Is there a “Charlotte Curse” in North Carolina politics? According to many journalists, analysts, and political professionals, the answer to that question would be: “Of course — don’t you pay attention?”
It has become conventional wisdom to observe that North Carolina’s largest city may be the source of a great deal of business acumen, economic dynamism, and corporate leadership, but its politicians don’t play all that well outside the confines of Mecklenburg County — and particularly poorly in statewide races that encompass Eastern North Carolina voters whose antipathy towards Charlotteans is virtually congenital.
There certainly is a memorable list of Charlotte mayors who have failed in their attempts at higher office. Eddie Knox fell short in his bid for the Democratic nomination for governor in 1984. Harvey Gantt won the Democratic nod for U.S. Senate twice, in 1990 and 1996, but lost to Republican Jesse Helms. Richard Vinroot lost his bid for the GOP nomination for governor in 1996, then won it in 2000 but went on to lose by a little over five percentage points to Gov. Mike Easley in the general election.
Rob Christensen, the longtime political reporter for The News & Observer of Raleigh, recently offered a somewhat broader take on the phenomenon. He argued that the real curse in North Carolina politics isn’t a pox on Charlotteans but a whammy on virtually all big-city boys (and presumably gals) who try to win gubernatorial or Senate races in a state still full of rural and small-town voters suspicious of smooth-talking slicksters. This is why the 2004 Senate contest between Richard Burr and Erskine Bowles has both men, from urban backgrounds, spending so much time campaigning off the beaten path, Christensen suggested.
I think there is some truth to his argument — I buy it more than I do the specific notion of a “Charlotte Curse” — but I must say I think the conventional wisdom here is overblown. For one thing, it accepts at face value the protestations of former Gov. Jim Martin, who was elected governor twice in the 1980s, that he wasn’t really from Charlotte but instead hailed from Lake Norman. Perhaps this was a useful rhetorical device in his campaigns, but let’s keep in mind that Martin represented the 9th District in the U.S. House for years, of which Charlotte was the largest single block of voters, and that he had previously been a Davidson College professor. He was not, in short, a rustic.
Moreover, while I can’t claim to remember much of anything about the political failings of candidates 50 or 60 years ago, I do remember the more recent attempts by Charlotteans to win statewide — and I think they fell short for reasons other than their zip codes. Knox ran in a crowded Democratic primary that include my friend Rufus Edmisten, who had gained lots of notoriety across North Carolina as attorney general and as a key aide to Sen. Sam Ervin during the Watergate hearings. Knox was comparatively unknown, as would have been the mayor of any NC city.
In the 1990s, Gantt was running against the most successful Republican politician in North Carolina history. And he didn’t run very well, partly because of a flawed campaign strategy and partly because he was simply too left-of-center for our state’s electorate to embrace with ease.
Vinroot’s lost in 2000 had more to do with a last-minute surge by the Democratic base — a phenomenon experienced not only in North Carolina but in Florida and a number of other states just after the disclosure of George W. Bush’s drunk-driving record — as well as some nimble Easley campaigning that raised questions about Vinroot’s intentions on taxes (given Easley’s subsequent tax hikes, this message seems laugable now, but for some moderate-to-conservative swing voters in 2000 it was apparently persuasive).
Lastly, it’s worth noting that Gantt, Vinroot, and Bowles have all won their party’s nominations at least once, which the last time I checked required getting the most votes in a statewide election. And as far as an electoral bias against city slickers is concerned, that’s true but hardly a North Carolina invention. Almost every president or would-be president from George Washington to George W. Bush and Al Gore have played up he-man images and rural roots, no matter how tenuous the connection to reality.
Perhaps Bowles and Vinroot should claim to have been born in log cabins erected along the Catawba River. Would that help them win in Williamston?
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.