Can a Republican Win the Governorship?

Jack Betts has posted a thought provoking blog entry on This Old State yesterday, pointing out the dramatic difficulty that N.C. Republicans have had winning the governor's office while having great success in U.S. Senate races. Considering the trends around the south, many political observers simply don't understand why it's been so tough for the Tar Heel GOP to capture the executive branch. Betts asks the question, "Will 2008 test this trend?" Before Republicans can answer that question, however, they need to understand the dynamics of state politics that has them on a painfully long losing streak.

I would attribute the GOP's lack of success to two factors: first, the GOP has lately modeled its gubernatorial campaigns after the successful models used by Republican senatorial candidates like Jesse Helms. Those hard conservative campaigns usually work fine for federal races, but when it comes to running state government it's a loser. The two successful GOP candidates for Governor in the last 100 years, Jim Holshouser and Jim Martin certainly had different styles and different campaign messages.

Secondly, GOP defeats can be attributed to Jim Hunt and the unholy alliance of big government and big business in the state. There's no doubt that Hunt is perhaps the most successful and influential political figure to hit this state. His willingness to grow government while at the same time successfully courting big business has kept the democratic machine in power. One has only to look at who's giving big money to the democratic candidates for governor, to see that big business (including executives who are or should be in the Republican camp) is in bed with the democrats and are more than happy to support the exponential growth of state government. And why shouldn't big business buy in to the program – they get the big tax breaks and have the resources to pay for an army of lobbyists to make sure nothing gets through the General Assembly that is detrimental to their interests. The result is the perpetuation of the existing power structure funded by the big business elite of the state. It works today just like it was intended to work after the campaign of 1900. Power remains in the hands of big business and the democratic party.

So, that brings us back to Jack Betts' question. The GOP can test the trend but testing and winning are two different animals. Republicans will, for years to come, be shut out of controlling the executive branch until they offer a positive long term view for reform in state government and until the business community decides that their political money ought to follow principle instead of expedient self interest.