By now, Republican voters in Johnston County have chosen their nominee for N.C. Senate. Thank God for large favors.

I have been a Republican since April 30, 1979, my 18th birthday and the day I registered to vote. In the 29 years since then, this is the first time I’ve been embarrassed to admit that I’m a member of the Grand Ole Party.

For Democrats — and Republicans without a mailbox — the GOP primary for Senate pitted Neena Reeves, who once owned a business, against David Rouzer, a former aide to U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole. The two ran the muddiest campaign I have ever witnessed within the borders of Johnston and western Wayne counties.

As best I can tell, Mrs. Reeves threw the first mud. The glossy piece that came in the mail depicted Mr. Rouzer in a sombrero. Beside him was Democrat Ted Kennedy, also in a sombrero. The picture said it all: Mr. Rouzer, like Sen. Kennedy, wanted to grant amnesty to immigrants who were in this country illegally.

My wife, who’s usually the first to see the mail, called the mailing offensive, and she’s a Democrat. I thought it an insult to voter intelligence.

My Republican friends — mostly party regulars — say the Reeves ad was reflective of her handler, some political strategist who supposedly torpedoed N.C. Rep. Leo Daughtry of Smithfield and brokered the deal that made Democrat Jim Black and Republican Richard Morgan co-speakers of the N.C. House.

My hope was that Mr. Rouzer would stay on the high road, and for the longest time, his ads were a series of ringing endorsements from Dot Helms, wife of the former senator, and Johnston GOP leaders, including popular Sheriff Steve Bizzell. But then came the Rouzer mailing that said Mrs. Reeves once owned a company that over-billed the state to the tune of about $400,000. I then saw the Rouzer TV spot that showed Mrs. Reeves between Jim Black, who’s now in prison, and Mr. Morgan, whose constituents sent him packing for cutting a deal with the Democratic Devil.

When I was much younger, it could be said that one Republican did not speak ill of another. That changed over time, but not in Johnston County, not until now.

I don’t know why Mrs. Reeves did what she did. Immigration is mostly a federal issue, but even if it is fodder for a state senate race, Mrs. Reeves didn’t have to show Mr. Rouzer in a sombrero. That’s not the Republican Party I joined in 1979.

For the record, I voted on Tuesday for Mr. Rouzer. If Mrs. Reeves would do this to a fellow Republican, can you imagine what she and her handlers would do to a Democrat in the fall? I want no association with that kind of campaign or candidate. I’m embarrassed already. I don’t want to crawl under a rock in the fall.