Scott took a lot of heat for his tough, anti-union, anti-picketing stand, and the photo of a phalanx of state troopers in front of university buildings became infamous.
My most vivid memory of Bob Scott, though, was from the 1980 gubernatorial campaign. Jim Hunt was running for re-election as governor in the first election since a Hunt-backed constitutional amendment allowing gubernatorial succession. Scott, hoping for a political comeback and an opponent of succession, ran against Hunt in the Democratic Primary. Scott came to Wilson for a rally at the Wilson County Fairgrounds, in Hunt's back yard. I interviewed Scott after the evening rally, and I later had the candidate all to myself at the not-so-well-attended event.
After I asked Scott a few questions, he asked me where I was from, and I told him I grew up in Anson County. Immediately, he asked, "You know where White Store is?" Of course I did. It's a crossroads that had been a rural trading center where Union troops burned a Confederate grain warehouse in 1865. I used to ride a school bus through the crossroads, where a classmate's parents still ran a country store. I told Scott this, and he responded, "Well, you really are from Anson County."
Scott will be remembered for legislation he pushed through to consolidate all state universities and colleges and for his leadership of the community college system 1983-1994.
He was a politician from another time, like his father, Kerr Scott, and grandfather, a time when back-room deals, cash contributions and mutual back-scratching were the norm. That attitude was obvious when he defended his daughter, Meg Scott Phipps, against corruption charges over campaign contributions that might have been routine in her grandfather's day.
2 comments:
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can we name the others scott ran against?
....nick galifinakis? Terry Sanford? Skipper Bowles?
who did jim holshauser defeat?
Scott won the governorship in 1968 over Jim Gardner in the general election. He won the Democratic primary in a three-way race against former Gov. Melville Broughton's son and Charlotte dentist Reginald Hawkins, an African-American. A memorable editorial cartoon at the time showed the three Democratic candidates holding campaign signs. Scott's and Broughton's said "I grew up in the Governor's Mansion. Hawkins' said "I'm for open housing." Holshouser defeated Skipper Bowles in the 1972 general election, making him the first Republican governor since Reconstruction. Jim Hunt won the lieutenant governor's race that same year.
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