Gary Pearce posted on October 23, 2012 10:00
If Pat McCrory is elected governor, he better get better at handling scandals. And he better hope that Debra Goldman and Chris Malone don’t get elected.
McCrory’s statement yesterday started right. His spokesman said he would reserve judgment on the “convoluted situation.” He should have stopped there.
But the spokesman went a bridge too far: “Pat believes that the timing of this story, coming after voting has already started, and its basis from a stolen police report, to be troubling.”
“Stolen” police report? From what I can see, there is nothing illegal about this report’s release.
And “troubling” timing? When’s a good time for this story? Were Republicans “troubled” by the timing of the story about the state Democratic Party’s sex scandal before the national convention? No, they stoked it. And they would stoke this if Goldman and Malone were Democrats.
Spare us the hypocrisy. This is politics. Stop whining. And start figuring out how you’re going to handle this mess – and the inevitable future messes.
The legislature has given the next Governor 1,000 patronage positions to fill. That’s 1,000 potential scandals. A big part of being Governor is learning how to deal with them.
The biggest mistake McCrory could make now is to defend Goldman and Malone in any way, shape or form. He needs to put as much distance between him and them as possible.
And he needs to think about what to do if he and they get elected. Because on November 7 that would become his first crisis.