get to the sand is he's also built mats to hold people so that the wheelchair can actually move in further in. And then we have 30 of these great water beach chairs, which I mean, you put somebody in them, they float. You can take and actually put somebody in the water. So I'm not saying you're going to go deep, but you get the splashes over your legs and your body a little bit. It's pretty cool. There isn't. There isn't a beach up and down the East Coast that matches what we can do to help those with individuals with mobility issues. So at the end of the day, I'm a I'm the kind of guy who's like, I'm going to lead follow. I'm not a lead. Follow and get out of my way type of guy. I'm more like, I'll go out and do whatever it takes. You guys can follow me or you guys can do your own. Somebody always says, Bob, we have. You're like the face of the Isle of Man. I said, we have a 250 faces and you. And if we all work together, that means we're going to we're going to we're going to we're going to get a lot more people involved in this thing. Uh, but that's the same thing here, I think, with the volunteers talking about, I don't get any recognition that concerned me because volunteers are going by the wayside. You can't let somebody go by the wayside that's been here, and you can't. You know, you're not going to replace their experience. You're not going to replace their passion if they leave us. You know, that's my opinion.

Reuel Sample: 33:20

We are down to 53 seconds. Uh, Bob, I'm going to give you time for your elevator pitch. Why should people vote you as the NHC GOP?

Bob Lewis: 33:30

Well, I'd say myself. Or actually I'm going to work like we work as a team. We're a team. We're not a slate. I know that's a word in, you know, politics. But we're a team, basically, and our team works together. And I can tell you this, that we're all committed to being here two years and working through this things over the next two years. We're also we're also people. We don't have a lot of history, so we don't really care what's going on in the past. We're open for everybody. We're we're putting our arms out to everybody. We welcome every single conservative religion or Christian, uh, Republican to come and join us. And then we're going to we're going to help you. We're going to help you get your degree, get involved in the process itself. Number two, when we have something, we go out and do fundraising. We're going to have fun. You're going to have fun. You're going to be invited to social events for fun as well so you get to meet people.

Reuel Sample: 34:18

I'm going to stop you right there. We are out of time. And with actually a seven seconds over, thank you very, very much. Uh, the the, uh, convention is coming up next week.

Bob Lewis: 34:31

I appreciate it.