Meeker’s Toe Dip
September 9, 2013 - by
When Charles Meeker let fly his Governor-in-2016 trial balloon, you saw two things about where the political winds are blowing today.
First, Democrats sense Governor McCrory is vulnerable. That’s no news flash. Everybody has concluded that over the last month. Including McCrory and his allies. That’s why they’re denouncing the media, promising to whack Medicaid to pay teachers and state employees, running ads supporting him and trying to distance himself from the legislature by vetoing bills few people care about.
Second, as population shifts to metropolitan areas, the center of political gravity shifts there too.
It’s no accident that McCrory is the first Charlotte mayor elected Governor. Or that a challenger could be the first Raleigh mayor to run for Governor.
Wake County is 10 percent of the vote statewide. It’s even more in a Democratic primary. And the Raleigh-Durham media market probably reaches 40 percent of the primary electorate.
Regardless of whether Meeker has the requisite money and the magic, politics has changed. Since World War II, Democratic governors have been from, in order: Haw River, Spray now Eden), Laurinbug/Fayetteville, Canton, Haw River, Rock Ridge, Rocky Mount and New Bern. Republican governors were from Boone, Davidson (really Charlotte) and really Charlotte.
Will North Carolina ever see another small-town Governor?
Meeker’s Toe Dip
September 9, 2013/
When Charles Meeker let fly his Governor-in-2016 trial balloon, you saw two things about where the political winds are blowing today.
First, Democrats sense Governor McCrory is vulnerable. That’s no news flash. Everybody has concluded that over the last month. Including McCrory and his allies. That’s why they’re denouncing the media, promising to whack Medicaid to pay teachers and state employees, running ads supporting him and trying to distance himself from the legislature by vetoing bills few people care about.
Second, as population shifts to metropolitan areas, the center of political gravity shifts there too.
It’s no accident that McCrory is the first Charlotte mayor elected Governor. Or that a challenger could be the first Raleigh mayor to run for Governor.
Wake County is 10 percent of the vote statewide. It’s even more in a Democratic primary. And the Raleigh-Durham media market probably reaches 40 percent of the primary electorate.
Regardless of whether Meeker has the requisite money and the magic, politics has changed. Since World War II, Democratic governors have been from, in order: Haw River, Spray now Eden), Laurinbug/Fayetteville, Canton, Haw River, Rock Ridge, Rocky Mount and New Bern. Republican governors were from Boone, Davidson (really Charlotte) and really Charlotte.
Will North Carolina ever see another small-town Governor?