RALEIGH – Bill Graham, the Salisbury lawyer and businessman running for the Republican nomination for North Carolina governor, is a smart man. Successful in his professional, and well-respected in his community, Graham couldn’t have gotten as far as he has in life without the ability to discern patterns, create opportunities, and communicate effectively with audiences.
But at a recent appearance before a group of North Carolina columnists and editorial writers, Graham was notably clipped in his answers to key questions, sometimes replying monosyllabically. For an example, one of the journalists asked if he favored some kind of public financing for gubernatorial campaigns. The answer? “No.” And he left it at that.
While some pundits say that Graham, currently trailing frontrunners Fred Smith and Pat McCrory in GOP primary polls, is not prepared to run for governor, I don’t think they appreciate his realistic take on the race. If North Carolina voters want an experienced politician or state-policy wonk to be their next governor, Bill Graham was never going to fit the bill. Although it may sound trite to say so, he is running as a classic outsider – ridiculing the governing class in Raleigh, comparing their political “logic” to the common sense of everyday North Carolinians. To delve deeply into the details of how state agencies function would be a form of political discourse inconsistent with his preferred image as an outsider.
For Graham, a straightforward “yes” or “no” isn’t just a way to answer a question. It’s a way to reinforce his political persona.
On his signature issue, the state’s relatively high tax on motor fuels, Graham is more verbose. Having organized an online petition drive and paid for statewide TV ads a couple of years ago urging the General Assembly to cut the tax, Graham claims credit for the subsequent cap placed on gas tax (a portion of which had been tied to the wholesale price of petroleum, and thus variable according to the vagaries of the market). It’s an example of how new technologies can help to mobilize the public on important state issues. “We still have a grassroots opportunity to make changes,” Graham said, if the levers of power in Raleigh can be transferred from entrenched political insiders to outsiders with more freedom to act.
While true outsiders have a storied history in North Carolina, it’s not recent history. The past five governors – Mike Easley, Jim Martin, Jim Hunt, Jim Holshouser, and Bob Scott – were all experienced politicians with years of service in state or federal government before entering the Governor’s Mansion. While Easley is not exactly considered a glad-handing party builder, and both Martin and Holshouser were Republicans in a Democratic town, the last true outsider to become North Carolina governor was probably Dan K. Moore, a lawyer and local judge in Western NC who had served only a single term in the N.C. House of Representatives – and that was more than 20 years in his past when he left a post as a corporate attorney to run for governor in 1964 against better-known candidates (conservative Bev Lake Sr. and liberal Richardson Preyer) in the then-decisive Democratic primary.
So when Graham says that it’s time to entrust state power in the hands of a political newcomer whose primary governmental experience includes stints as a local prosecutor and congressional staff member, he’s making a novel case. Given so many recent cases of nauseating scandal and notorious malfeasance in North Carolina government, though, it’s not a bad moment for Graham to try this message out.
It may still prove insufficient. Once Graham moves from his outsider image to policy positions, Republican primary voters may find it hard to distinguish him from the pack. He takes a free-market approach to health-care policy, argues for better priorities for transportation funding to address worsening traffic congestion, and thinks that the state’s mental-health reforms were fashioned and implemented too quickly. Most GOP voters agree with him on these issues. But that won’t be enough to win their allegiance.
What Graham must do – as he clearly recognizes – is to shift the focus of the primary campaign. If Republicans prefer a governmental pedigree, they can choose among a longtime Charlotte mayor, a sitting state senator, or an experienced state judge. But if they are in the mood to send a message to the North Carolina political class, in both parties, that something fundamental needs to change in Raleigh, Graham could be their vessel.
Is it too late for him to catch fire? Bill Graham would say, simply, “No.”
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Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of CarolinaJournal.com.