Gary Pearce posted on October 11, 2012 15:45
While Mitt Romney was morphing into a moderate last week, an aide to Pat McCrory sent out an email calling his candidate a “centrist Republican.” Two questions: How do conservative Republicans feel about that, and how will both men govern if elected?
The email was from J. C. Blucher Ehringhaus, III of Charlotte, who told friends in an October 3 email: “I have joined Pat McCrory's Campaign for Governor as a Senior Advisor….Pat McCrory is basically a good and decent person, a centrist Republican, who seeks common ground in order to produce practical and workable solutions…. His conservative principles are well grounded in reality, his governing style is collaborative, and he is imminently (sic) fair-minded.”
NCSU Professor Andy Taylor pointed out at a forum last week that McCrory didn’t have to go through a primary and prove his conservative credentials. Romney, before he tacked to the middle, had to claim in the primaries that he had been a “severely conservative governor.” Sounds like a disease.
In the presidential debate, Romney’s pivot to the center threw Obama. Obama shouldn’t have been surprised. Romney has changed his spots often throughout his career.
But would Mitt and Pat govern as moderates? Or would they kowtow to the right-wingers and Tea Partiers who now strike fear in Republicans? And would that give Democrats an open door back in 2014 and 2016?