Erik Spanberg does a fantastic jump of bringing down to the Earth the McCrory for Guv boomlet that has fed off a single poll of name ID. The fact is the local nominally Republican business elite that support McCrory for mayor have already signed on to fund other candidates for governor — often Democrat Richard Moore.
To his credit, McCrory seems well aware of this pattern and notes, “Charlotte often turned on its own.”
Still, there is no doubt there is a spot out there for a statewide candidate who tries to knit together various urban concerns and issues — crime, congestion, Raleigh corruption — and fling them against the status quo from the right. There is also clearly a gap between the less socially conservative urban Republican voter — often a recent transplant from elsewhere — and the rural conservatives across the state.
But is McCrory capable of filling this spot? Perhaps. It would require him to step outside his comfort zone and embrace actual cutting-edge policy approaches in transportation, education, law enforcement, and champion an overall entrepreneurial outlook on state government. This would obviously clash with his traditional corporatist supporters at the Charlotte Chamber, the big law firms, and corporate welfare queens. Yet if they have already flirted with other candidates, McCrory has no choice. He has to move on.
Even more important than the issues a McCrory campaign would run on: Money. Pat needs it. Lots of it. Millions. And he does not have it. Yet. This is where things get interesting.
Could he land a major rainmaker as his campaign chairman, someone who could signal to business interests across the state that McCrory is a serious candidate who can win?
We will find out in the next couple weeks.
