McCrory's short memory on the length of campaigns

by Chris Fitzsimon, NC Policy Watch and NC SPIN panelist, December 5, 2014.

McCrory’s short memory about the length of campaigns 

It was just a month ago that Governor Pat McCrory complained in a post midterm election interview about the almost constant cycle of campaigning in politics these days, and told WRAL-TV that he hadn’t decided about running for reelection in 2016.

“The campaign cycle of people running for three years, I don’t think that’s the way the founders meant it to be,” McCrory said. “We’re governing, we’re leading, we’re working – not running for re-election.”

This week, less than a month later, McCrory’s campaign sent out a release announcing they had updated McCrory’s political website, a clear sign that his 2016 re-election bid has begun.  So much for just governing and working. He is now campaigning too, two years before voters go to the polls to choose the next governor.

Bold leadership by stepping on toes?

The message came complete with a slick new video with McCrory talking about how he has stepped on a lot of toes in first two years in office, part of the “bold leadership” he has displayed as governor.  As several people including political consultant and commentator Gary Pearce have noted, the claim of toe-stepping is one McCrory makes virtually every time he makes a speech or public appearance.

His favorite way to put it is that he steps on the toes of folks on the Right and the Left but it’s hard to find anyone on the Right who has been limping in Raleigh since he was sworn in.

Just this week McCrory joined a group of conservative governors and attorneys general who filed a lawsuit to stop President Obama’s long overdue executive order on immigration that would remove the threat of deportation for five million undocumented residents, most of them parents of children who were born in the United States.

The folks on the Right roundly applauded McCrory’s unfortunate decision just as they have supported most of the decisions he has made since he was elected.  Their toes are fine.

McCrory’s not only the one in campaign mode. The Charlotte Observer reports that Lt. Gov. Dan Forest had a fundraiser in Charlotte this week for his own re-election bid. Apparently he doesn’t mind constant campaigning either.

Forest too has criticized President Obama’s action on immigration, though it follows the precedent set by Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

- See more at: http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2014/12/05/the-follies-218/#sthash.4sNwuxZW.dpuf