There’s a reason the N.C. Association of Educators has a middling record of electing the candidates it endorses, and Phil Berger knows that reason:
Many are Republicans, and many Republicans care about public education. NCAE has a strong Democratic identity, so some people assume all teachers are Democrats.
N.C. Sen. Berger, R-Rockingham, showed North Carolinians why he’s the state’s most powerful politician Monday night when he sat down for a civil conversation with 15 teachers who were participating in a Moral Monday protest.
Contrast Berger with Gov. Pat McCrory who, last year, fibbed about meeting with protesters and N.C. House Speaker Thom Tillis who, when protesters occupied his office, slipped away to avoid them before they were arrested the following morning.
When protesters finally chose Berger’s office as their sit-in site, Berger found time to meet with them. To Berger’s advantage here, we must add, was the fact that the teachers are probably the constituent group of Moral Monday protesters who are least offensive to Republican sensibilities, even if these 15 were all Democrats.
Berger may believe in the old advice to hold enemies close, or he may have learned to engage protesters from previous Democratic legislative leaders like N.C. Sen. Marc Basnight.
Faced with major protests, Basnight and most Democratic House speakers would defuse some of the protest anger by either meeting their leaders privately, or sending a lieutenant.
Over the last 35 years, there have been numerous protests at the Legislative Building. Some were just as big and raucous as any of the individual Moral Monday protests. But none endured more than a few days or weeks.
There were the Equal Rights Amendment protests of 1980-81, the Moral Majority protests of the 1980s, the UNC student protests of the 1990s and, most dramatic of all, the farmer protests in the late 1990s. Farmers protested over hog farm rules and the tobacco settlement.
Democratic leaders in those days understood that they needed the votes of the conservative Democrats who were protesting. By meeting with them, they defused the anger, found some points of compromise, got the protesters to go home and remained in power until 2011.
Contrast that strategy with McCrory, who insulted abortion protesters with a cookie drop, and Tillis who hid from protesters in keeping with the modern day tradition of running for statewide office by hiding from all but one’s strongest supporters and donors.
Back to Berger. He compromised on his Read to Achieve program because it was angering parents. He showed respect to teachers by giving them his time and engaging in civil discussion. Berger understands that he can’t ignore teachers or the many parents concerned about education any more than Democrats could ignore farmers.
The Tillis approach led to arrests, the McCrory approach to trespass citations. The Berger approach ended without either.
Berger didn’t end the protests, but Republican teachers and Republicans who support schools probably feel better about him than they do about their other two leaders.
