Carolina Tea Time

Well well well.  It seems my old foe The Odious Patrick McHenry is finally facing not one, but two serious challenges in NC-10 this year...and both of them are attacking McHenry's right flank.

McHenry raised about $112,000 during the fourth quarter of 2009 and had about $149,000 in cash on hand as of Dec. 31.

Dentist and Iredell County Commissioner Scott Keadle topped those totals with about $270,000 in receipts from October to December and about $274,000 in the bank at the end of 2009.

Another Republican, entrepreneur Vance Patterson , reported $250,000 in receipts and the same amount in cash on hand at the end of 2009.

Both challengers were able to outperform McHenry in the money chase by reaching deep into their own pockets.

Keadle -- who filed for the race in September and also reported more receipts and cash on hand than the Congressman at the end of the third quarter -- has loaned his campaign some $485,000 so far this cycle with $235,000 of that coming in the fourth quarter.

Patterson, who filed for the race in late December, loaned his campaign all of the $250,000 he reported raising.

McHenry, meanwhile, would have had more money in the bank if he hadn't spent $50,000 last quarter repaying himself for previous campaign loans, (which he still had $150,000 worth of on Dec. 31). McHenry also raised more money in the fourth quarter of 2009 than any of his four other North Carolina GOP House colleagues.

But regardless of those circumstances the fact remains that with a little over four months to go before the North Carolina primary McHenry was in the third place in the 10th district money chase.

Which is kinda disturbing, really.  McHenry is largely seen as a rising star in the House GOP for his extremist views, but apparently he's not extreme enough.

(More after the jump...)

Then again, the crew over at Down With Tyranny have been following McHenry for quite a while and have their own theory as to why he would be vulnerable to teabagger challengers.

I'm not sure about McHenry's sexual preferences, and it shouldn't matter.  But if you're a Republican in the reddest district in NC, you damn well better believe it matters to GOP primary voters in Catawba, Burke, Alexander and Iredell counties.

If you're wondering why he's being attacked by the right on this after having one of most nastily teabagger voting records in the House, well...there's a big, big clue right there.

On the other hand having grown up in Hickory, I can tell you that it could have absolutely nothing to do with that and everything to do with McHenry not spending every moment in the well of the House demanding Obama's birth certificate and filing impeachment proceedings.

Finally, maybe there's just something to the entire fact that in 2010 all incumbents, Republican and Democratic, are in real, real trouble at the polls.