Nonpartisan means no party labels

By custom and by law, most municipal elections in North Carolina are non-partisan. There are no party primaries and no party labels on the ballots in these municipal elections. (Most school board elections are the same way.)

But some people just can't abide not having party labels and party officials deciding how things should be run. Republicans in the General Assembly have proposed making all municipal elections partisan so that Republicans can have their own candidates, and Democrats can have their own candidates. The GOP has been riding a powerful wave and thinks it can expand its authority and power by taking control of local government in the same way it has taken over state government.

Democrats are headed down that same path, but without the legislative authority of the GOP. Democrats who want partisan purity have to resort to protests and shaming. The News & Observer is reporting today that some Democrats are upset that former Gov. Jim Hunt endorsed an independent (the incumbent) in the Raleigh mayor's race instead of her challenger, who is registered as a Democrat. These Democrats want to remove Hunt's name from a party fundraiser to punish him for his disloyalty.

If you believe party politics are all that matter in this old world, punishing Hunt makes sense. But a reality check would remind these Democrats that the Raleigh mayor's race was a nonpartisan election. By law there were no party labels. Party registration, whether Democratic, Republican or independent, should not matter. Ideally, party affiliation does not exist in the mayor's race. All that should matter is ability and accomplishments. On that basis, Hunt endorsed the candidate who had proven ability and an impressive list of accomplishments in her three terms as mayor. She has advocated what most people would consider "Democratic" policies, such as low-income housing improvements and buying the Dix property for a landmark city park. Nancy McFarlane won 58% of the vote against her challenger.

The election is nonpartisan. Support for candidates should be as well. The news media have contributed to this insurgent partisanship. The News & Observer frequently mentioned the challenger's registration as a Democrat, even though that is irrelevant in a nonpartisan election. In a nonpartisan election, a candidate's party registration need never be mentioned.

The Democrats who want to "punish" Jim Hunt have short memories. Hunt is the only North Carolinian to serve four terms as governor. His terms were among the most progressive in North Carolina history. If he had not been stopped by Jesse Helms in 1984, he might have been elected president.

And what good will punishing Hunt do? These Democrats would alienate the 58% of Raleigh voters who went for McFarlane, and they will come across as ignorant and vindictive toward a man who should, by all normal standards, be a hero in Democratic politics in North Carolina.

They want an excuse for their preferred candidate's electoral loss. Jim Hunt is not it.

Hunt biography is an insider's view

The cover of Gary Pearce's new biography of Jim Hunt, appropriately titled "Jim Hunt: A Biography," is a flattering and beguiling photo of the four-term governor. The content of the "authorized" biography is just as flattering.

Hunt, who served as governor 1977-85 and 1993-2001 after a term (1973-77) as lieutenant governor, opened up to Pearce in a series of interviews and urged his friends to talk to Pearce as well. The author, a former newspaper reporter, had signed on as Hunt's press secretary at the beginning of his first run for governor and stayed on as adviser and consultant throughout Hunt's political career. He also advised other Democratic politicians. Pearce says he strived to be objective in this biography, but his book is clearly an insider's version of the Hunt years, and it's admittedly an admirer's version as well.

Pearce's main point, that Hunt, a rural farm boy without significant family political connections, transformed North Carolina and presided over the state during some of its most turbulent times, is accurate. In that, it's an amazing and tantalizing story. Pearce's perspective, unfortunately, is from inside the Hunt administration, and he fails to credit other forces that helped transform North Carolina during those years. If Hunt and his administration made mistakes or headed down the wrong path at times, Pearce fails to see those detours, and he has little patience for politicians who opposed Hunt initiatives.

Pearce accurately portrays Hunt as a man untiringly and relentlessly pushing his state forward with all kinds of new programs and initiatives. Hunt's enthusiasm, however, sometimes overlooked the long-term costs of his dreams, as newly elected Gov. Mike Easley found out in the budget crisis that greeted him in 2001. Pearce also fails to address the allegations of cronyism and political favoritism that followed Hunt through most of his career.

The crucible of Hunt's political career is the 1984 Senate contest against incumbent Jesse Helms. Had Hunt won, Pearce says, he might have been the Democratic nominee for president by 1988 or 1992, and he's probably right. Democrats nationwide would have owed Hunt a major debt for knocking off the conservative icon, and Hunt as a senator would have been just as hard-working, just as determined and just as persistent as he had been as governor. The 1984 election, Hunt's only defeat at the polls, was one he should have won. Pearce hints at the problem in 1984: The Helms people outsmarted and outplayed the divided Hunt contingent. Helms went all out, with biting television spots, veiled accusations and self-righteous contempt that convinced the electorate (or at least 52% of it) that Hunt was wishy-washy, untrustworthy and not genuine. Pearce is convinced that Helms was a racist and that racial appeals swayed the 1984 election. Helms undoubtedly manipulated racial prejudice with his vocal opposition to the Martin Luther King Holiday (which President Reagan supported) and was willing to use subtle racial appeals, but Helms was too complex to be dismissed with one word. He could be extremely gracious and courtly, but he had a mean streak that would lash out at opponents. Race played a role in the 1984 election, but Hunt's loss had more to do with errors made in the Hunt camp than with Helms' willingness to play the race card.

Pearce has often been asked what Hunt is "really" like, the implication being that his goody-two-shoes earnestness and drive for improvement cannot be real. But, he says, it is. What you see is what you get. Although I was a skeptic when I first met Hunt about 35 years ago, I now have to agree that Pearce is right — Hunt really is the simple farm boy with a burning desire to improve his state and to help the people who cannot help themselves. He really is deeply committed to education and is willing to try almost any strategy to improve public education. He is earnestly and sincerely doing all he can, even in his 70s and 10 years out of office, to improve his native state.

Pearce's biography will be valuable because Hunt opened up to Pearce, revealing some inner thoughts and motivations, and so did some of his colleagues. But this short (297 pages) book is not the ultimate biography of Jim Hunt. It is not a historian's biography on the level of William Manchester's biography of Douglas MacArthur or Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson. This book, and the transcripts of interviews behind it, will be a valuable resource to some future biographer who will take a wider view of the Hunt years. Until that lengthier biography is written, Pearce's book gives an insider's view of some of the most progressive and important years in North Carolina's history.

Former governor dies, leaving memories

Former Gov. Bob Scott has died. Scott was governor during some of this state's most tumultuous times, from 1969-1973. He dealt with protests over civil rights and the Vietnam War. And most distinctly  to my college classmates, he ordered state troopers onto campus to break a cafeteria workers' strike at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Cafeteria workers had gone on strike over wages, if I'm remembering correctly, and students, already in a demonstrating mood after civil rights and war protests, joined the picket lines. Support groups called on students to boycott classes in solidarity with the workers. The university was in a tough spot because its food services were not making money. The food was generally crummy, and most students ate off-campus as university cafeterias deteriorated. Most colleges now contract out food services to private firms.

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.

Mikey thinks newspaper is picking on him

Gov. Mike Easley thinks the News & Observer has been picking on him. But unlike the scrawny kid on the school playground, little Mikey can't go running to the teacher to whine. He's the guy who's in charge. So what does he do? He complains to another newspaper.

Easley complained in an interview with the Greensboro News & Record that the N&O reporters  weren't being fair. They had uncovered millions of dollars in waste in the state's mental health reforms. Easley said he was against the reforms in the first place, although there was no evidence in the record to support that contention. Then he fired the public information officer who had provided public records to the N&O. The N&O uncovered corruption in the Department of Transportation. Governor Mike ignored the controversy. The N&O reported on his wife's two trips to Europe at taxpayer expense and her appointment to a six-figure job at N.C. State University. He said the trips to Europe were all business, and she was the best-qualified person for the State job. Furthermore, the criticism of his wife was just sexual discrimination. Yeah, sure. The N&O documented dozens of murders by suspects out on probation and the inability of the state to find thousands of probationers. Easley said the N&O was picking on his Correction secretary just months before his retirement, and, furthermore, there were more probationer murders under the Hunt administration. Well that certainly makes it OK.

Seeing Easley's petulance and absentee management over the past couple of years, it's a wonder that he ever made it to the top in state politics. He parlayed a successful career as a district attorney to a couple of terms as state attorney general, then he handily won the governorship. Since then, he's made little secret of the fact that he's put state government on autopilot while he built furniture in the basement, participated in publicity events and made frequent trips to Southport.

I did an extensive interview with Easley when he was attorney general and found him amiable, funny and knowledgeable, and I've talked to him a couple of times since then. He comes across as a nice guy — friendly, affable and genuinely witty. He does dead-on impersonations. But his style is far removed from the focused, persistent determination of his predecessor, Jim Hunt. Hunt was renown throughout his four gubernatorial terms (and afterward) as a hands-on manager who regularly made late-night and early-morning phone calls to lobby for a particular issue or light a fire under a slow-moving legislator. Easley gives the impression that he not only wouldn't do that but couldn't be bothered to worry about it.

Easley's recent complaints about media coverage go beyond his laid-back, hands-off style. Now he's making excuses, and not very good ones at that. Easley's old enough to know that blaming the messenger is not an effective strategy, and his petulant whining just makes him look worse.

Easley has only a few days left in his term. Unfortunately, his elected successor, Bev Perdue, has shown a tendency to make excuses and ignore facts, just like Easley. Perdue appears ready to rely on her sweet charm the way Easley relied on his affable wit to disarm critics. Being personable is always helpful to a politician, but it's not a long-term strategy.

Speculation puts Wilson residents in Obama administration

The News & Observer offers an article this morning about North Carolinians who might be named to positions in a new Obama administration. Interesting speculation, but mostly just plain speculation.

A couple of speculations caught my eye. The N&O suggested former Gov. Jim Hunt, who nurtured a reputation as the "education governor" and who is genuinely passionate about education, might be Obama's choice for education secretary. Hunt barely seems to have lost any of his famed intensity since leaving public office almost eight years ago, and that intensity would translate well in Washington, where he could call senators and congressmen instead of lowly state legislators at all hours of the day and night.

But I would be very surprised if Hunt got the appointment. Hunt, 71, did not endorse Obama early in the campaign. When Obama came to Wilson's Beddingfield High School before the state primary, Hunt and his wife, Carolyn, were in the audience, and Obama recognized the former gov, but there was no endorsement. Hunt did campaign enthusiastically for Obama in the general election, and he might be credited for a piece of the narrow victory Obama won in North Carolina. Hunt organized Wilson County, which went for Obama while neighboring counties with similar demographics fell for McCain.

Obama does not owe a great debt to Hunt, but there's a bigger reason why Hunt won't be education secretary: He doesn't want it. Hunt has said repeatedly since losing the 1984 Senate election to Jesse Helms that he has no desire to move to Washington. I believe him. He has a pretty good life out on the family farm at Rock Ridge, just a few miles west of Wilson. Most of his grandchildren are nearby, and the area is still rural enough to look like it did when he grew up there in the 1950s. Why would he give that up for Washington pressure, traffic and frustrations?

The N&O speculates that U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield of Wilson could be named to the federal judiciary. Before he ran successfully for Congress, Butterfield served as a Superior Court and state Supreme Court judge. He won wide praise for his judicial temperament but lost an election to remain on the court, a victim of North Carolina's ridiculous judicial election system. Butterfield says he's happy in Congress, and he seems to be enjoying himself in Washington. But Obama could do worse in judicial appointments at any level than Butterfield. Although his law practice was adversarial as he advocated for civil rights clients, he proved himself to be a principled defender of the Constitution and the law when he sat on the bench.

In my former career, I kept a copy of an extemporaneous comment Butterfield made from the bench in response to a motion brought by the newspaper I served. Superior Court Judge Butterfield admonished the Wilson County Board of Education for handing off to its insurance company a decision about settlement of a lawsuit against the school system. The insurer had mandated that the settlement be kept secret, in violation of state law. Butterfield reminded the board that elected officials are responsible for making decisions, and they can't shirk that responsibility. The newspaper won the right to know the amount of the settlement, thanks to Judge Butterfield.