North Carolina Republicans had a big night last night. First, Governor Pat McCrory gave us a look at his re-election campaign masquerading as a State of the State address. Then, Thom Tillis made the Daily Show! He’s been US Senator for only a month and he’s already embarrassing himself and us.
First, McCrory’s speech. He was smiling and upbeat the whole night. And who wouldn’t be? Everything is hunky-dory in McCrory land. According to him, we’ve fixed most of our broken government and what’s left will be fixed through increasing government efficiencies and a couple of big infrastructure bonds.
This is the story we’ll hear from the governor for the next two years. The speech outlined all the things that have gone right on his watch and he sounded the right tone with an upbeat and generally optimistic demeanor. After years of struggling to recover from the Great Recession, people need a little optimism and McCrory’s got it to spare.
McCrory even took a subtle shot at his likely opponent, Attorney General Roy Cooper. While most of the government is just humming along due to all McCrory and his team have done to fix it, we still have serious problems with the crime lab. It’s a jab at Cooper whose office oversees the crime lab.
Democrats need to be careful not to fall into a trap of sounding too doom-and-gloom. McCrory’s speech had the tone of Reagan’s Morning in America. Cooper and the Democrats don’t need to sound like Eve of Destruction. They’ve got to find a balance between criticizing the failings of McCrory and the Republicans and offering a positive vision for North Carolina’s future.
As for the Senator, his gaffe was classic Thom Tillis. He thought he was sounding smart and clever when he was really sounding silly and foolish. He was trying to illustrate his disdain for government regulations so he told an audience at the Bipartisan Policy Center that he even disagreed with rules that require restaurant workers to wash their hands after using the bathroom. He’s clearly out of the mainstream. Instead of showing how burdensome regulations can be, he showed that protecting people’s safety trumps blind ideology every time.
McCrory, for his part, outlined his re-election strategy: Take credit of the better economic times, move to the center, and bash Roy Cooper as a failed administrator. Tillis, on the other hand, showed that he really didn’t learn much from a year of campaigning and still thinks he’s a lot smarter than he really is. He lit up social media like a Christmas tree and provided plenty of fodder for comedians everywhere. If last night is any indication, 2015 could be a fun year for politics after all.
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 >
Do not inspect restaurants either. If enough people get sick from eating at a certain establishment it will go out of business. The market, not pesky government regulations will solve the problem. Did Thom wash his hands as a short order cook?
Lily, I don’t think Thom was joshing. It is too easy to pick on him for his comment, but in fairness we should include the other part of what he said. After all, he did not say that restaurant workers should not be required to wash their hands. He said that restaurant workers should not be required to wash their hands so long as the restaurant is required to put up signs telling their customers that the restaurant workers do not have to wash their hands. He said the market would take care of that. What he said was that he was in favor of government-mandated transparency (requiring the signs telling the public of the restaurant’s policy) in place of a government-mandated policy and concluding that making the market transparent would achieve the same end (employees washing their hands) with less government intrusion.
Lest you get the wrong idea: I am in favor of government-mandated hand-washing by restaurant employees.
I think McCrory needs a speech writer or a speech editor. It was 80 minutes of redundant ideas and promises most of which will not happen as long as Phil Berger is in charge of NC.