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Wednesday, January 16, 2008
News From mayor to governor?
Posted By Web Editor on Wed, Jan 16, 2008 at 10:35 AM
By Cheris Hodges
On the steps of the Jamestown Public Library, 12-year Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory called on his small town roots to announce his intention to be the next governor of North Carolina.
But what does his campaign mean for the city of Charlotte? McCrory, who was splitting his time between running the city and working for Duke Energy, has given up his position as an economic development consultant with the power company to focus on running for governor and being mayor.
“Technically the mayor of Charlotte is a part-time job,” says McCrory. “So, I’ve been providing that energy. I just got back from a late night meeting. I do not plan to miss any more council meetings than I’ve ever missed in the past. I plan to be very, very engaged in Charlotte issues like I have been for 12 years.”
McCrory says that he wasn’t thinking about running governor when he ran for re-election in November. His only thought on the subject, he says, was that he could do things differently.
“This happened during the caravan to Raleigh and it also happened even during my debate with Beverly Earle where I was going, we need a better style of leadership and more accessibility. I was going, ‘boy, I’d like to change that culture of state government where people are accessible, where they reach out and where they treat people as the customer,’” he says.
Some in Charlotte may not agree that McCrory has done that as mayor. There are still grumblings about the Charlotte Bobcats Arena and there’s bitching and moaning about light rail. But McCrory says he welcomes debate when people don’t agree with him, and he contends that he’s been an open and honest mayor of the Q.C.
Speaking of the Queen City, it’s no secret that former Charlotte mayors haven’t fared well in statewide elections. But McCrory claims that he isn’t trying to distance himself from his Charlotte roots. He told one reporter that he and wife are going to make Charlotte their permanent home.
And as far as a “Charlotte curse,” McCrory says it’s baloney.
“I think running for governor actually helps Charlotte in the long run because it brings attention at the state level to many of the issues that Charlotte has been dealing with for the past decade or two,” he says.
But can the small-town boy turned big city mayor appeal to the entire state, including the rural counties in the eastern part of the state?
If his 20-minute speech is any indication, McCrory is hoping his roots in the Triad will give him enough appeal to win support from all over the state.
“Jamestown is where I learned my basic set of small town and family values,” McCrory told a crowd of friends, family and elderly townspeople.
And why the announcement in Jamestown and not Charlotte?
“It was a way of broadening my background to constituents not only in Charlotte, but throughout the rest of the state,” he says emphatically. Most people, the mayor says, didn’t know he was brought up in the center of North Carolina.
So, what happens to the mayor’s office if McCrory wins?
The city council, he says, will have to select another Republican to fill his shoes.
“If I win, the Charlotte City Council will select my successor and it has to be another Republican, so I don’t anticipate the (Nick) Mackey problem,” he says. And while McCrory says he would have some suggestions as to who should be the next mayor if he’d win. He admits his suggestions might “harm those individuals more than help them.”
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