It's too early to be running for governor
Published April 6, 2014
Editorial by Burlington Times-News, April 4, 2014.
Stop running for office already.
No, we’re not talking about those campaigning right this minute for elected offices that will be in play starting with the spring primary and ending this coming November. After all, there are seven candidates alone running on the Republican slate for the Alamance County Board of Commissioners. Each and every one should be running and running hard at this point. How else will people be able to figure out who to vote for when presented with those electronic ballots when early voting starts on April 24 for the May 6 primary.
No, we’re talking about what is already shaping up as a long, grinding and brutal campaign ahead for, wait for it . . . governor. Voters will go to the polls for that one in, wait for it . . . 2016. It almost sounds like a presidential election kind of deal when we think about it.
Yes, the gubernatorial election is a mere two and a half years away, but the politicking in Raleigh is already visibly under way between Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper.
For McCrory, seeking a second term is probably a done deal, unless he goes the way of former Gov. Beverly Perdue, which no one anticipates. And while Cooper hasn’t officially announced plans to run, it’s pretty obvious that he already is.
Cooper began gunning for McCrory early on and the governor is returning fire. The early shots came when the governor decided to hire outside lawyers to help the state defend its constitutional amendment that bans same-sex marriage. Cooper was openly critical of the amendment but said he’d defend it anyway, as his constitutional duty. Given his opposition to the amendment, his defense would appear suspect.
But that was just a tune-up for the ongoing bickering over the Duke Energy coal ash spill in the Dan River and a federal grand jury investigation into the incident and the state’s response to it.
Investigators are looking into the relationship between Duke and regulators at the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The utility and the state have a long-standing relationship that well predates McCrory’s election in 2012. Getting to the bottom of it is a nagging question.
Cooper’s campaign has been critical of McCrory’s handling of the Feb. 2 spill and environmental issues in general, and has urged backers to sign a petition demanding a cleanup of state waters.
McCrory’s chief lawyer says Cooper has politicized the spill and that the attorney general has refused to represent DENR in the federal probe, instead assigning the State Bureau of Investigation to help federal investigators. The move forced DENR to hire outside attorneys, according to the Fayetteville Observer.
Now we wonder if Cooper can function effectively as attorney general while he’s running a campaign to take the governor down. And can McCrory be the state’s leader while bickering with the attorney general?
Both camps have important jobs to do and a long time left to do them. That’s what Cooper and McCrory should focus on.
