From far off Asheville comes this account of our local political boss:
The mayor of Charlotte has been “quite an ambassador” to the city’s Latinos, says Nolo Martinez.
But the candidate for governor from Charlotte, said Martinez, head of UNC-Greensboro’s Center for New North Carolinians, has been “the most anti-immigrant candidate in the mix.”
The fact that both are the same man, according to Martinez, says as much about the political process in North Carolina as it does about Pat McCrory.
That it does, but this notion — and the entire piece — do not quite capture what has gone on in Charlotte under McCrory’s watch. The illegal immigration issue is tricky to soundbite, but it is certainly true that there are basically two poles — the accommodationists and the enforce-the-law crowd. And it is further true that McCrory has mostly orbited the accommodationist lode stone along with CMPD brass, the Uptown crowd, and corporate America.
But that is all in the past. For the future, I want to hear Mayor McCrory say that he wants the next police chief in Charlotte to be much more pro-active about enforcing current immigration laws and much less worried about offending any particular voting bloc in the process.
That would be substance, not politics.
