A North Carolina president?

Some Democrats argue that what they need for the 2028 presidential election is a southern moderate like Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton who
won election-- or like Al Gore whose win was taken away by the courts.

Is there a moderate southern political figure who like these three could win the Democratic nomination and the next presidential election? And, specifically, is there a North Carolinian who could do the job?

Thanks to President Donald Trump and Rachel Maddow, the entire country learned last week that there is at least one North Carolina political
figure who fits that bill.

Hampton Dellinger, who grew up in North Carolina and attended Chapel Hill High School, is the now former head of the Office of Special
Counsel. He has been a critical figure scrutinizing the recent mass firings of federal workers.

According to an article by Eileen Sullivan in the July 6 issue of The New York Times, “Mr. Dellinger had planned to continue investigating the government’s sweeping terminations of employees who were relatively new to their roles before a federal appeals court ruled that he himself could be removed.”

Dellinger’s advocacy gained the attention of Rachel Maddow who invited him to appear on her popular MSNBC program, “The Rachel Maddow Show.”

In her introduction, Maddow said, “In all of these fights against what appear to be these illegal mass firings, and these efforts to unilaterally close down and turn off parts of the government, the materially most consequential one of all of them is one that was obtained because of one man, whose name is Hampton Dellinger.

“Trump tried to fire him in the first week in February. Mr. Dellinger fought it immediately. He fought it long enough and hard enough that, while he was able to retain his post—thanks to a judge’s order—still under fire from Trump, he succeeded in enlisting the Merit Systems
Protection Board to reverse thousands of baseless firings of so-called probationary employees. Among the direct results of what Hampton
Dellinger did are more than 5,000 people at USDA who yesterday were told they must be reinstated to their jobs.

“Hampton Dellinger today himself announced that he is ending his one-man fight to stay at his post at the Office of Special Counsel, which looks after whistleblower rights; which looks after the rights of government employees to not be fired for corrupt or improper
reasons. He left that job today after an appeals court ruling basically made clear that he must.

“But take him as a case study here, because his one-man, one-month fight to not go quietly saved the jobs of thousands of people who were
improperly fired by Trump. And that fight set the bar, and set the tone, for what it means to refuse to go quietly. And to make as much good trouble as you can, every single day that you can, for as long as you can.

“Joining us now for his first interview since ending this fight is Hampton Dellinger. He’s now the former head of the Office of Special Counsel. Mr. Dellinger, it’s really nice to meet you. Thank you for being here.”

Midway through the interview Maddow said to Dellinger, “What you have seen about what it means to fight—it’s part of the reason I wanted to
talk to you tonight. Because you embody an example here of what it is to stand up and put your name as the plaintiff on that suit against the government, to stand up for the way the American people ought to be treated. We very rarely ask individual human beings to say, I, the named plaintiff, am here to stand up for the people against the government that is mistreating them. And it takes something.”

At the end of the interview, Maddow concluded with these remarks:

“Hampton Dellinger; as of today, the former head of the Office of Special Counsel, and somebody whose story is going to be told for a very long time, because of what you did and because of its effects. I know you have some wounds to lick, and you need, probably, some rest, but don’t go too far. The country needs you.”