How North Carolina Became the Wisconsin of 2013

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http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/how-north-carolina-became-the-wisconsin-of-2013/277007/




Nowhere is the battle between liberal and conservative visions of government fiercer than North Carolina. From the environment to guns, abortion to campaign finance, religion to taxes, Raleigh has become a battleground that resembles Madison, Wisconsin in 2011.

Just as Wisconsinites seemed shocked that their state could become so polarized, North Carolina seems like an unlikely candidate for political ground zero. North Carolinians like to boast that their state is "a vale of humility between two mountains of conceit." Until recently, it was certainly an oasis of political calm between Virginia -- a fast-changing purple state fighting battles over transvaginal ultrasounds -- and South Carolina, home of outspoken conservatives like Jim DeMint and Joe Wilson. The Tar Heel State was more moderate. For most of the last century, Democrats controlled the governorship, and they also tended to control the state legislature. Meanwhile, the state voted for a Republican in every presidential election from 1980 to 2004. In 2008, a major push by Barack Obama won him the state by a hair's breadth, and it seemed that North Carolina, like Virginia, might be an emerging purple or even blue-ish state.

Then in the 2010 election, Republicans took control of both chambers of the General Assembly for the first time since 1870. Two years later, Republican Pat McCrory won the governorship (Incumbent Governor Bev Perdue, a Democrat, opted not to run in the face of almost certain defeat). Obama, meanwhile, failed to hold onto the state, even after Democrats held their nominating convention in Charlotte.

That's where our story begins: when the Republicans took over Raleigh. McCrory seems like an unlikely man to oversee a dramatic rightward shift. He was the more centrist GOP contender for the gubernatorial nomination in 2008 (he lost to Perdue, barely) and had spent 14 years as mayor of Charlotte, earning a reputation as a moderate. But the combination of Republican control of both the governorship and the legislature has emboldened the GOP to take up a slew of conservative priorities. Central to the push is Art Pope, a wealthy businessman and political benefactor who is sometimes described as North Carolina's answer to the Koch brothers, and whom McCrory appointed as state budget director. Pope and his associates spent $2.2 million in state races in the 2010 cycle alone, Jane Mayer reported in 2011.

[yodermon]

1. Has Rachel picked up the NC shenanigans on her show? I haven't been able to watch her for

several weeks now.
She's been really good at covering all the State & local level repuke takeovers.