Veteran pol watcher Jack Betts made lots of common-sense observations in his take on Mayor Pat McCrory running for governor. But I was struck by this bit:
No doubt McCrory has enjoyed the weeks of speculative news stories about his intentions for the governor’s race. He has scheduled an announcement for 1 p.m. Tuesday in Jamestown, the southwest Guilford County town where he grew up.
Perhaps he chose that site to lessen the perception of him as a Charlottean, but unless he chooses to announce his resignation as Charlotte mayor so he can run full time as a candidate from Jamestown, he’ll find it won’t make much difference.
Again with the notion that McCrory would — or could or should — resign from the mayor slot to run. I’m picking up a lot of a that and frankly it seems weird. The mayor’s job is not exactly a full-time one. I can maybe see resigning once McCrory secured the nomination, but that would be primarily as a sort of symbolic act of pushing all your chips into the middle of the table.
But local Democrats — and maybe even a few Republicans — are getting ahead of themselves if they think that a live McCrory for governor campaign will be followed immediately by a resignation. Let’s hope we are not primed for days and weeks of stories about that issue.
On the flip side, maybe there is some sort of long-standing Chamber plan of succession that will be activated once McCrory announces. I would certainly know nothing about that.
