Since Pat McCrory kept the story alive about his run-in with a cook in Charlotte, I get to comment on it one more day. When I wrote about it yesterday, several people asked, “Who is advising McCrory?” That, I think, is the problem. McCrory is taking his own advice.

Last month, he shifted his communications team around, sending Kim Genardo over to Commerce and bringing Josh Ellis from Commerce into the governor’s office. What has not changed is the focus on personal, instead of political, subjects. Somebody might have helped McCrory write the letter, but I doubt seriously anybody advised him to write it.

No good can come out of submitting that letter and no competent communications adviser would suggest it. McCrory, though, thinks he knows best. He’s just sure that if he can just make his point heard, people will see things his way. It’s classic narcissism. It’s not that people can’t see his point of view. It’s that he can’t see theirs.

What’s most disturbing is that McCrory doesn’t learn from his mistakes. He focuses on himself and his personal battles while ignoring larger issues swirling around the state. He blames the press for his problems and apparently doesn’t listen to his advisers. After a year of getting battered, often with self-inflicted wounds, you would think that he would  try to change his behavior. Instead, he just changes personnel.

The other guy at the center of the restaurant episode, cook Drew Swope, commented on my blog yesterday. And he nailed it. He admitted, as he has before, that he should have been fired for his behavior. But McCrory, for his part, was writing a letter to the editor about a a personal slight while the state was dealing with 82,000 tons of coal ash spilled into the Dan River.

Talk about misplaced priorities.

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 >