With Rob Christensen’s retirement, we lose North Carolina’s most experienced, knowledgeable and insightful political reporter.

There were, still are and always will be other great political reporters in North Carolina. But nobody stayed on the job for 45 years. Nobody had Rob’s wealth of history and sources. Nobody worked harder, worked sources harder, listened longer and more closely, learned and remembered more, and wrote closer to the bone than Rob did.

Fun fact: I was one of Rob’s first editors when he came to the N&O in 1973. He was a junior reporter, covering city government. I was a junior editor, working as assistant city editor, then night city editor, between stints as a reporter. Three years later, I started working for Jim Hunt. Since then, Rob and I have talked, on and off the record, hundreds, maybe thousands of times. He was always polite, patient and persistent. And I always learned from reading him and talking to him.

For years I heard Democrats complain that Rob was a secret Republican. Republicans once threw him out of their state convention because they thought he was a not-so-secret Democrat. The truth is that, even after 45 years, I have no idea what Rob’s politics are. And I’m pretty good at sniffing out people’s politics.

No, Rob played it straight. He gave it to us straight. And he did his damnedest to get it right.

Hell of a job, Rob. Thank you. We’ll miss you.