The Backlash

In Raleigh, cracks start showing in the GOP's façade

“I have stepped on toes in my first six months in office of the right and the left — and the media,” Gov. Pat McCrory told CNN’s Jim Acosta this week (video below).

“You seem proud of it,” Acosta said.

“Maybe,” McCrory said, “that means I’m doing something right.”

The following, all from this week, are scenes from overreach and the beginnings of a backlash:

• The left-leaning Raleigh firm Public Policy Polling announced that for the first time since he took office, McCrory’s approval rating is negative, and the abortion bill the governor says he’ll sign is a major reason. (Before you dismiss PPP’s poll results, consider these poll results from the right-wing Civitas Institute — founded by Art Pope his ownself — that showed McCrory’s approval rating drop from 56 to 49 percent from March to July.)
• The Washington watchdog group CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) names Gov. Pat to its list of “The Worst Governors in America.”
• As the N.C. House tries to wrap up its business before the legislative session ends, House Speaker Thom Tillis jets off to D.C. to, in a spokesman’s words, “(lay) the groundwork for fundraising” for his U.S. Senate race against Sen. Kay Hagan, reports WRAL’s Mark Binker. Even GOP Sen. Tom Apodaca announces on the Senate floor that he and his fellow lawmakers are “sick of the House” because “They don’t want to stay here and work.”
• Lawmakers appear to have suckered Charlotte city officials on the airport deal. City Manager Ron Carlee told the Charlotte Business Journal that he’s “concluded that there has never been a genuine interest in having the city involved beyond taking the airport away from the city with the city’s help.”
• House Republicans ram through the most sweeping state tax reform in decades after 25 minutes of debate. The tax reform bill cuts the tax rate on corporations and the rich and, stunningly, hurts homeowners by capping the combined mortgage interest and property tax deduction at $20,000. “Prior to this bill, to our knowledge, no government in the country has ever capped these deductions,” Mark Zimmerman, chairman of the state Realtor association’s legislative committee, told the Biz Journal’s Susan Stabley. “Any time you take away a tax advantage for homeowners, it effectively reduces home values.”

Maybe that means I’m doing something right. And maybe the Senate’s “motorcycle vagina” bill was model legislation. If Gov. Pat wants his doubt removed, he might want to start looking out the window.