This morning, Governor Pat McCrory gave a short
interview to WUNC Capitol Bureau Chief Jessica Jones
which you can find here and here.
There was a substantial amount of mouthbreathing, sighing,
and aggressively interrupting Jones’s questions—at least
three different times.
This is not unusual for McCrory. In interviews, he seems to have
a wily, indignant demeanor, as if throughout asking himself
why he even agreed to do it. On TV, he has a sly, carnivorous
look on his face like a fox or hyena of some sort.
Jones sounded audibly annoyed by the governor’s interruptions.
The Governor seemed uncomfortable. Embattled even.
Despite the predictable rhetoric of the job of Governor being
“about what he expected” stray indignant complaints betrayed
him as being somewhat miserable.
As with any indignant person, he had a scapegoat—despite
attempts to dismiss its relevance, the Governor kept coming
back to Moral Monday, the protestors, not
having a Honeymoon in office, the people without solutions.
Though he said he “respects the protestors” he took digs at
Reverend Barber and the movement by saying that whenever
there are arrests there are “more media than protestors there.”
As to the recent changes in the Legislative Building rules aimed
at hampering and diminishing Moral Monday, McCrory said he
thought the building rules should be stricter.
Thoughout in the interview McCrory made a show of being to the left
of General Assembly Republicans on raising teacher pay without
getting rid of tenure and making sure teacher assistants stay in the
classroom. He made a show of being entirely separated from Duke
Energy even though he added he “still had good old friends there.”
But perhaps the most subtle revelation of where his priorities lie
was the conspicuous absence of empathy with the poor, the embattled,
the jobless, the marginal.
In justifying his budget cuts, he said he had met with 500 real estate
agents the other day. “They didn’t make any money for three years,
they’re just surviving, they’re just staying in business.”
There was absolutely no mention of the average North Carolinians
foreclosed upon, struggling to make rent, struggling to survive.
With whom do McCrory’s sympathies lie? Real estate agents.
The private sector. Himself, for having protestors outside
the door, for having to govern during a budget crisis.
Not average North Carolinians.