Kansas and North Carolina: Against the Republican tide

by | Oct 1, 2014 | 2014 Elections, Editor's Blog, NC Politics | 5 comments

North Carolina and Kansas have had a long connection in basketball. Dean Smith, the legendary UNC basketball coach, was born and raised there and went on to play ball at the University of Kansas. In 1956, UNC defeated Kansas and Wilt Chamberlain in triple overtime in one of the greatest NCAA championship games in history. In 1958, Smith was hired as an assistant coach at Carolina and, later, his assistant Roy Williams went to coach at Kansas, before returning to Chapel Hill.

Now, we have a more dubious relationship with the Sunflower State. Republicans in North Carolina and Kansas decided to make both states conservative laboratories, enacting ALEC supported legislation to slash taxes and cut funding to all sorts of government programs including public schools, community colleges and universities. Both states are seeing a public backlash.

Just like North Carolina, Gov. Sam Brownback and the Republican legislature slashed taxes on the wealthiest while raising them on the poor, promising that the changes would spur economic growth. It didn’t happen in either state. Kansas has seen a hole in its budget so large that its bond rating was downgraded. North Carolina already has a 10% drop in revenue and we are still a couple of years behind Kansas.

In Kansas, Republican Brownback won by double digits in 2010. Today, he’s trailing his Democratic opponent, Rep. Paul Davis. More than 100 Republican elected and former elected officials endorsed Davis.

If Pat McCrory were running this year, he would likely face similar numbers. But he’s not. Instead, all of our legislature is up for re-election. And the numbers aren’t far off of Kansas. In districts that should be safe for Republicans, they are trailing. Thom Tillis is losing his race to Kay Hagan right now largely because of his record as speaker of the house.

This week, I saw even more evidence. In a heavily Republican piedmont district, the legislature has an approval rating of 28%. The incumbent, who should be in a walk, can’t get close to 50%. However, the unknown challenger probably lacks the resources to close the gap.

And that’s the North Carolina Democrats’ dilemma. They have more targets than they do money. Sam Brownback may have led the Kansas Revolution, but the legislature led it here. They promised to kickstart our economies but left us with rising unemployment and stagnant wages. 

In November, we’ll see if the states come together again against what looks like a national Republican tide.

5 Comments

  1. Russell Scott Day

    Social Media does offer a level playing field that was not available before this time. I am of the judgement that the Democrats are not letting the suffering people know what ideals and goals they really have to offer.

    If all the money is to be spent on TV time, I guess it can get gone quick.

    I put whatever I can make by myself on youtube, and will suggest that the emails I get asking for money have links to such platforms.

    I am pissed that the Democratic party did nothing successful enough for many of us of labor to find much admirable about Democrats. Hagan along with Hillary, and Burr endorsed the Keystone pipeline.

    NC State has developed fine engineering solutions to the need for renewable natural gas, as well as the yam that needs a little more to run the F 35 monstrosity, or a Warthog at least. Democrats just go on as gag votes as lesser agents of corporations like DuPont who perfected tactics and strategies that have keep labor paid no more than will keep them fed.

    I’ll do what I can as Vice Chair of the Carrboro Precinct for the Democratic party.

    What about Roy Cooper? Why didn’t he press charges against all the Republicans of the CSA that signed that so called Tax Payer Protection Pledge, an obvious abrogation of their oath of office?

    Is he afraid of the Republicans who own enough papers TV and Radio to lie about him, smear his character, and otherwise do everything short of assassination. He is an atheist, right?

  2. HunterC

    The North Carolina-Kansas connection in the race to disaster is personified in Lew Ebert, current head of the NC Chamber.

    Ebert previously headed the similar group in Kansas.

    He destroyed Kansas through their statewide “business” group, and he’s doing damage to NC the same way.

    Get rid of Ebert and you’ve taken the teeth out of the NCGOP.

    Art Pope had decades to do damage and never got anywhere. It was only after Ebert was brought to NC after stints in Kansas and Pennsylvania did the NCGOP veer over the edge and take the state with it.

  3. Mick

    IMO, as bad a job the NCGOP has done in “leading” this state since 2010 (and especially since 2012), state residents have not been adversely affected enough —as of yet— to expect too much of voter backlash 5 weeks from now. If all of the 2014 seats were up for re-election a year from now (in 2015), I’d be predicting a much larger spurning of the GOP at the ballot box.

    True, there has been no remarkable “Carolina Comeback” as predicted by the GOP after its tax reform. As we saw, a resulting state revenue deficit needed to be closed this past session, and a bigger deficit is in the offing for next year. Also, the litany of ultra-conservative laws and policies is long, from reproductive health limitations, to discrimination against gays, to voter suppression, to ignoring the health care and insurance needs of hundreds of thousands. And the state’s environmental protection mission and capacity is moving apace toward favoring businesses and corporations over public health and wise pubic stewardship of the state’s natural resources.

    Yet, despite all this regressivism, me thinx that only those who are avid political observers and/or are energized liberals, moderates or progressives are angry enough right now, and their votes would not be enough to cause any significant “throw the bums out” tide in NC.

    The best scenario I can envision is a Tillis loss, and a weakening of the NCGA GOP majorities. These results would only happen if those truly upset with the GOP’s treatment of public education (and educators) and if African-Americans (concerned enough about the new voter law?) come out to vote in bigger numbers than past midterm election suggest. The worst outcome, of course, would be a Hagan loss and wider GOP margins in the NCGA chambers.

    • Cheryl Goldberg

      I’m wondering where in NC you live. I work in community mental health and I can tell you there is not one person be they the professional or the client who has not been negatively impacted.

  4. Colleen Grossell

    Why should money trump common sense? Assuming there is common sense to be found.

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