news-record.com

The following two groups aren’t connected in any way, except that I ran across information about them at roughly the same time.

First up, the Northern Guilford County Conservative Republican Club held its first meeting recently. The Northwest Observer carried a brief on the group last week:

“The goal of the PAC is to help get conservative Republicans elected,” says Summerfield resident Don Wendelken, who is vice chairman of the group. Wendelken says he and chairman Marcus Kindley “started in Summerfield to draw people in to help them get active. Our goal is to get them involved as much as possible in the election process and once we establish a good groundswell, if you will, in that area, we plan to try to expand to the northeast part of the county.”

Click here for that story.

Kindley is the former chairman of the Guilford County Republican Party and has twice put himself forward as a candidate to lead the North Carolina GOP. (He apparently still owns the NCGOPCHAIRMAN.COM url.) Most recently he was one of the organizers of a bus trip to Washington, D.C. for the Tea Party protest (Click here.)

Click here for the group’s campaign finance filing, which lists it as the Northern Guilford County Conservative Republican Club. And click here for a news release from Kindley describing their first gathering.

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Next up, the Associated Press takes note of the new Wake Up America group, which is lead in part by state Sen. Andrew Brock. From the story:
 

Leaders of a new conservative-leaning political organization based in North Carolina unveiled a TV commercial Monday it hopes will become the first many designed to influence state and local politics nationwide.

Wake Up America also unveiled a Web site that also airs the ad critical of Democratic-elected leaders for approving a budget this year with higher taxes. It also mentions a series of pleas and convictions for corruption-related crimes by Democrats, including former House Speaker Jim Black to ex-U.S. Rep. Frank Ballance.

Click here for the full story. The group's website is: www.wakeupame­rica.com

The group is a 527, which means it files its disclosures with the IRS. On its organizational form, the purpose of the organization is listed as, “To be a conduit of information and strong body of citizens in the form of a non-partisan conservative movement to counter the unsound policies of Congress government institutions and agencies political parties and industry that are leading to the transformation of America from a free enterprise economy to a government-based economy.” Click here for the IRS's disclosure page.

The story notes that the group is bankrolled by Raleigh businessman Will Head, who put up $30,000 to air the commercials. Head doesn't show up on a quick search of SBOE filings as a donor to North Carolina political candidates.

For those who are curious, Wake Up America put its first ad up on YouTube:

Just as an observation: While it touts itself as a "non-partisan conservative movement," that video and the website certainly seem to target Democrats. Granted the Democrats are the ones in power right now, but asking "Are state Democrats the most politically corrupt in America?" doesn't feel terribly nonpartisan.

Also worth noting: The commercial's tagline says the group is rescuing America "from radical socialism," which is the epithet of choice conservatives have been throwing at pretty much any Obama administration policy with which they take issue.