3 days ago
Pat McCrory deserves better from North Carolina
Governors typically don't just ride off into the sunset. After they leave office, they move on — to board seats, fellowships, maybe even national office.
They're senior statesmen, working to cement their legacy. They're celebrated, consulted, and remembered, if not always revered.
Former Gov. Pat McCrory doesn't have any of that. Eight years after leaving the executive mansion, North Carolina's only Republican governor in two generations is still without a true second act.
He's dabbled in radio, flirted with a third-party movement and picked up a few small business advising roles. He eschewed a winnable U.S. House race for a Senate run that turned into a humiliating implosion. He's now hosting a Friday night show on PBS Charlotte.
There's no institute named for McCrory, like governors Jim Hunt and Jim Martin each have. No Harvard fellowship, like governors Roy Cooper and Bev Perdue.
Instead, McCrory's after-office chapter has been a slow, sad fade from relevance. He's the only former North Carolina governor in living memory to be so publicly adrift.
Much of that is his own doing. McCrory came to Raleigh from Charlotte unprepared for state-level politics. After years of being beloved Mayor Pat, the brighter lights of the capital exposed a paper-thin skin and a reflexive insecurity that kept him from capitalizing on his 2012 mandate.
He picked the wrong fights, ignored the right ones and aired his grievances in the press instead of behind closed doors. Most damaging of all, he failed to build the political relationships needed to succeed in a state where the governor is constitutionally weak.
Along the way, he managed to alienate nearly every bloc — left, right and center.
Now he's a governor without a political home, isolated at 'Lake Jimmy,' as he calls it on the radio, starting every other sentence with 'When I was governor . . . ' and ending with a complaint about getting screwed.
But McCrory's marginalization isn't just about his mistakes. It reflects something deeper and more troubling in today's politics: the way a party discards anyone who no longer fits its mold.
This is a man who helped lead Charlotte's rise into a major metro across seven terms. Much of the city's current vibrancy traces back to him.
And as governor, he had real wins. McCrory wasn't the architect of the conservative revolution in North Carolina, but he was its public face. He implemented tax reform, slashed corporate rates, overhauled unemployment insurance, embraced regulatory rollback and expanded school choice.
When he took office, North Carolina had one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. By the time he left, it had one of the best economic rebounds.
He also excelled in areas that require an executive's touch. During Hurricane Matthew, he led with calm and competence: daily briefings, real-time decisions and visible leadership. It was textbook crisis management that's been sorely lacking since then.
And at the DMV, McCrory cut wait times and modernized operations. His reforms worked. Current Gov. Josh Stein, by contrast, is watching that progress unravel while offering no clear plan to fix it.
Yet despite all that, McCrory has never been allowed, or able, to fully own the era he governed.
That's the real tragedy, on both sides. Instead of transitioning into legacy mode, McCrory kept chasing relevance. He clung to the microphone when he should have changed his tone. It's not just sad, it's maddening.
Listening to him now, whether on air or in interviews, the tone is still defensive. His skin is still thin. The old grievances are louder than the real accomplishments. His message is getting lost in the noise of pride.
Punditry is beneath the dignity of a former governor, and hosting a public TV show is something you do in your eighties, when the work is finished. McCrory still had time to build a legacy, mentor future leaders and put the past in perspective. Instead, he grasped for the relevance he once had.
The party hasn't helped. Former governors should be assets, especially in a fast-growing, closely divided state like North Carolina. They should guide, not disappear. Instead, McCrory's been left to drift while the GOP chases louder voices with thinner résumés.
If the Republican Party wants to lead again — not just win elections, but actually govern — it should look harder at what McCrory got right. Put aside the hard feelings. Bring him back into the fold. Not to crown him, but to use his example.
A few months ago, McCrory returned to the governor's mansion for the first time since his defeat, joining Martin, Perdue, Cooper and Mike Easley for a private gathering of former governors at Stein's invitation.
'It was fun being part of the old gang,' McCrory recounted on WBT radio in Charlotte. He'd driven up to Raleigh with Martin, swapping stories during the ride. The two arrived into town early and stopped by the old Capitol building, where the governor keeps his office — only to be frisked at security and told to check their phones. No one recognized them.
'You're forgotten very quickly,' McCrory said.
For North Carolina, that would be a mistake. It might be too late for McCrory to script a second act. But we'd be fools not to learn from the first one.
Andrew Dunn is a contributing columnist to The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer. of Raleigh. He is a conservative political analyst and the publisher of Longleaf Politics , a newsletter dedicated to weighing in on the big issues in North Carolina government and politics.
