He’s back! After more than a year of restraint, the freewheeling Pat McCrory of old showed up in a letter-to-the-editor in the Charlotte Observer. The governor defended his lawyer, Bob Stephens, after an Observer op-ed questioned Stephens’ competence or motives. McCrory blasted the Charlotte Observer for an “elitist bias and lack of journalistic standards.”

The Observer editorial just asked in public the same question everybody else was asking in private: Where’s the accountability for the repeated ethical lapses? McCrory focused on the criticism of Stephens, but the editorial was more about him and he never answered the questions. His angry response just puts more spotlight on his administration–and Stephens, in particular.

We haven’t seen the reactionary angry governor in awhile. He seemed to have been put in a box by his handlers and restricted to more controlled interviews. It also seemed to be working. His approval numbers in some polls seemed to be recovering from those cellar days back in the summer of 2013.

So what happened to bring him back?

Maybe it was his rough week. It started with leaders of his party dismissing him as irrelevant. State Senator Tom Apodaca said, “The governor doesn’t play much of a role in anything.” Republican state Representative Chuck McGrady said, “The governor complained to us about taking a vacation, like we were going to accomplish a lot more (in Raleigh) while he’s off galavanting around the state cutting ribbons.”

Then, a group of news organizations sued the administration for stonewalling on records requests for more than two years. McCrory ran on making government more open and transparent but has blocked access to public records and charged outlets high prices for retrieving them. He blasted the group as “a coalition of liberal media outlets and advocacy groups” who would cost the state money because he would have to “hire more lawyers at taxpayers’ expense.” Or he could just meet the records requests and be done with it.

McCrory has thrown off his chains and is back in the saddle, driving his own communications team again. If his political people can’t contain the bad press, he’ll take care of it himself–by attacking the messengers. Ignore the questions and make the press look like the bad guys. That seems to be his modus operandi. Even if it never works, it makes him feel better.

What’s missing in McCrory’s strategy is validators. Where are those Republican legislators who will stand up for Stephens and the ethical lapses? And which ones are going defend the governor for stonewalling on public records requests? Those are the people who should be writing the letters and issuing press statements, not the governor himself.

McCrory, by himself, doesn’t have the credibility to make the charges he’s made. He needs people to back him up. Otherwise, he’s a lone voice fighting a bunch of people whose job it is to hold government accountable. He can’t win that argument but I’m just glad he’s back.

Thomas Mills

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 >