In 1990, when Art Pope set up the John Locke Foundation, North Carolina’s second Republican governor since Reconstruction was in the middle of his second term. In the state house, a group of rebellious Democrats had engineered a coup by forging an alliance with Republicans to overthrow Speaker Liston Ramsey. Pope must have sensed the tide was turning in the state and the Republicans were ascendant.
However, 1992 would have been a disappointment. Jim Hunt was elected governor for the third time and Democrats retained control of both houses of the legislature. While the GOP would take the house in the 1994, victories for the GOP would be few and fleeting until 2010. Pope could have closed up shop after any number of defeats, but he didn’t.
It’s a lesson Democrats should learn. For years, various progressive organizations have popped up for an election cycle or two and then gone away. In the wake of 2012, when Democrats finally lost both houses of the legislature and the Governor’s Mansion, progressive set up more organizations to oppose the GOP policies and defeat them at the ballot box.
In 2014, many Democrats expected a backlash that would give them control of at least one house of the legislature. Instead, they faced a Republican wave that cost them their US Senate seat, a state senate seat and only gave Democrats three additional seats in the house. But now is not the time to quit.
Progressives need to take a long a view and prepare for a long fight, just like Art Pope. Some Democrats hold out hope that the GOP will pass redistricting reform that will make legislative districts more competitive. That won’t likely happen. Had Republicans lost a bunch of seats in November, they may have taken up a bill out of fear that they would lose power before 2021 when the next redistricting takes place. After 2014, though, they’re feeling pretty secure with their majorities.
The GOP gerrymander is likely to keep them in control of the legislature for a long time to come. It took wave elections to dislodge Democrats when they held the chambers and it may take a wave to dislodge the GOP. Since wave elections are usually reactions against the party in power, we won’t see one with a Democrat in the White House.
Instead of getting demoralized, though, progressive funders need to double down and keep investing in the infrastructure they’ve begun to build. They should be aggressive in exposing GOP policies that hurt working families and creating opportunities when Republicans stumble. They should be playing offense all the time and providing information and resources to potential candidates and leaders. Most of all, they need to build certainty and continuity at a time when the Democratic Party itself can provide neither.
Art Pope bided his time for 20 years. He built policy and communications operations that served as a government-in-waiting while the GOP was out of power. While he and the GOP only had sporadic victories in the 1990s and early 2000s, they had the organization and infrastructure to exploit a year like 2010. Pope sensed an opportunity and took it. He invested heavily in campaigns and his gamble paid off. While Republicans probably would have done well in a wave like 2010, they did much better because of Pope’s infrastructure.
At some point, progressives will have a year like 2010 to exploit. They better be ready.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
If Art Pope is so rich (with money he inherited) why can’t he find a plastic surgeon to do something about the way he looks? That guy is one UGLY mo-fo!
Hey …at the rate they’re going, NC’s GOP could generate the state level equivalent of a wave all by themselves…..
Well, Democrats will NOT do squat if they let the “ole guard”, with Hunt, Marshall, etc. take the lead with their stable of tame ponies. Somehow, the Democrats have to keep these people from handing over the controls to the consultants again and letting them suck the blood from the carcass. The redistricting is absolutely key, nothing changes until 2020 and 2022, no matter how much GOTV, fundraising, etc. goes on to keep the favorite children busy. Democrats need to seize the issue of a nonpartisan redistricting commission and drive it through. Maybe by 2020, folks will have forgotten the Dixiecrats, a chancre on the body politic. So, keep the party out of the hands of Hunt, Marshall, Keever, Szlosberg, Wood, etc. for the interim and allow healing to take place following the savaging of NCDP for two years by these people who turned their backs on the Party for childish, personal reasons.
Buncombe County, where Patsy Keever has been a leading Democrat for 20 years, is the ONLY place in the state, and one of few in the entire nation, that went strongly blue in 2014–the Republicans’ great wave election. That’s because Patsy encouraged her fellow Democratic candidates–Terry Van Duyn and Brian Turner and John Ager–to speak out strongly on behalf of progressive Democratic values. They did, and they WON.
And as state party chair, she’ll hold Democrats across NC to the same standard: speak up strongly and loudly and consistently for Democratic principles of progress, equal opportunity, justice, voting rights, and broad-based economic growth. That’s how they’ll win, as they did in Buncombe County.
I do not think it is all attributable to Art but to global warming, bottled water and large sugary sodas.
Or maybe it is the pendulum theory that political persuasions swing back and forth.
Or did George Soros lose all his money in the Circle of Gold?
It’s not gerrymandered districts that have put the republicans in charge of all three branches of state government – who verifies vote tabulation??? Soon they will have a lock on the entire country and it’s not coincidence nor voter approval, it is cheating plain and simple but everybody keeps looking away. The republicans are also getting plenty of political hype from the conservative establishment which controls 99% of airwave and media content. That’s how you turn a country red!
I love this guy! But please, if you know him, don’t leave any weapons lying around.