Who's McCrory listening to?

by Brant Clifton, Daily Haymaker, August 22, 2013.

We’ve posted another article here about Governor Pat McCrory vetoing two bills that had overwhelming support when they passed the Legislature.  McCrory vetoed them anyway, without having very substantial reasons for doing so as opposed to correcting his announced problem with the bills in the next session.  Instead he set up a “no win” battle with the Legislature.  We suspect the problem here is that his advisors on this matter are tone deaf, or at the very least, narrow-minded (or is it “small minded”?)

Brant Clifton point out a similar problem with some other positions the Governor has taken in recent days.  He says:

"I was out at a social gathering last night, when I overheard a conversation that bothered me.  These were some folks I know — low info voters who are moderate to conservative in their politics — who I know voted for Pat McCrory in 2012.  Said one of them:

'I really like Pat McCrory, but what he’s doing to teachers really bothers me.  Those folks work so hard for so little.  He won’t give them any more money, but he gave big raises to those kids who worked on his campaign.'

I am of two minds on the whole DHHS Salary-gate controversy.  On one hand, the lefties and their media cohorts are being highly hypocritical. Putting cronies on the state payroll has been a common practice for governors for as long as there have been governors.  Acting like the salaries for these two at DHHS is some kind of shocking, radical, previously unheard of practice is disgusting.

On the other hand, justifying the whole practice because Mike Easley, Jim Hunt and Bev Perdue did it too is not acceptable.  Especially when you took office suggesting that you plan to put an end to business as usual in Raleigh.

Gov. Pat has bent over backwards to defend the DHHS pair by (1) insinuating AGE discrimination by the media and (2) suggesting that the raises and hiring decisions were handled in a very private sector -like manner.  Nonsense.  In this economy, NO ONE in the private sector is handing out raises of that size.  NO PRIVATE SECTOR  EMPLOYER  is handing out that kind of responsibility, those kinds of raises,  or that level of pay to anyone two years out of undergrad.

While this story is embarrassing to Gov. Pat, I don’t think it’s fatal.  The story line gets problematic when you tie it to the spin about “draconian education cuts” and teacher pay.  If you’re not a teacher, you are likely to be related to, or know someone who is — or has been — a public school teacher.  You hear about the bureaucratic garbage teachers have to deal with, and see how many have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.  Take that information — pile it in with the stories about these two wet-behind-the-ears kids who don’t even have master’s degrees getting RAISES bigger than many teachers make in a year — and your blood pressure can start to rise.

This whole matter illustrates to me just how politically tone-deaf McCrory and his team are.  Education & The Economy are the two top things on the minds of the people out there.  I can see that from my post as editor and publisher of this fine news outlet.