Bev Perdue once called herself ‘the coal-mine’s daughter.’ And there was some truth in it. Her father once worked in a coal mine. But unlike Loretta Lynn’s father he ended up owning it. Several of them.

Not long after Mrs. Perdue arrived in the State House – in 1986 – a cohort of her fellow Democrats organized a cabal to dethrone iron-fisted House czar, Liston Ramsey. They made a deal with Republicans – who didn’t like Ramsey either – to vote for another Democrat (for Speaker) on opening day and get rid of Ramsey.

Now this wasn’t as risky as, say, signing the Declaration of Independence, but no one had much doubt, knowing Ramsey, failure meant the political equivalent of ruin.

Bev Perdue – according to The News and Observer – joined the cabal, and along with the other cabalists signed a melodramatic but probably justified pledge that said in effect, ‘We all agree to hang together’ – because otherwise they would surely hang separately.

The day came for the crucial vote. And every signer of the pledge kept faith. But one. Bev Perdue.

At the last minute she had a sort of meltdown and switched sides.

Later, after she was elected to the State Senate, she recovered, joining Tony Rand and Marc Basnight as ‘one of the boys’ in the Senate’s inner sanctum.

Being one of Basnight’s ‘boys’ – even for a woman – was a pretty safe sinecure. Marc Basnight runs a tight ship. The trains run on time. And as a political ally he’s hard – if you’re a Democrat – to beat. Joining Senator Basnight’s inner sanctum, for Mrs. Perdue, was real political security.

But, after a time, she got restless and decided to strike out on her own and run for Governor. And, for awhile, that worked out fine. She looked to be – at least, if not a shoo-in – a big favorite. Then the shooting started – in the form of negative ads – and the polls tightened and it got risky. Real risky.

At first, Mrs. Perdue tried fighting fire with fire, slinging negative grenades of her own – but it turned out she was no match for Moore.

Moore whacked her for supporting raising tuition at NCSU and UNC and, then, salting the wound dug up an old quote where she’d tried to explain away her vote by saying it was such a small tuition increase even the students admitted ‘its only beer and party money.’

Caught off balance to see her own words thrown back at her, Mrs. Perdue responded by saying even her son – in college at the time – had told her the money “wasn’t a big deal.”

The problem was her son was sixteen. A little young for college.

By then Perdue was feeling the heat. And, last week, she panicked. She announced that negative ads are vile and evil abominations and that she’d never run another one – with the clear inference that if Richard Moore has a shred of decency he wouldn’t either.

That sounded fine. But, from here, it looked like Mrs. Perdue dove into the deep waters of gubernatorial politics, encountered an undertow, raced back to the bank, climbed out and said wide eyed, ‘Whew, I’ve had enough of that.’

In short, she had another meltdown.

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