WSOC in Charlotte has a story out today with a North Carolina spin on the Democratic National Committee’s embarrassing email scandal. Fortunately, they let the North Carolina Republican Party dominate the narrative, which is that calling Pat McCrory a “moronic little bigot of a tarheel (sic) governor” is the worst thing you could ever imagine.

Investigative reporter Paul Boyd spoke to Governor McCrory’s campaign spokesman Ricky Diaz by phone Monday.

“Our hearts just sink when we see that kind of language being used. It’s unacceptable. You know, it’s a shame that Democrats are being politically correct to the public and to the media, but then, when they’re behind closed doors, they’re calling Governor McCrory names,” Diaz said.

[…]

Dallas Woodhouse, the Executive Director of North Carolina’s Republican Party, said the emails prove that democrats politicized the issue from the start.

“I think some of the information coming out of the WikiLeaks shows that the other side was determined for there not to be a resolution of this issue because they thought it was good for them politically. No matter the harm,” Woodhouse said.

This is the email in question. It comes from Pablo Manriquez, a former media booker for the DNC who has endeared himself to the media for not being afraid to express his frustration with his bosses and Democratic talking points. He has endeared himself to me with this email and his notes on McCrory’s interview with Chris Wallace.


While Diaz and Woodhouse were on their soapboxes about what a former DNC official called McCrory, here’s what Pat McCrory said yesterday at a Winston-Salem rally where he spoke in favor of Donald Trump, a man who has questioned whether or not a judge can be impartial because he is Mexican, and who has proposed a ban on Muslim immigration to the United States.

The governor got right to issues after making a joke about bathrooms.

“Let’s be safe now we’ve got a big crowd, so if you need to leave suddenly we’ve exits this way, exits this way and exits this way,” said the governor gesturing in different directions.

“And if any of you need to use the restrooms,” said the governor before the room erupted in cheers. “And if you have any questions go to the Philadelphia convention center where all the Democrats are.”

Calling a moronic bigot a “moronic bigot” is completely unacceptable and makes Ricky Diaz’s heart “sink,” but joking about your shitty law that made transpeople into pariahs? Well, that’s just politics, baby. A few things to note here:

First, if the emails of the state party or General Assembly Republicans were to be leaked, we’d probably find some deeply unfunny material about Roy Cooper and/or bathrooms. Luckily for Woodhouse, that hasn’t happened.

Second, Woodhouse’s statement that “the other side was determined for there not to be a resolution of this issue because it was good for them politically” conveniently ignores that Republicans initially trotted out state Senator Buck Newton, who is running for attorney general, to be the public face of the bill, which I’m sure had everything to do with policy and nothing to do with boosting his profile ahead of a statewide election. It also ignores that Equality NC, the ACLU, Democrats in the General Assembly, and the full weight of business have all repeatedly offered a resolution to fix HB 2: to repeal it in full.

But the end of Woodhouse’s comment speaks to a larger problem, which is not unique to McCrory, but has been made into an art by the spin doctors running his campaign: he can never admit when he’s wrong. Dan Forest is a right-wing bigot, but at the very least, he has been honest about the fact that he prioritizes being a culture warrior over civil rights and the long-term economic health of the state.

McCrory, in contrast, signed HB 2 after what was rammed through in a one-day special session, but who has the governor and the state party blamed for the fallout?

And now, the DNC, which has played much less of a role in formal opposition to the law than the state party or civil rights groups.

HB 2 is a bullshit law meant solely to discriminate against LGBT people, and McCrory was a coward for signing it, hiding behind “privacy” as the reason for doing so, and blaming everyone except himself for the destruction it caused. So, yeah, Manriquez was right about HB 2 and McCrory. But for the sake of hearing Republican Party flacks pontificate about discourse after they’ve demonized transpeople for five months, maybe the DNC should take those conversations offline next time.