RALEIGH – It’s been a truism of North Carolina politics for years that swing voters in Eastern North Carolina hold the key to winning statewide races. I think this notion became outdated a long time ago, and now I think that the economic reversals of the past three years have clearly revealed its obsolescence.
Of course, votes are votes in this situation. You don’t get elected governor, or attorney general, or commissioner of whatever, by winning the electoral votes of counties. Every vote counts the same. The issue here is where most of those voters who can be coaxed to voted Democratic or Republican depending on the particular candidates and campaign pitches reside.
Judging by the behavior of many of our state politicians, they’ve already seen the political center of gravity shifting westward. You can certainly see this in the case of the Pillowtex bankruptcy centered in Cabarrus and Rowan counties. Gov. Mike Easley, members of Congress of both parties, and just about everyone trying to take their places in the 2004 elections have weighed in on the Pillowtex implosion and spent time in and around the blast area.
Among Republican gubernatorial candidates, there are already well-traveled campaign trails – and most of their mileage lies in the Piedmont counties of the state. Naturally, some of this is partisan. That’s where most North Carolina Republicans could be found until relatively recently. But there are other factors at work. Like it or not, the benighted areas of Eastern North Carolina have been in economic trouble for some time. Voters have had some time to adjust, not that they are happy about it, of course. In Piedmont and western counties, the economic reversals-of-fortune have been sudden, traumatic, and politically revolutionary. We’ve seen counties that had virtually no unemployment problem three years ago – places like Catawba County actually complained about the opposite problem of having too few workers to fill their jobs – posting double-digit jobless rates.
Caldwell County, where former Congressman and GOP leader Bill Cobey campaigned last week and Senate Minority Leader Patrick Ballantine campaigned the week before, just experienced a 13 percent rate in July. To the southeast, Davidson County also hosted separate meet-and-greet events for Cobey and Ballantine and just got hit with more plant closings in Lexington and Thomasville, places that have long typified North Carolina’s small-town mix of manufacturing heft and conservative politics. From Transylvania County in the far west to Rockingham and Yancey counties along the northern rim of the Piedmont Triad, communities that grew up around major manufacturing enterprises are now adjusting to life without them. Consequently, some local residents are yielding to the protectionist temptation. Others are critical of wasteful spending, high taxes, and onerous regulations that pound businesses already teetering on the edge. Still others see their community’s economic salvation in more government spending, particularly in the areas of education, retraining, and infrastructure.
It’s too early to tell what this political turn to the Piedmont means for the 2004 election cycle. My sense is that what we are really seeing here is a upswing in public interest in North Carolina politics. It just seems to matter more than it did when most North Carolinians perceived their state as making continuous progress and chugging along without major impediments. Now, they are asking some deep and troubling questions. Many politicians won’t want to hear these difficult questions, and many voters, in turn, won’t want to hear some of the inevitable answers.
But the conversation has begun.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.