To find out what GOP candidate Fred Smith spent $100,000 on, click here.

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction...

Following a page from the national GOP playbook, nearly all of the Republican gubernatorial candidates refused to show up Saturday for the NAACP debate.

African-Americans make up more than 20 percent of North Carolina’s population.

Republicans would rather ignore 1.1 million African-American voters than address concerns about education, health care, jobs, and safe communities.

Republicans have no trouble pandering to special interests. But they can’t look black voters in the eye and tell them they will govern for all people, not just those who look like them.

Then Republicans complain that black people won’t vote for them.

Maybe it’s because a Republican redistricting lawsuit threatens to pack minorities in districts and dilute their vote and representation in the General Assembly.

Republican gubernatorial hopeful Fred Smith writes in his memoir that “North Carolina needs a chief executive who understands the first, unspoken rule of leadership: show up.”

Smith should take his own advice.

He missed more than 300 votes this year, according to statistics from the General Assembly’s Legislative Drafting Division.

The Greensboro News & Record also tagged Fred Smith as missing a quarter of all votes taken this year, or 318 out of 1,238.

As an absentee state senator, Fred Smith missed crucial votes on education, mental health parity, the environment, and growth.

For Fred Smith, actions speak louder than words.

"Fred Smith talks a big game even when his record doesn't support the talk,” NCDP Chair Jerry Meek said. “ Voters deserve an elected official who will actually show up for work. Of course, given the way Fred Smith votes, perhaps voters would be better off if he had missed more votes."