By Tom Campbell

Can you remember when TV’s Ricky Ricardo would proclaim, “Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do?” The North Carolina Republican Party needs to examine and explain how they got where they are today.

In the March 5 primary, state Republicans had three candidates running for governor. Two were longtime Republicans and respectable candidates. Bill Graham, a Jesse Helms conservative lawyer; Dale Folwell, the twice elected state treasurer, and Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson. What was known about Robinson was that he was a bombastic, outlandish and inexperienced guy who lightning struck and he was elected lieutenant governor. Typically, the best known, Folwell, would have been the nominee.

The outcome wasn’t close. Folwell got just 19 percent of the vote, Graham garnered 16 and Robinson got an overwhelming 64.8 percent. Why? Because Trump endorsed him. That was enough.

Except that it wasn’t. As we have recently learned, Mark Robinson is a morally flawed person. It is fair to ask how he was able to get this far?

But it wasn’t just in the governor’s race where Republicans needed to be asking more questions. Catherine Truitt, the incumbent superintendent of Public Instruction was running for re-election. The former education adviser to Governor Pat McCrory, Truitt had received good grades, especially for dealing with a legislature intent on dismantling traditional public schools. Her opponent was Michele Morrow, a homeschool advocate who had taught a few years in public schools, but she called them “indoctrination centers” and “socialism centers.” Like Robinson, Morrow has a background of outlandish comments. She attended the Jan. 6 insurrection, where she urged Trump to put the Constitution aside, invoke the Resurrection Act and use military force to remain in power. She wanted to see Barack Obama and other Democrats publicly executed.

The smart money was on Truitt to win. Except Morrow was endorsed by Trump. Morrow got 52 percent of the vote to the incumbent’s 47 percent. It was the biggest shocker of the evening.

Republicans nominated a state auditor candidate who never had any accounting or auditing experience, a candidate to be labor commissioner with thin credentials who has never served in government. And their candidate for attorney general, our state’s top lawyer, was an election denier remembered for primary sponsorship of HB2, the infamous bathroom bill that cost our state millions of dollars and embarrassment.

It is clear that more careful candidate vetting is needed. The state GOP chair says it isn’t the party’s job to vet the candidates. Neither did they withdraw support of Robinson. Their only job is raising large sums of money and obeying The Donald.

In most elections, the down-ballot candidates hope the nominee at the top will have coattails that will pull them up to victory. This time, state Republicans are asking if those down the ballot might actually cost the party a win…not just at the top, but all the way down the ballot. Republicans are rightly frightened.

An apt simile might be: When your boat has a hole in it, it doesn’t matter where you sit.

In the past few days of this strange election cycle, we have witnessed former Republican VP’s Dick Cheney and Mike Pence, former CIA and FBI Director William Webster and more than 300 well known Republicans publicly endorse Kamala Harris. They haven’t suddenly become Democrats. They want Harris to win so that they can reclaim their party that Trump hi-jacked and run a candidate in 2028 more in keeping with traditional Republican values.

Stateside, we’re seeing former legislators and big-name Republicans endorse Josh Stein for governor, for the same reason.

The real message to Republicans (and Democrats, too) is that before you have to undergo the embarrassment of the circus we are attending today, you should remember three things:

First, political candidates can’t keep their pasts hidden forever. Between the media and oppo research every indiscriminate statement, every indiscretion will be found out. If you run, you cannot hide from your past.

Second, before your party gets embarrassed and loses the election, party leaders have an obligation to their members and the public to do extensive candidate research. In olden days, the party “bosses” would do this task and weed out candidates who couldn’t pass the morality muster or get elected.  If Republicans had done this, we would never have gotten Trump, Robinson, Morrow and a host of others.

Third, and this is most important. Lincoln was right. You might be able to fool all the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time. Voters are smarter than given credit and people will lose confidence in and support for a party that repeatedly nominates candidates who lack basic decency, integrity and credentials.

Here’s my spin: If you want to win elections, you must discover the holes in the boat before everyone else does. Otherwise, you all sink.

Tom Campbell is a Hall of Fame North Carolina broadcaster and columnist who has covered North Carolina public policy issues since 1965.