The obvious newsmaker of the year in North Carolina

by Chris Fitzsimon, NC Policy Watch and NC SPIN panelist, published in Greenville Daily Reflector, December 27, 2014.

t’s the time of the year when newspapers and websites and television talk shows are busy with their year-in-review features, looking back at the people and events of 2014 with many of them picking a newsmaker of the year in North Carolina.

U.S. Senator-elect Thom Tillis will be the obvious choice of many pundits. Putting aside his right-wing political views and the damage the General Assembly he led has done to North Carolina, Tillis may deserve the nod, given that he defeated an incumbent U.S. Senator in one of the most closely watched races in the country this year.

But if you are looking for the person that has made the biggest impact on the state in 2014, there’s a better choice for both sides of the political divide, President Obama.

Think about it. The Republicans made the election more about Obama than anything happening in North Carolina or anything that Tillis was proposing. They distorted Obama’s record in ad after ad that blasted Democratic Senator Kay Hagan for supporting most of his initiatives. Tillis couldn’t seem to make a public appearance without reminding voters that Hagan voted with Obama “95 percent of the time.”

It is not clear that anything Obama did cost Hagan the election when you consider the historical context — the average loss in the Senate for the party of a president in his sixth year in office is six seats, about what the Republicans picked up in November.

But if Republicans believe that the election was all about Obama’s policies, which doesn’t say much for Tillis, they ought to make Obama the newsmaker of the year.

For progressives still smarting from the Republican wave across the country here’s a reason to name Obama the person who had had the biggest impact on the state — his record in office.

That’s right, despite all the demagoguery and irrational hatred of the Obama on the Right, much of what he has accomplished in his six years in office is immensely popular with many people in North Carolina and across the country.

The national unemployment rate is now below six percent, down significantly from its recession of high of 10 percent. Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney pledged on the campaign trail in 2012 to reduce the unemployment rate to below six percent by end of his first four-year-term.

Obama has done that two years earlier and four times as many jobs have been created during his presidency than were created in the two terms that George W. Bush was in the White House. Even conservative pundits agree that economic trends in states are far more affected by policies in Washington than by what happens in Raleigh, despite Gov. McCrory’s claiming credit for the alleged Carolina Comeback.

Gas prices have fallen rapidly recently and are now below $2.50 a gallon in North Carolina. The drop in gas prices equals at least a $75 billion tax cut for American families according to economists and that comes to about $1,100 in savings per household.

Imagine what you’d think if a presidential candidate promised lower gas prices, smaller deficits, a booming stock market, slowdowns in health spending, fewer uninsured people, unprecedented corporate profits, far lower unemployment, and four times more jobs created than his predecessor.

It’s hard not to think that’s a winning platform that would help most people in North Carolina. That’s some of what this president has delivered regardless of what you heard during the campaign.

Sounds like the newsmaker of the year.

http://www.reflector.com/opinion/fitzsimon/fitzsimon-obvious-newsmaker-year-north-carolina-2744617