"Levelheaded and Unbiased," Barker Revisits The Durham DA's Race

The Herald-Sun published a curious letter today from John L. Barker of Monroe, North Carolina. Mr. Barker writes:

"The wrong choice?

"Last November, the voters of Durham County were given a choice of candidates for the job of district attorney: a left-wing, liberal idiot who had no political experience or understanding of the job, a civil lawyer who stated he would not serve if he was elected and an experienced criminal lawyer. One in eight voted for the criminal lawyer. The lawyer elected has embarrassed the county so much that Duke University's early applications have dropped 20 percent and he has turned the case that he campaigned on over to the state's attorney general.

"Says a lot about the intelligence of Durham voters, doesn't it?"

It appears that today’s letter is not the first instance of Mr. Barker arrogantly insulting the intelligence of Durham voters. Mr. Barker, it should be noted, interjected himself into the election campaign by posing as John L. Barker Strategies of Union County and producing a phantom election poll supposedly commissioned, according to Mr. Barker, by Senator Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) and other “powerful people.” The results of Mr. Barker’s homegrown poll were released by Nifong running mate Steve Monks in a desperate effort to shore up a campaign that appeared doomed following an independent poll commissioned by the News & Observer which showed Monks polling a pathetic 2% of the vote. Mysteriously, the Barker ruse showed Monks with 22% support.

At the time of the release of the “poll” results, both Mr. Barker, who is the former head of the Union County Republican Party and once was arrested for threatening the life of Governor Mike Easley, and the Monks campaign refused to offer any underlying data for the poll. When a search for information on the elusive John L. Barker Strategies showed no record of such a company registered as a business with the State of North Carolina or Union County, Mr. Barker was kind enough to share some information, about his company and his first, and only, venture into political polling, with an associate of LieStoppers. In addition to informing us that Senator Dole was among the sponsors of the poll, Mr. Barker also claimed that his company was a subsidiary of Harvard University’s Barker Center for the Humanities which, Mr. Barker initially asserted was named after him. When confronted with the understanding the Barker Center at Harvard was the Robert and Elizabeth Barker Center, Mr. Barker, who was born twenty-one years prior to the date Robert and Elizabeth Barker’s eldest child graduated from Harvard, then claimed that Robert and Elizabeth were his grandparents. Oddly (or not), Robert Barker’s obituary lists Margaret Shelly Barker as his only grandchild.

Like many others who have played a role in enabling the Hoax, Mr. Barker (who recently supported his application for a local planning board by claiming: "I believe that levelheaded, unbiased people must do their civic duty if we are to have a better Union County."), fails to apologize for his complicity while instead pointing fingers elsewhere. Although it is uncertain what effect Mr. Barker’s attempt to dupe Durham County voters had on Monks' subsequent rise from an inconsequential 2% to a tide-turning 11%, his letter arrogantly mocking the intelligence of the same voters he deceived further demonstrates the superiority without substance that defined the Monks campaign.