Dear Pat:

Victoria Smith is doing a fine job as your campaign manager. Don’t let her go.

You’re the Democrats’ biggest worry in the Governor’s race. You’re the only Republican who is moderate enough to give us a run in November.

North Carolinians may elect Senators in the mold of Jesse Helms (Fred Smith) or John Edwards (Bill Graham). But they elect Governors like Jim Hunt, Jim Martin and Mike Easley: moderates who are both pro-business and pro-education. Business-like people who can run a government with competence and vision.

You concern me, Pat, because you fit that model.

So I hoped you would be done in by Smith and Graham. I hoped they’d spend some of their millions trashing you for your transit tax.

I hoped for a rerun of 1996. I was running Hunt’s (fourth) campaign for Governor. Richard Vinroot, another moderate Charlotte mayor with a good record, scared me. Fortunately, Robin Hayes and the right-wingers headed Vinroot off at the pass. Hayes was the perfect opponent for us.

But now, Pat, your own campaign turns out to be your biggest obstacle.

Never has a campaign staffer done a better job of upstaging the candidate on announcement day. She managed to make your campaign look both incompetent and dishonest.

She is definitely a keeper, from where I sit.

P.S. Please let us know when she finds the hacker who misspelled Governor. It may be the same nefarious villain who puts the typos in my blogs.

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