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Questions for aspiring governors

Posted on October 4, 2007 by Staff

 By Chris Fitzsimon

The North Carolina Association of Educators made its endorsement of Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue for governor official this weekend, just before Perdue’s Monday official campaign kickoff in New Bern.

That prompted a swift reaction from Jay Reiff, the campaign manager for State Treasurer Richard Moore, Perdue’s opponent in the Democrat primary. Reiff told the Winston-Salem Journal that not only was the endorsement process rigged by Raleigh insiders, it didn’t make sense because Perdue didn’t deliver on her promise to raise teacher salaries to the national average.

The NCAE points out that teacher salaries increased significantly while Perdue was chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, but Reiff is right that they are not at the national average.

And while it’s true that Perdue is a Raleigh insider, Moore is no stranger to well-connected Democratic circles himself, serving in the General Assembly, running for Congress and heading the Department of Crime and Public Safety under Gov. Jim Hunt before being elected state treasurer.

This exchange is the latest example of what political pundits are predicting will define the race between Perdue and Moore: a battle over nuances in positions, assaults on the candidates’ characters and fundraising practices and a focus on any hint of scandal or impropriety.

The campaign recently made headlines with charges and countercharges about campaign workers making freedom of information requests from state computers on state time.

There’s nothing new about that, that’s the nature of high-stakes political campaigns these days, but it doesn’t have to be this way. The campaign could be about things that actually affect the lives of the almost nine million people who live in North Carolina.

The conventional wisdom in Raleigh is that the Moore-Perdue race almost has to be decided by a discussion of things other than issues, because the candidates’ positions seem so similar, especially on issues the consultants and pundits believe are important in a Democratic primary.

There’s another way for them to run this campaign: by telling us how they would solve some of North Carolina’s biggest problems. Both candidates are trying on health care. Moore has released a plan to provide health coverage for children and Perdue has a proposal to expand coverage for some parents of poor kids.

That’s a good start. But what about mental health reform? It is no secret that the state’s mental health system is a mess, with people unable to find community services as two hospitals prepare to close.

Do Perdue and Moore believe Dorothea Dix should close as scheduled or remain open until families can be certain their loved ones can find care? What would they do as governor to fix the broken mental health system?

What about the state’s growing prison population? Do the candidates support changes in sentencing laws that the state’s district attorneys didn’t oppose that would save 2,500 prison beds and hundreds of millions of dollars?

Do they feel comfortable with the state resuming executions in light of all the recent stories about innocent people in prison and the documented problems with the administration of capital punishment?

Maybe most importantly, how would they try to help the thousands of families in the state struggling to make ends meet and the thousands more who have lost that struggle? One in five children lives in poverty in North Carolina and the numbers are much higher for people of color.

And the answer can’t simply be to spend more on education. Poverty is a primary predictor of how well kids will do in school, so improving education means addressing poverty too.

There are dozens more issues: campaign finance reform, standing up to racism against immigrants, affordable housing, child care, juvenile justice, transportation, renewable energy, protecting open space, etc.

The three major Republican candidates ought to answer all these questions too of course. (More about that primary in future columns, though so far we know the candidates are against the gas tax, incentives and gay marriage.)

The May primary is seven months away. Now that Perdue is making her candidacy official, let’s use the occasion to demand that the candidates talk about things that actually matter to North Carolina’s future, not who’s more of an insider or who received what endorsement.

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