The Uptown paper of record editor is having trouble shaking the notion that he endorsed Pat McCrory for governor when Thames introduced the mayor in Asheville last week. The non-endorsement:
I should know better than most that there is a long list of things that Charlotteans don’t agree on. But it’s clear that they do agree on this: Pat McCrory is the right choice for Charlotte. Last November, voters awarded Pat McCrory an unprecedented seventh term as the city’s mayor. No Charlotte mayor before him had served more than four.
For Charlotte. See? No endorsement. But Pat and his supporters could not have been happier with the intro, as was the intention. The resulting confusion may have been greater than Thames intended, the favorable light for McCrory was not.
We’ve said for a long time that the McCrory-Perdue race will be a tough one for the Tryon Street gang. The race shows every sign of going down to the wire. Endorse Perdue, and the Uptown crowd and city staff will go ape. Endorse McCrory, and the hardcore Dilworth libs and pot-bangers across the state, BlueNC and associated ephemera will explode.
In the meantime, the clever impressionistic endorsement of McCrory cheers his team, the vociferous denials of such re-assures the Perdue camp. Don’t you wish you were as smart as Rick Thames?
Bonus Observation: I have got to believe that the McCrory vs. Perdue question has helped to keep the naming of a new editorial page editor in limbo lo these many months.
