Mike Easley’s record is like what was said about Wagner’s music: It’s better than it sounds.

I’ve never been close to the Governor. I worked for Dennis Wicker in 2000. Even worse, I worked forever for Jim Hunt, and Easley clearly didn’t like being compared to Hunt.

And I’ve been critical of the Governor. Mainly for bringing so much unnecessary criticism down on himself and his administration.

But, on his last day in office, I rise in his defense.

As Governor, Easley got the big stuff right. He kept North Carolina Democratic. And he kept the state on a progressive course.

Don’t underestimate how important – or how difficult – that was. Look at what happened across the South and to much of the country during the Bush years. Many states took sharp right turns. Many elected Governors who weren’t committed to fairness and equal opportunities, to better educational opportunities and to building the economy without trashing the environment.

Easley may not have been a “transformational Governor.” The activism of Terry Sanford and Jim Hunt did more to put them in that class.

But Easley understood the transformation that North Carolina was undergoing – from the tobacco and manufacturing state he grew up in to the technology and finance-based based state we became. And he kept it going.

Like Sanford and Hunt, Easley grew up in a part of the state where racism was comfortably ensconced and where many of his political contemporaries followed the example of a Jim Gardner or Jesse Helms.

It took guts to go the way Easley went.

Easley certainly succeeded at driving the political establishment crazy, and there’s something to be said for that. Anyone who spent much of their life going to political events can appreciate a man who had the self-assurance and good sense to avoid that grind.

This, of course, leads to the essential mystery nobody can explain – except Easley himself. Why would a man so private take up so public a calling?

Some politicians – think John Edwards – do it for the glory. They love basking in the applause.

Obviously, something else motivated Easley.

All politicians are a mix of two drives: To be something and to do something. But they vary greatly in where they fall between those two extremes.

Easley never showed us much of himself. But, at the end of his long journey in politics, it looks like he was in it to do something.

For that – and for keeping North Carolina on the right track – he has my admiration.

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