Institute fosters stronger public leadership

“What’s in a name?” wrote the Bard in his masterpiece Romeo and Juliet. “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

William Shakespeare possessed extraordinary gifts. On this matter, however, don’t take his poetic flourish as a general rule. Names are not extraneous. They can matter a great deal — clarifying what is muddled, exposing what is hidden, emphasizing what is important.

“If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things,” wrote another oft-quoted sage, Confucius. “If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.”

Veterans of politics and public policy would surely agree. More than a few well-meaning candidates have bombed by using the wrong words and images to introduce themselves to voters. And more than a few promising ideas have remained just that, falling far short of enactment, because their advocates failed to define their ends memorably and their means persuasively.

Or so argued the late Walt de Vries. A professor and former campaign aide to Michigan Gov. George Romney (father of Mitt), Walt founded a short-lived training program for North Carolina candidates in 1974, then relaunched it in its current form in 1988 with co-founders Bill Friday, longtime president of the University of North Carolina system; former federal judge and congressman Richardson Preyer; and Preyer’s cousin, Smith Richardson Jr., a philanthropist and former chairman of Richardson-Vicks Inc.

They dubbed it the North Carolina Institute of Political Leadership. The name suited the times well. Having been an overwhelmingly Democratic state for most of the past century, North Carolina was by the 1980s becoming more politically competitive in the fall, not just in the spring (when Democratic primaries had, for all intents and purposes, decided who would control most state and local offices).

In 1988, Democrats still enjoyed comfortable, if not overwhelming, majorities in the General Assembly and held nearly all judicial, Council of State, and county offices. But the governor, Jim Martin, was about to be reelected for an unprecedented (and still unmatched) second term as a Republican. The GOP would also win its first races that year for lieutenant governor and statewide judicial office.

Over the ensuing 36 years, IOPL has trained more than 1,200 North Carolinians to serve in various roles in politics and policy. About a third have won election to office. Multipartisan from the start, IOPL educates two classes a year of fellows spanning the ideological spectrum. From a similar balanced faculty of practitioners and experts, they learn the basic blocking and tackling of politics as well as such governance skills as building coalitions and making ethical decisions in stressful conditions.

Jim Hunt, Virginia Foxx, Dan Blue, Tom Ellis, Harvey Gantt, Sue Myrick, Henry Frye — these and many other notable North Carolina politicos have served on IOPL’s board. I am honored to serve as its current chairman, alongside the likes of state House Rep. Brian Turner of Asheville, Charlotte City Councilman Tariq Bokhari, former New Hanover County Commission Chairman Jonathan Barfield, and former Supreme Court Justice Bob Edmunds.

Times change. Sometimes names must change with them. The term “political” has a more negative connotation than it did four decades ago. When we introduce IOPL to potential fellows, partners, and donors, some hear the word “political” and think “toxic,” or at least “partisan.”

A while back, I was reviewing some old IOPL documents and found Bill Friday describing its mission as ensuring that “North Carolina enters the next century with the best public leaders possible.” I also found Walt de Vries describing it as training “ethical, accessible, and responsible public leadership.”

I felt tumblers click into place. At a subsequent board meeting, I suggested the idea to the other directors. We discussed it internally and with many IOPL alumni and supporters. Consensus emerged.

We are now the North Carolina Institute of Public Leadership. Still IOPL. Still committed to our mission. And it still smells sweet.

John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books Mountain Folk, Forest Folk, and Water Folk combine epic fantasy and American history.