RALEIGH – Pat McCrory may just be the mayor of one North Carolina city, but he’s already demonstrated statewide influence – by moving the Republicans’ primary date from May to June.
In the space of a week, McCrory’s entrance into the GOP field brought new public and media attention to a race that’s been overshadowed by other political campaigns and stories. After months of campaigning, the three other candidates – Salisbury attorney Bill Graham, former Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr, and state Sen. Fred Smith – still remain largely unknown to Republican primary voters. Seeing the large chunk of undecideds and the quirky nature of the 2008 political season, McCrory and his advisers calculated that it wasn’t too late to get in, and that his home address would probe to be an asset, not a liability, given the size of the Charlotte media market and the key role that urban and suburban counties now play in North Carolina politics. The decision also makes it unlikely that anyone will cross the 40 percent threshold in the May primary, setting up a runoff primary June 24 to pick the nominee.
Whatever the merits of these calculations, it is certainly true that McCrory has done the Republicans a favor by creating a fresh, compelling news story. Thursday night’s WRAL-TV debate in Raleigh featured some honest-to-goodness jabs and uppercuts, and deservedly earned some newscast time and morning headlines. Both Smith and Orr were aggressive in challenging McCrory and, to a lesser extent, Graham on issues of leadership and experience. The latter tended to avoid taking the bait, preferring to emphasize his beyond-the-beltline, non-politician persona. And McCrory tended to stick to his initial campaign message – that as a long-serving mayor and councilman skilled at attracting independent and Democratic voters, he’s the most electable in November.
I think each of the Republican candidates is on to something.
For McCrory, the electability argument is a valuable one. He’s correct in believing that the Charlotte Curse is an overblown, simplistic invention of the chattering classes. He recognizes that Republican frustration with feckless gubernatorial campaigns runs deep.
Smith is correct, however, in his assessment of where most Republican voters are on most state issues. I suspect that McCrory doesn’t quite appreciate how difficult it’s going to be to sell his past advocacy of tax increases and corporate giveaways to a mostly conservative primary electorate. Nor have his mayoral campaigns truly prepared him to cultivate the social conservatives who play a key role in GOP primaries.
Graham is correct in seeing that many voters are disenchanted with Raleigh – not just with Jim Black or other individual crooks, but more generally with a political system that seems disconnected to new voters and new, emerging issues.
And Orr is correct that these disenchanted voters aren’t necessarily looking for someone who will bash the establishment and storm the battlements, but instead for a competent, reassuring problem-solver who will put the general interest of the general public ahead of the special interests who seek special favors and handouts.
Democrats and (in?) the media are fascinated with the notion that North Carolina Republicans have run failed gubernatorial campaigns in the past because they were too conservative. That exhibits superficial analysis of how the 2000 and 2004 races, in particular, played out. In both cases, Mike Easley skillfully used his advantage in campaign cash to run effective ads challenging the Republican nominees on tax and spending issues, making the partisan divide blurry and allowing him to peel fiscally conservative Democrats and independents out of a potentially winning coalition for the GOP. In states where Republicans have won recent gubernatorial races – think South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Missouri, and Indiana for starters – the GOP nominees have owned fiscal issues, while staying at least competitive on education and other concerns.
There is no model for a Republican winning a modern gubernatorial race, inside or outside North Carolina, by running on crime, immigration, or transit. That’s a big problem for McCrory, who seems to view today’s polling as evidence of Republican disaffection with their gubernatorial choices, No, they just haven’t thought much about the gubernatorial race, yet. National politics and international events have understandably claimed their attention until now. That doesn’t mean the GOP primary electorate is undefined. We already know a lot about what they believe and prefer.
But the rest of the candidates have a big problem, too – the only two times North Carolinians elected a new Republican governor, 1972 and 1984, were years in which Democratic presidential nominees got crushed by a Republican avalanche. That’s unlikely, to put it mildly. Interestingly, though, both elections pitted Republican nominees against Democrats, Skipper Bowles and Rufus Edmisten respectively, who had emerged from bitterly fought primaries. That precedent does seem relevant to 2008.
So everyone still has a pet scenario, and uncertainty reigns. Fun, huh?
Tomorrow: The state of the Democratic race for governor.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.