The Charlotte Biz Community Starts Hedging Bets

Today's Under the Dome blog informs us that Mayor Pat has a major money shakedown coming up repleat with the big names of the Charlotte business community. Wasn't it only a few months ago that we kept reading about the corporate powers in the Queen City showering Richard Moore with campaign contributions? Looks to me that the big dogs are starting to question their earlier investment with Moore continuing to trail badly behind Bev in the polls. Not surprising since she claims to have solved every major problem facing our state since Reconstruction and is on a roll.

All of this leads to the inevitable observation that the Charlotte crowd just can't tolerate not having a candidate for governor totally beholden to them. How else can they be assured that tax dollars they think should be coming to Charlotte actually make it and government policies like "incentives" keep flowing.

But I have to give credit to the McCrory political bosses in how they have orchestrated the money issue. First, old Pat runs for Mayor, a virtual lock to win, and soaks up nearly $650,000 in contributions from fans and "players" wanting to make sure they had a continuing voice in local government decisions. Then, spending only about a third of the money raised, the McCrory campaign rolls the left over $400,000 into his campaign for governor. However, by not stepping down as Mayor, he put himself in the position of going back to those same generous souls who funded his race for mayor and getting a new round of money. Maybe they think they're investing in the governor's race or maybe it's a hedge against Pat losing and still being mayor. Anyway you slice the loaf, it means more bread for the McCrory campaign.