Leave it to the The WaPo to provide some of the most sensible reporting on North Carolina’s political present and near future.
In sum, Republicans statewide are calling audibles from the same playbook John Lassiter rode to humiliating defeat in the 2009 mayor’s race in Charlotte. Namely, fret about and lament Democratic turnout — and ways to supress it — while at the same time courting black and Latino votes (recall Lassiter kicked off his campaign with visions of a streetcar at Eastland Mall), denegrate their own conservative base as troglodytes pining for the days of Helmsian hegemony, ignorant of the ways of the Modern World, and raise as much money as possible by carrying water (and legislation) for the rent-seekers and the special interests.
The one thing Robin Hayes has right is that many GOPers around the state do not get that Barack Obama will be very hard to beat in North Carolina in 2012. Not impossible. Hard. But Republicans will have to give voters something to work with — and for — beyond “Stop Barack.”
Charlotte will be ground zero for the Obama re-election operation — no doubt about it. And North Carolina is intended to be the launching pad for Obama’s assault on the Southeast. Of course the WaPo exhumes the ancient Nixonian phrase “Southern Strategy” to cast Obama in a crusading light against the forces of darkness. But in truth that is not what Republicans have been running — and winning — on until recently in the region. A “Suburban Strategy” is more like it.
Besides, bringing up Jesse Helms in the context of 2012 is really off-base, especially with regard to the Charlotte region. The moderates have more or less owned the GOP locally since the mid 1980s, certainly with regard to higher offices. Statewide, the Jim Martin wing of the party was both more moderate and at least as influential as the Congressional Club wing. With this perspective, some supposed experts wind up sounding pretty stupid, to wit:
“This is no longer only the party of Jesse Helms,” said Paul Shumaker, a GOP strategist based in Raleigh who advises, among others, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.). “I tell my clients, and I tell others: ‘You need to quit looking through the rearview mirror, and you need to start looking through the windshield.'”
Now understand why Obama — and Bev Perdue for that matter — can look to 2012 with some confidence. While the NC GOP leadership listens to consultants like Shumaker who bend reality to create pithy Hotline-ready quotes and hired-gun crypto-lobbyists on how to position this and frame that, the Democrats are preparing for a land war with a single objective: Turn out every registered Democrat possible.
Republicans statewide — and especially locally — continue to simply assume that registered Republicans and indpendents who skew conservative with automatically flock to cast votes for whatever stuffed-shirt Shumaker et al put on a ballot.
I think they are in for a rude surprise.
