World Class Notoriety
Remember the halcyon days of yore, way back in February 2011, when city leaders were bursting pride and joy that the Queen City had just been crowned with the Democratic National Convention.
Officials crooned that the DNC would shine a national spotlight on Charlotte, highlighting its world-class dreams and aspirations and paving a road for The One to again win North Carolina on Election Day.
“We’re not just the New South, we are the New America,” Gov. Beverly Perdue declared when Charlotte landed the DNC.
The DNC’s spotlight, though, has turned brutally harsh of late, with political pundits questioning the wisdom of Democrats selecting North Carolina as a lead battleground state and tarnishing Charlotte’s luster in the process. As Roll Call’s political analyst Stuart Rothenberg notes, “Simply put: North Carolina looks like a mess for Democrats.”
The state’s Democratic governor, Beverly Perdue, is so unpopular — her job approval has been fluctuating from 30 percent to 40 percent for months — that she wisely decided not to seek re-election this year. A recent survey by Public Policy Polling, a Raleigh-based Democratic polling firm, showed only 60 percent of Democrats approve of the job the governor is doing.
A handful of Democrats are vying for their party’s nomination, including former Rep. Bob Etheridge and the state’s sitting lieutenant governor, Walter Dalton, but virtually everyone expects former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory (R), who lost to Perdue narrowly four years ago, to win the state’s top office in November.
…
Democrats will lose three or four Congressional seats in November, victims of Republican redistricting made possible by the national GOP wave of 2010, which gave both chambers of the state Legislature to Republicans. (In an ironic twist, the governor of North Carolina had no role in the redistricting process.)
But it gets worse.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, North Carolina’s preliminary unemployment rate for March stood at 9.7 percent, lower than only three states (California, Rhode Island and Nevada) and the District of Columbia. Apparently, the Obama administration’s jobs recovery has not shifted into high gear in the Tar Heel State.
Of course, if the state’s economy is a mess, it’s still in better shape than the North Carolina Democratic Party.
Two weeks ago, the state party’s executive director, Jay Parmley, resigned amid accusations of sexual harassment. North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman David Parker, who accepted Parmley’s resignation but seemed to defend him, has also come under fire. Some Democratic activists are now demanding his resignation.
Finally, the president will accept his party’s nomination — and presumably beat up on corporate America and the wealthy — at Bank of America Stadium (after a couple of days at Time Warner Cable Arena). Expect the press to point out the irony, which could put President Barack Obama’s campaign on the defensive more than a few times.
So over the course of the last 14 months, Charlotte’s gone from Foxx & Co. gleefully celebrating the DNC:
To this:
Oh yeah, that’s a world class spotlight for Charlotte. But, hey, we’ve got a potential 9-percent city property tax hike and new taxpayer-subsidized, uptown baseball stadium to look forward to. So there’s that.
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