Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Letter to Erskine Bowles from us: Run

Tomorrow's editorial today:

To: Erskine Bowles
From: Us
Subject: Run


Dear Erskine,

We hear you’re thinking hard about whether to run for governor of North Carolina.

We fully understand your ambivalence. Politics is a snake pit, and you might think you have better things to do than subject yourself to that venom. You’ve run for the U.S. Senate twice in North Carolina and lost both times, and you were subjected to negative advertising that attacked your reputation. Besides, you are 66, you’ve been working hard for more than four decades, and you’ve earned a little downtime with your kids and grandkids.

We also understand the tug you’re feeling. That tug to public service. A calling, instilled in you since you were a boy, of using your talents to give back to the community. We know that as a Greensboro native who has spent much of his life in North Carolina, you love this state, and leading it to its potential is a high calling indeed.

Think about what North Carolina needs right now, and whether your strengths and experience prepare you to tackle those needs:

Jobs. With a stubbornly high unemployment rate, this must be a governor’s top priority. It will require more than incentives to land this or that project. It will require someone who knows how to create and sustain an environment that attracts companies for the long haul and boosts small businesses.

A responsible state budget that is balanced both in an accounting sense and in its priorities. North Carolina needs to make smart investments while being cognizant of the tax burden residents face in a sluggish economy. It needs to reform its outdated tax code and make sure that its spending, especially on education but throughout state government, is neither short-sighted nor wasteful. That will demand someone who understands how to balance a budget.

A governor who can work constructively with, but also serve as a check on, an active Republican legislature. That calls for someone who has shown the ability to work across the aisle.

A strong university system. Maintaining the University of North Carolina system as one of the nation’s best requires state leaders who understand its history, its mission and the importance of stout public support.

Clear-eyed leadership beholden to no one ideology or set of special interests.
Know anyone who might qualify?

You spent decades in private business. You led the Small Business Administration. You were the White House Chief of Staff, and as a Democrat worked with Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich to produce the last balanced budget America has seen. You were the president of the UNC system. You co-chaired a national deficit panel, the Bowles-Simpson commission, that was unafraid to both raise taxes and cut spending, angering partisans on all sides.

Even if you run, we don’t know yet who will emerge as the strongest candidate for governor. It’s a long campaign. But that campaign should offer voters strong choices and candidates who can raise the level of discourse.

Religious or not, many people of great talent feel the admonition from the gospel of Luke: To whom much is given, much shall be required. In momentous times, people of great talent step up to serve.

18 comments:

objectivityplease said...

Why wouldn't the Observer support our mayor of 10 years, Republican candidate Pat McCrory? If he were a Democrat, there would be no question you would support him. If current Mayor Anthony Fox had decided to run, you would be endorsing him already. You are showing your partisan colors as usual. You are VERY predictable. That's why moderates like me don't take your editorials seriously because you have an obvious bias.

WashuOtaku said...

I'm glad the O-pinion doesn't speak for all of 'us.'

Wiley Coyote said...

I'm glad I took the barf bag from my flight last night to California that had my notes on it for a meeting.

Thanks US Air.

Anonymous said...

Dear Any Democrat - Please run for the Observer. And please love Occupy anything. We love Occupy. And we love Democrats. It's really all our little gossip pages talk about! We love Democrats that Occupy things. YEAH!!!!

Redlight said...

English translation of this editorial: "We will do anything to keep a Republican out of the governorship".

spaceghost said...

His wife knows abo creating jobs...in South America

spaceghost said...

Typo...that should be about creating jobs

misswhit said...

Does this editorial mean that you will quit trying to convince us that you are non-partisan?

BleedCrimson&White '98 said...

I moved to Charlotte in the middle of McCrory's time as mayor- the only time he acted like a Republican was when a Republican Convention came around. I'm not saying that was a bad thing. Then, when his time on the dais was going to lead to really hard decisions as the economy was starting to crumble around us, he left for greener pastures. Really easy to govern when everything is wonderful versus things being tough. I don't even recognize who this Pat McCrory, who wants to be governor, now cuddling up to the Americans for Prosperity types is these days, but I definitely don't want him as governor.

Erskine Bowles brings many wonderful attributes to the table, but what the Observer Op-Ed folks are forgetting is how Burr, who was losing to Bowles 6 weeks out from the election, pulled the Clinton card out and beat it to death with much success. With politics even more divided today than it was then, how can you think the Republicans won't do the same thing this time around?

Wiley Coyote said...

Barack Obama, Jennifer Roberts, Mayor Fixxit, Bev Perdue, Mike Sleazley....

Pat McCrory, RINO or not, is better than all those listed above combined.

Democrats have ran this state for the past 100 years up until last year.

We don't need anymore of the tax and spend mentality that has killed us during that time not the corruption.

Wiley Coyote said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jim Mitchem said...

Really well written. Kudos.

Jim said...

Oh, boy! The full Lewinsky!

One Discerner said...

Erskine sure has Republicans running scared. I guess they're have to throw all that dirt away they had prepared for Perdue and start all over again.
Yes, the O-Pinion doesn't speak for all of us, but it's quite obvious that Republicans think it speaks for the majority.
The thought of facing Bowles has some of them breaking out in hives.

One Discerner said...

Tax and spend, liberal mainstream media, big government, welfare ...words Republicans are told to use over and over again when they lack substance in their campaigns.
And when really in trouble, inject even if out of context, the names of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Nancy Pelosi and of course the best U.S. President in recently memory, Barack Obama.

Skippy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Skippy said...

1:44, nothing like be lectured at by the typical sycophant whose party continues to play the race card at every turn. The CBO just reported yesterday that real unemployment is 10% and in this same scathing report stated our economy will see our taxes increased by more than 30 percent between 2012 and 2014. The U.S. economy, CBO projects, will perform “below its potential” for another six years and unemployment will remain above 7 percent for another three. You koolaid drinkers are fools.

Erskin is irrelevant, our worse President ever used him as a prop in the debt commission and completely ignored any of their recommendations and he was perfectly OK with the hiring of Mark Sleasley and John Edwards.

Nothing is going to save the Democrat Party this year, especially a useless endorsement from a paper that checked its credibility luggage at the curb years ago.

DistrictSix said...

What a departure for the fair and balanced folks at the Observer, and mainly the Editorial Board, in speaking for all of us, to have a Democrat and luckily, a millionaire to run for the office of Governor.

Some would say they are biased, but, they are quick to write about their being no part of, or allowing in their fair, and balanced editorials, bias.