Toe Stepping
December 3, 2014 - by
There you go again, Governor. “Stepping on toes.”
Some people think leadership is about getting people to work together, or inspiring them to put the common good ahead of self-interest or even, as Harry Truman once said, “persuading people to do what they ought to have enough damn sense to do on their own.”
Not our Governor. He believes a leader’s job is to “step on toes.”
Yesterday, he resorted to that same phrase twice, once in praising his outgoing Commerce Secretary and then in the video launching his reelection campaign.
Of Sharon Decker’s work on the public-private economic development partnership, McCrory said: “She stepped on a lot of toes to make that happen.” She apparently will now be stepping on toes in the private sector, while John Skvarla steps on toes in Commerce rather than DENR.
McCrory’s campaign website has this video clip: “As a mayor for 14 years, I knew you had to take bold action, and you had to step on the toes of people who wanted to keep the status quo.”
The phrase struck a familiar chord. A Google search unearthed this gem of a story last year by Jeremy Markovich at Charlotte magazine: “The Pat McCrory Toe-Stepping Quote Generator.” Markovich collected a long list of toe-stepping.
In July 2013, the Governor told CNN: “I have stepped on toes in my first six months in office of the right and the left and the media.”
In September that year, he told the Washington Post: “We’re stepping on the toes of a lot of the establishment that’s been controlling this state government for a long, long time, on both the left and the right.”
He didn’t hold out on in-state media, telling WRAL in January 2013, “I don’t want to step on people’s toes to cause pain. I want to step on people’s toes to get them to stand up and recognize that we’ve got a problem and we’ve got to fix it” and WNCN in July “But listen, I’m shocked [my approval numbers are] that high because we’re stepping on the toes of the status quo.”
Or local media. He told the Mt. Airy News, “These are the toes I’m stepping on in North Carolina right now.”
Now, maybe the Governor is just “staying on message,” as they say. Or maybe he can’t think of anything else to say. Or maybe there’s some deep psychological explanation we can’t begin to figure out.
Maybe we’ll want him to keep stepping on our toes for four more years. Or maybe we’ll give him the boot.
Posted in General, North Carolina - Republicans
Toe Stepping
December 3, 2014/
There you go again, Governor. “Stepping on toes.”
Some people think leadership is about getting people to work together, or inspiring them to put the common good ahead of self-interest or even, as Harry Truman once said, “persuading people to do what they ought to have enough damn sense to do on their own.”
Not our Governor. He believes a leader’s job is to “step on toes.”
Yesterday, he resorted to that same phrase twice, once in praising his outgoing Commerce Secretary and then in the video launching his reelection campaign.
Of Sharon Decker’s work on the public-private economic development partnership, McCrory said: “She stepped on a lot of toes to make that happen.” She apparently will now be stepping on toes in the private sector, while John Skvarla steps on toes in Commerce rather than DENR.
McCrory’s campaign website has this video clip: “As a mayor for 14 years, I knew you had to take bold action, and you had to step on the toes of people who wanted to keep the status quo.”
The phrase struck a familiar chord. A Google search unearthed this gem of a story last year by Jeremy Markovich at Charlotte magazine: “The Pat McCrory Toe-Stepping Quote Generator.” Markovich collected a long list of toe-stepping.
In July 2013, the Governor told CNN: “I have stepped on toes in my first six months in office of the right and the left and the media.”
In September that year, he told the Washington Post: “We’re stepping on the toes of a lot of the establishment that’s been controlling this state government for a long, long time, on both the left and the right.”
He didn’t hold out on in-state media, telling WRAL in January 2013, “I don’t want to step on people’s toes to cause pain. I want to step on people’s toes to get them to stand up and recognize that we’ve got a problem and we’ve got to fix it” and WNCN in July “But listen, I’m shocked [my approval numbers are] that high because we’re stepping on the toes of the status quo.”
Or local media. He told the Mt. Airy News, “These are the toes I’m stepping on in North Carolina right now.”
Now, maybe the Governor is just “staying on message,” as they say. Or maybe he can’t think of anything else to say. Or maybe there’s some deep psychological explanation we can’t begin to figure out.
Maybe we’ll want him to keep stepping on our toes for four more years. Or maybe we’ll give him the boot.
Posted in General, North Carolina - Republicans