Durham attorney and erstwhile Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ken Spaulding will not go gentle back into private life. Instead, he’s creating a political action committee.
His PACas yet unnamedwill coordinate “with African-American newspapers and media, along with local nonpartisan African-American organizations around the state, to provide unity and a unified solid base of support of candidates for statewide office and legislative seats,” according to his announcement.
But his PAC won’t be “so much about raising funds and spending money,” Spaulding tells the INDY. Rather, it will “interview and vet” candidates and then endorse on the basis of issues, not political parties.
“Black voters will no longer be taken for granted by the Democratic Party nor ignored by the Republican Party,” Spaulding says.
The exact contours of his PAC’s activities have yet to be determined. But Spaulding says the issues that matter to him nowthe ones that this new PAC will focus onare that same ones he raised while sparring with Roy Cooper: living wages, voter suppression, and fracking, to name a few.
Whichgiven how hard Spaulding went after Cooper for not retrying Randall Kerrick, the Charlotte cop who shot an unarmed black man after a car wreckprompts the question: Does he rule out an endorsement for his former Democratic rival?
“That’s too far down the road for consideration,” he says.
