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Charlotte's Mayoral Future


voyager12

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Hasn't Eastern North Carolina typically not voted for Charlotte reps either as governor and/or Senate seats? I've always heard that, but other than Vinroot haven't paid much attention in earlier years. I do recall hearing that is why Vinroot didn't win, the many in more rural North Carolina don't like the "city boys".
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McCrory may be aware that the pressures to "do something" about the deterioration in east and north Charlotte is building. It will come to a boil someday and he will face a serious challenger. Better to leave voluntarily under sunny skies.

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I also think it's important to factor in Pam Syfert's coming retirement. The City Manager position seems to hold the most power of all. At least that is what long time Charlotteans tell me. From what I can tell Syfert and McCrory have had an amiable working relationship. It will be interesting to see how a new City Manager interacts with a new Mayor if McCrory bows out.

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I see McCrory running for Dole's US Senate seat in 2008. I'm sure he'd be an improvement, although that's not saying much IMO. Has she done anything? I don't even think she lives in NC.

Under the former Charlotte mayor topic, I remember quite clearly the US Senate campaign Harvey Gant nearly won vs Jesse Helms in 1992 (I think). Gant came really close (47%?) but was targeted by a racially-motivated ad that swung the election Helms' way in the final weeks. :angry:

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It was 1990. I remember it well as I was staying at the North Raleigh Hilton which was Gantt's HQ on election night. I got drafted to go knock on doors in Durham to get out the vote. Unfortunately it wasn't enough. There was a bunch of funny business going on where a lot of the voting machines in Durham, in the Democratic parts, were not working, were locked up, etc. As a result a Judge ruled the polls there to stay open until 10pm.

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I found this from the N&O from after the mid-term elections "what we learned":

5. THE CHARLOTTE CURSE CONTINUES. Bowles is the latest in a long line of Charlotteans who have failed to win their bids for greater offices -- a list that includes Richard Vinroot, Harvey Gantt, Sue Myrick and Eddie Knox. The last Charlotte resident to win a major state office was Cameron Morrison, elected governor in 1920 -- and the Democratic machine had to steal that election for him to win. (Former Gov. Jim Martin of Davidson, near Charlotte, carefully listed Lake Norman in Iredell County as his home.)

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She just did an interview in one of the Huntersville papers about the changes in congress and what it means to her since she is in the minority party now. She did not give any indication that she was getting ready to step down. McCroy could run a campaign against her, but like I said earlier, he isn't well liked in many quarters and I don't think he would go very far with a bid such as that. The papers at the lake have been either neutral or negative about him for years so I don't think he would get to much support in the 9th district in unseating her.

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She just did an interview in one of the Huntersville papers about the changes in congress and what it means to her since she is in the minority party now. She did not give any indication that she was getting ready to step down. McCroy could run a campaign against her, but like I said earlier, he isn't well liked in many quarters and I don't think he would go very far with a bid such as that. The papers at the lake have been either neutral or negative about him for years so I don't think he would get to much support in the 9th district in unseating her.
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I don't think they have focused on that as much as they have the relations between Charlotte an its neighboring towns. Sometimes they are very bad and McCrory is seen as the spoiler causing much of it. He did go to Raleigh to try and stop the towns from keeping their share of the hotel/motel tax. And he is noted to have made comments about the North Commuter Rail line that were not very favorable either.

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  • 2 months later...

According to today's O State Democratic Sen. Malcolm Graham is going to decide soon whether to challenge McCrory. If he decides against it three time loser Madans said he will probably run again :stop::cry: Why? Is the man a glutton for punishment? We might as well skip the election altogether :rolleyes:

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well, Malcolm Graham has officially bowed out of the Mayoral race. Outside of Madan's martyrdom run for Mayor, does anyone have nominees for viable Democrats to go up against McMayor? Does an outsider really have a chance against such an entrenched figurehead puppet supported by the banks and the establishment?

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Pretty harsh comments about the Mayor - you may not agree with his politics but calling him a "figurehead puppet" sounds like sour grapes, and implies that he does whatever the "banks and establishment" want him to do. It's possible that he just shares their views on most issues.
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An article in the Observer today stated that Pat McCrory is refusing to sign a U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. He said that he didn't sign it b/c of some sort of political inuendos in the preamble and the fact they didn't include nuclear power as an alternative energy source.

I wish he'd signed it, but I do agree with him on the nuclear power part. Nuclear power is an efficient form of energy. It is nearly impossible for a modern nuclear plant to leak radiation, and the only negative side effect is the nuclear waste in the spent fuel rods. They do have proper sites of storing the these, for example, at the Yucca Mountain site in the Nevada desert.

http://www.charlotte.com/115/story/105396.html

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An article in the Observer today stated that Pat McCrory is refusing to sign a U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. He said that he didn't sign it b/c of some sort of political inuendos in the preamble and the fact they didn't include nuclear power as an alternative energy source.

I wish he'd signed it, but I do agree with him on the nuclear power part. Nuclear power is an efficient form of energy. It is nearly impossible for a modern nuclear plant to leak radiation, and the only negative side effect is the nuclear waste in the spent fuel rods. They do have proper sites of storing the these, for example, at the Yucca Mountain site in the Nevada desert.

http://www.charlotte.com/115/story/105396.html

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Indeed. McCroy is a Duke Energy employee and I guess follows the dogma that you can't use too much electricity. The house next to me does not have natural gas because the guy who built it was a Duke Energy employee and refused have it installed so it is all electric. Duke layed him off and now he is gone and the house has outrageous heating bills from the heat pumps that cant deal with the cold here.

But even more to the point, lets not forget that McCroy was one of Bush's attack dogs during the 2004 GOP election and even did one of the opening speaches at their convention. This is a group that is controlled and operated by a group that makes a huge amount of money from the burning of fossil fuels. McCrory has apparently hitched his wagon to this group and probably doesn't even believe there isn't such a thing as global warming. Remember that just for us environmental koolaid drinking nuts. -_-

Then again, given how the GOP is in big time self destruction mode, McCroy like any good politican, might be questioning that strategy.

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I still find it hard to understand how a solidly second tier and fast growing city like Charlotte has a part time mayor. McCrory likes to say that he is above "politics" and is civil and straightforward with everyone. If that was true he would have signed the agreement based on the sound and important environment goal it's based upon and ignored the liberal bias he alleges is part of the statement. As soon as he saw Asheville, Durham,Chapel Hill, and Carrboro among the signatories there was no way he way he was going to put Charlotte's name near the most liberal towns in NC. He probably sees the whole agreement as a propaganda war against Republicans.

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I don't know much about local politics, but I do believe that people sell figureheads short. They represent at the very least publicly popular ideas, and at best they can help pacify conflicting ideology. I was just curious if anybody with a degree or background in urban planning or a comporable field would be interested in providing some insight into what the city needs in a mayor and in infrastructure (Nut shell of course). This is not to say that those who have posted are somehow inept or even that they lack urban development training, I'd just like to seperate proffesional opinion from personal interest.

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I still find it hard to understand how a solidly second tier and fast growing city like Charlotte has a part time mayor. McCrory likes to say that he is above "politics" and is civil and straightforward with everyone. If that was true he would have signed the agreement based on the sound and important environment goal it's based upon and ignored the liberal bias he alleges is part of the statement. As soon as he saw Asheville, Durham,Chapel Hill, and Carrboro among the signatories there was no way he way he was going to put Charlotte's name near the most liberal towns in NC. He probably sees the whole agreement as a propaganda war against Republicans.
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I found it politically noteworthy that Susan Burgess appeared at our weekly anti-war protest at Scott&East today. The crowd was much larger because the local Moveon.org group combined with CodePink Charlotte. I know Burgess is relatively progressive to begin with but shoring up her anti-war credentials with Charlotte's Democratic base doesn't hurt if she is considering a mayoral run....

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