Vernon Robinson gets around

Last month, the Savannah Morning News carried a letter to the editor from Vernon Robinson, whom it identified as living in Bluffton S.C.

That would be the same Vernon Robinson whose letter also appeared in the Rutland (Vermont) Herald, where he was identified as a resident of nearby Poultney.

And that would be the same Vernon Robinson who actually lives in Winston-Salem, where he was a former city council member and former candidate for Congress. He now heads the super PAC working on behalf of Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson.

Robinson says the letters – which called Carson “a straight-talking, brilliant brain surgeon” – were sent to around 150,000 supporters around the country with instructions to add a couple paragraphs of their own and send to their local newspaper with a double byline.

That’s what happened in Vermont, not in Savannah.

“We sent it to activists asking them to submit it as a joint authorship deal,” Robinson says. “Evidently it didn’t work in one paper.”

Robinson, who calls himself “the black Jesse Helms,” helped the committee to draft Carson raise over $12 million in 2014. Jim Morrill

Reggie Love gives Tories a boost

Last week’s win by British Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative Party was also a win for two American Democrats, including one from Charlotte.

Jim Messina, President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, advised Cameron’s party while former Obama strategist David Axelrod advised the losing Labour Party.

Also on the Cameron team: former Obama “bodyman” Reggie Love of Charlotte.

According to Politico, Love helped the Conservatives with their field efforts and social media campaign.

Love played basketball at Providence Day school and Duke University, and started working for Obama in 2007. He left the White House in 2011 to get a master’s in business administration from the University of Pennsylvania. Jim Morrill

Wright remembered Nov. 22, 1963

Nearly two years ago, former U.S. House Speaker Jim Wright, who died last week in Fort Worth, Texas, recalled another event that took place in the city in 1963.

Wright, then a congressman, remembered the day that began with rainy skies outside the old Hotel Texas in downtown Fort Worth. Shortly before 9 a.m., he knocked on the door of Suite 850, where President John F. Kennedy had spent the night.

“I went by to pick him up at his room,” Wright told the Observer. “The sun had come out and people were joyously standing out there waiting on the president. I thought, the luck of the Irish.”

After speaking to a crowd of 5,000 outside (“There are no faint hearts in Fort Worth,” Kennedy said from a makeshift stage), he returned to the hotel’s Crystal Ballroom where 2,000 people heard what would be his last speech, about national defense and U.S. leadership in the world.

Then it was into a Lincoln convertible for the motorcade to Carswell Air Force Base, where he shook hands and waved from the steps of Air Force One.

Once aboard, he summoned Wright and Texas Gov. John Connally to explain the rivalry between Fort Worth and Dallas.

Wright says they hadn’t finished the conversation when the plane landed at Love Field.

“The president looked at the two of us and said, ‘We must continue this conversation this afternoon,’” Wright recalled. “That haunted both of us. It certainly haunted me.” Jim Morrill

Governor delivers graduation address

Gov. Pat McCrory was tapped to give the graduation address at Elizabeth City State University in northeastern North Carolina Saturday.

The school said its commencement ceremonies at the historically black university would be held inside Roebuck Stadium. It’s the 160th commencement at the university, which has about 1,800 students. Associated Press

This story was originally published May 9, 2015 at 2:34 PM with the headline "Vernon Robinson gets around."