Mecklenburg County Commissioner Jennifer Roberts seems to have two different campaign messages, one for the broader community and one for Democratic activists. Let’s cross the streams and see what happens.
Here’s Roberts on her Web site, striking the same warm and fuzzy tone she often takes in media interviews:
I believe that politics is a necessary part of any successful democracy. Political debate is how we ensure that all sides of an issue are addressed and that all voices are heard. However, these disagreements should be useful. Attempting to divide people and groups for purely political gain is not useful and has no place in building a stronger community. Democracy is hard work and will only succeed as long as everyone has an equal say. For government to best fulfill its purpose, we need to find ways where compromise is possible if not always desirable. As governmental officials, we must work together, united on behalf of a stronger and better community.
Then there is the message found in a Roberts pamphlet handed out at recent Democratic events around town:
We can’t wait for others to roll back the slow gains of the last 40 years. This is the moral issue of this election. We must elect a Democratic majority in every governing body across the nation to give President Obama the support he needs to lead this nation in our quest for equal opportunity & justice for all and to power the sweeping changes needed to restore our moral direction in this world.
Whew! So much for compromise and “useful disagreement.” That’s a call for a one-party state. But there is more. Roberts continues:
We can’t wait for the abandonment of public education, affordable housing, and equal opportunity protections to the whims and moral failings of a “free market” powered by greed and self-interest.
Nice scare quotes there, Jen. In conclusion then, if you oppose the Obama-Roberts drive to re-make America into a monolithic Euro-socialist state, you are not just wrong, you are immoral. Sounds like someone is dividing people for political gain. In fact, the pamphlet reads like some Jacobin track calling for our very own Republic of Virtue.
But would Center City Partners and the Chamber really approve of a guillotine at Trade and Tryon?
