Gene Conti’s appointment as Secretary of DOT pleases me not only because he’s a pro, as the N&O headline said, but also because he’s a good friend and good golf partner. (Defined as a golfer who does not beat me too badly too often.)

 

Gene now takes over one of the toughest challenges in state government: restoring public confidence in DOT.

 

The N&O reported that Governor-elect Perdue said she would rely on Conti to “take politics out of road-building,” but I could not tell whether those were her words. I hope not. Because that’s not possible.

 

One reason is that “politics,” by definition, is a road somebody else wants. The road you want is “in the public interest.”

 

Besides, several governors have taken politics out of road building. Governor Hunt did it a couple of times, as I recall. But politics always slips back in.

 

I was reminded of this inevitability with the death over the holidays of Bill Roberson, who served as Hunt’s second secretary of transportation. Roberson succeeded Tom Bradshaw, Hunt’s first DOT secretary, in 1981.

 

Bradshaw didn’t play the old political games. That’s one reason Hunt had picked him instead of Lauch Faircloth.

 

In fact, Bradshaw approached his job so professionally that Hunt had to replace him.

 

In 1981, Hunt was trying to get a reluctant legislature to pass an unpopular gas tax increase. That went right in the teeth of the Reagan Revolution raging at the time.

 

Legislators were mad at Bradshaw because he wouldn’t do what they wanted him to do. To get the gas tax increase, Hunt had to get a new secretary, one with a different attitude toward legislators’ requests.

 

Now, as then, legislative leaders have made clear DOT needs to have “better relations” with the legislature.

 

Balancing that political reality with the goal of professionalizing the department will require the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job.

 

If anybody can do it, Gene Conti can.

 

 

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You have to credit Raleigh attorney Gene Boyce with the virtue of stick-to-itiveness.

 

Eight years ago Boyce’s son, Dan, ran for Attorney General against Roy Cooper.

 

If I remember the facts correctly, during the campaign Cooper ran an ad attacking Dan Boyce (and his father) for their handling of a lawsuit on behalf of state retirees. After the election, Boyce sued Cooper for defamation and, apparently having gotten the facts wrong, Cooper’s lawyers have been dragging the case out ever since – for eight years. But Gene Boyce hasn’t given up.

 

Now, I’m not sure Boyce can win – under the First Amendment the courts give politicians pretty broad leeway when it comes to lying in their campaigns – so, in the end, even if Cooper’s defense comes down to arguing, Well, what I said wasn’t true but under the Constitution lying about a political opponent is no crime – a judge may agree.

 

But is Roy Cooper going to want to stand up in court and admit he misled people in a political ad – say, while he’s running for Senate against Richard Burr next year? If Cooper does run he may wish he’d settled the suit years ago – and Gene Boyce’s doggedness may pay off in a way he never imagined.

 

 

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There were all kinds of interesting twists to Governor-elect Perdue’s first Cabinet appointments.

 

Like President-elect Obama, she started by announcing related posts. Her theme was public safety. That shows the power of the press to dictate her agenda.

 

But she may not have been happy that the N&O focused on her decision not to keep Robert Lee Guy as head of probations, instead of her appointments.

 

The same day, the N&O’s John Drescher continued his debate with Governor Easley over killers on probation. Easley could have made the debate more interesting. He could have weighed in earlier with his argument that many of the criminals on probation should be in prison.

 

That’s the debate Governor Jim Hunt always had with the N&O. Hunt was a lock-‘em-up man. The N&O editorial page argued for alternatives to prison. Hunt backed up his rhetoric by building more prisons, but that costs money. Where will Perdue come down?

 

A year from now, the media will judge her administration in large part by the performance of the three people she announced Friday.

 

We’ll find out whether being a Marine prosecutor and judge – as well as an assistant state AG – prepared Alvin Keller to manage the Department of Correction. But his front-page picture made him look intimidating enough to scare criminals straight.

 

By appointing Rueben Young, an Easley holdover, Perdue got an experienced hand. She also got a veteran of the Easley-N&O wars over emails.

 

As will be true of all her appointees, Perdue’s first three got evaluated in terms of how much money they contributed to her.  There is a hint here that something is wrong with a Governor’s appointees actually being committed to the Governor’s goals. Imagine that.

 

By that measure, the most political appointee is Linda Hayes. In fact, she goes back to Hunt days; she was one of his biggest political supporters. But she has also shown a genuine commitment to juvenile-crime issues. Here’s hoping she gives political appointments a better reputation.

 

 

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Christmas should always come on Thursday. Because that means New Year’s Day is a Thursday. Which puts off Back-to-Work day to January 5.

 

You have to love the quiet week between the two holidays. But it has its disadvantages. Newspapers and TV news – with little of consequence to cover – deluge us with lists: lists of the old year’s best and worst events, best and worst people and best and worst of everything you can imagine.

 

As individuals, we all make our own lists: Lists of resolutions. Lists of things to do starting next week.

 

Judging from all the new faces at my gym New Year’s Day, the top of everybody’s list must be to exercise and lose weight. It happens every January. Oh well, they’ll be gone by February.

 

So, in honor of 2009, here is my list for the coming year: hopes, questions and stories-to-watch-for. In honor of the 2008 stock market, it’s a Top Six instead of a Top Ten.

 

1. My hope is that Carter and I figure out a way to make money off this blog.

 

2. Top story I’ll watch is Bev Perdue and the news media. Like all new governors and presidents, she wants to be the opposite of her predecessor. She promises to be hands-on where Easley was disengaged. The question is whether she can take the poison out of the press-Governor relationship.

 

3. My hope is that she learns how simple that is. Not easy, but simple. It just takes some perspective and discipline.

 

4. My hope/expectation is that the Obama Boom kicks in this year, lifting the economy and the Democratic Party’s long-term prospects.

 

5. My top question is whether the Republican Party will continue its Political Death March by following the Southern Strategy that worked for decades, but is now a road to perdition.
6. My one professional resolution (I always resolve to avoid resolutions) is to finish the book I’m writing about Jim Hunt and North Carolina politics – and find a publisher.

 

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I can’t defend Governor Easley’s comments about the N&O not being “nice” to him – and accusing the paper of a “hatchet job.”

 

In a recent term-ending interview, the Governor said he often avoids public events because he likes to have time to think things out. He should have thought this out better. He sounded small and petulant. I don’t know him well, but I never thought he was small or petulant.

 

Easley and Seth Effron said the N&O should have noted that the number of probationers who killed dropped 25 percent from the Hunt administration. They may have a good point. Why didn’t they make it before now?

 

Now that I’m done giving the Governor PR advice, I’ll give some to John Drescher, the N&O’s executive editor.

 

Drescher might have been better advised to defend the series with the-facts-speak-for-themselves terseness that Ben Bradlee of the Washington Post used during Watergate: “We stand by our story.”

 

Instead, Drescher said:

 

"Gov. Easley might be the only person in North Carolina who thinks our probation system is working well and that the state is monitoring probationers as it should. The correction secretary himself has acknowledged the state needs to do a better job."

 

That sounds like something a politician would say. It makes the argument sound personal and reinforces Easley’s criticism.

 

Drescher should have stuck by this statement:

 

"Our job is to dig, and we're going to keep digging. We'll do that in a professional way."

 

Period, paragraph, end it. Enough said.

 

The N&O will keep digging during the Perdue Administration. One wonders: What will the Drescher-Perdue relationship be like next January 1?

 

 

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People have been dying in our state mental hospitals for lack of care; our parole system is so broken criminals on parole have murdered 580 people – and, now, Governor Easley says, at the end of his term, that it’s a shame the mean ole News and Observer hasn’t treated him ‘nicer.’

 

The governor puts it this way: “My job,” he says, “Is to be nice to other people and their job is to be nice to me. Just because they're not doing theirs, doesn't mean I shouldn't do mine.”

 

Alright, let’s grant Governor Easley a surplus of personal politeness and charm – but, that said, his definition of ‘niceness’ seems to have an odd twist. After all, is letting a mental patient die after sitting in a chair for two days without care – ‘nice’?

 

The governor also says it’s a shame that after 33 years of government service, with three weeks left until his retirement, the News and Observer did a ‘hatchet job’ on his State Correction Secretary, Theodis Beck. One almost feels the governor could have been describing himself. But if we’re gonna define success in governing based on a standard of niceness – well, was the governor and Secretary Beck losing track of thousands of paroles ‘nice’ – or negligent?

 

N&O editor John Drescher was pretty diplomatic in his response to the governor. He could have simply paraphrased Harry Truman and said, They say we give ‘em hell, but we’re just talking about their records and they think it’s hell.

 

 

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The smoke’s clearing from the election and the voter statistics tell a simple straightforward story: Four years ago African-Americans were 19% of the voters – this year they were 25%.

 

Obama’s campaign said it was going to turn out 250,000 new African-American voters – and darn near did it. Thanks to Obama’s relentless ‘ground game’ this election, for the first time, African-American turnout (at 74%) was higher than ‘white’ turnout (at 69%).

 

The result: Before the election polls (projecting a slight increase in turnout among African-Americans) showed Obama needed 38% of the so-called ‘white vote’ to win. He successfully increased Black turnout to 25%, which meant he only needed 33% of the ‘white vote’ – he got just a smidgen more and won.

 

The bottom line: Obama won the old-fashioned way. He got his voters to the polls.

 

Where does this leave Republicans? I recently had an email from a Republican elected official who asked: Will Black turnout be this high again in 2010? Who knows. But in politics always assume the worst.

 

The Democrats have (or will have shortly, from the Board of Elections) the name of every African-American who voted in 2008. They’ll even know who voted the first time. And, with Obama in the White House, it stands to reason these new voters aren’t going to suddenly lose their interest in politics. It also stands to reason Democrats are smart enough to do everything (and more) in 2010 to turn out African-Americans – that Obama did in 2008.

 

To win in 2010 Republicans need a strategy that recognizes that 75% of the African-Americans are going to vote next election – just as they did in the last election.

 

If we assume otherwise we’re acting like ostriches – and sticking our heads in the sand.

 

 

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Carter’s recent post about Obama and Afghanistan reminded me of the remark that earned Bob Dole his hatchet-man reputation. In his 1976 vice presidential debate with Walter Mondale, Dole referred to the casualties America had suffered in “Democrat wars” in the 20^th Century.

 

As with most controversial remarks, there was truth to what Dole said. World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam all began under Democratic presidents. The only “Republican Wars” were the two Gulf Oil Wars begun by the two Bushes.

 

Child of Vietnam that I am, I worry that Afghanistan will turn into The Best and the Brightest Part II.

 

Obama has pledged to send more troops to Afghanistan. Was that a campaign ploy to show he wasn’t too soft? Like LBJ not wanting to be the first American president to lose a war, will the fear of looking soft lead to another losing war?

 

I had lunch not long ago with David Zucchino, a former N&O reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on South Africa. He’s been a foreign correspondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Los Angeles Times. (“I now work for a bankrupt paper,” he notes.)

 

Zucchino is based here, but he spends months at a time covering Iraq and Afghanistan. He was embedded in the military spearhead that liberated Baghdad.

 

He points out a big difference between Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq is now relatively safe, but Afghanistan is wild and lawless. And that is the history of both countries. Iraq had a strong central government, albeit Saddam’s dictatorship. Afghanistan has for years been a roiling series of tribal wars and invasions with no central government.

 

Does Obama think he can change that with 20,000 more American troops? Is our mission to tame Afghanistan – or simply to cripple Al Qaeda? I’m no foreign policy expert, but I can read history. I hope Vietnam isn’t repeating itself.

 

 

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For Christmas, I usually ask for books. And I get some unexpected pleasures. Unexpected this year was Jacob Weisberg’s The Bush Tragedy, which I started reading Christmas night and found captivating.

 

I hadn’t read it before, because I had expected predictable Bush-bashing. But Weisberg – who makes the perceptive observation that journalistic insight often comes not from uncovering a great secret, but from simply paying attention to what is in plain sight – interprets George Bush’s failings through the lens of his relationship with his father and other strong men from both sides of his family.

 

The more I watch politicians, the more I believe that their relationship with their fathers is key.

 

Take both Bushes. W. has alternately tried to compete with and distinguish himself from “41,” who had to live up to his father’s rectitude and record.

 

Barack Obama wrote a book about searching for his father. So did a would-be President, John McCain.

 

Bill Clinton never had a father figure, and his life shows it. Reagan’s father was a drunk. Nixon’s dark personality was rooted in parental drama. Ford was adopted; Carter’s was a pillar of the community.

 

Then there was Joe Kennedy.

 

Most men spend their lives trying to live up to their fathers – or live them down.

 

Obama, unlike W., has spent a lot of time thinking about the meaning of his father and their relationship, or lack of one. And he wrote it down long before he got into politics. His self-examination may account for his remarkable self-assurance.

After sixteen years of Bush-Clinton psychodrama, we have a President who has made the effort to know himself.

 

 

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A Blue Christmas is a Merry Christmas for Democrats. Not so much for Republicans who are sure the end of the world is nigh. So let me offer a note of hope and cheer.

 

Yes, the news is bad. Retail sales are down. Home sales are down. Car sales are so down Toyota is losing money. The market is down. Our 401(k)s are down. Banks aren’t lending. Builders aren’t building. Confused consumers – who were blamed for the crash because they spent too much and saved too little for too long – are now told they’re to blame for the bad economy because they’re spending too little.

 

The only business that’s up, it seems, is war.

 

Even nature is bad to us. Half the nation is snowed in. Flying is a nightmare. Driving is down even though gas prices are down. Tax revenues are down and the roads won’t get fixed. But traffic is still a bear.

 

Of course, the news is always bad. That’s the nature of news.

 

Things could be worse. We’re not scrambling for corn on the side of the road like starving children in Zimbabwe. Unlike Putin’s Russians, we’re free to argue, demand change and denounce our leaders.

 

When I went to the mall Tuesday, there were plenty of cars. Plenty of people with plenty of shopping bags and apparently plenty of money to spend. Plenty of people who didn’t look like they had missed many meals.

 

But we must dig deeper to find the true meaning of this season.

 

My son, whose birthday is June 17, informs me that an astronomer has determined there was a bright star in the night day over Bethlehem on June 17, 2 A.D. So my son now refers to that as True Christmas, as opposed to False Christmas December 25.

 

Of course, he is discounting the Christian tradition of incorporating pagan traditions into the True Faith. Like celebrating the winter solstice. And without the combination of Christmas and New Year’s Day, we would not have this wonderful two-week period every year in which the world of government and politics all but shuts down.

 

Unfortunately, the sun all but shuts down, too.

 

On top of all that, this year we have the quadrennial tradition of transitions.

 

Transitions can be melancholy. I remember Jim Hunt’s final December in 1984, leaving office after losing the Senate race to Jesse Helms. Those were heady times for Republicans, who couldn’t wait to seize power in Raleigh and Washington.

 

It was better in 2000. Hunt went out on top, with a Democrat succeeding him. But things weren’t so good in Washington.

 

Mike Easley’s last month does not seem to be a happy one, dogged by charges of nepotism and mismanagement and dodging The News & Observer.

 

Bev Perdue is spending her transition trying to wrap up her Cabinet in one big present. Delivery apparently has been delayed.

 

Then I get a personal letter from former Senator John Edwards asking me for contributions to the Wade Edwards Foundation, a worthy project.

 

I spent two years helping Edwards get to the Senate. So I might have been surprised that the letter uses my first name: “Dear James.”

 

But I wasn’t surprised.

 

The lesson is this: Christmas – like all of life – is about people. It’s all personal. We’re all in this together.

 

So this is my special holiday wish – and sincere thank-you – to all who read this blog. To Democrats and Republicans alike. To blue dogs and yellow dogs and red dogs alike. To those who worship, whatever your faith. To those who don’t worship, too; maybe one day this will no longer be a de facto test for public office in America. To those who love Obama and those who loath him. To those who admire Rick Warren and those who abhor him.

 

Buck up. The solstice has passed. The sun is coming back. Spring and summer lie ahead. Even the economy will come back one day.

 

A happy, health and prosperous New Year to you all.

 

 

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