Jim Holshouser
2013-06-18 - by
They don’t make Republicans like Jim Holshouser anymore.
Big pay raises for teachers? Statewide kindergartens? Coastal Management Act? Rural health centers? Expansion of the state park system? More African-Americans and women in government? Help for black business enterprises?
They’d throw him out of the party today. Actually, they did in 1976. As Rob Christensen noted, Jesse Helms’ forces booed Holshouser at the state GOP convention and denied him a seat as a delegate to the national convention. Holshouser supported President Ford; Helms was for Ronald Reagan.
Holshouser was tougher than he looked. He beat two charismatic politicians in 1972: Jim Gardner in the primary (for which North Carolina owes Holshouser a debt of thanks) and Skipper Bowles in the fall (with George McGovern’s help).
About 10 days before the November election, the 38-year-old Holshouser told the 35-year-old Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor: “I think it’s going to be you and me.”
Holshouser and Lt. Governor Jim Hunt had their fights over the next four years, but they also worked together on education, health care and environmental issues. When I interviewed Holshouser for my biography of Hunt, he laughed, “Every month or so Jim would whack me publicly, but I knew he had to do that.”
Hunt, who was looking four years down the road, also helped him fight legislators’ efforts to strip powers from the governor. Holshouser was the last Governor who couldn’t succeed himself, so they weren’t going to run against each other.
Holshouser arguably had a tougher row to hoe than any Governor in the 20th Century. The Democratic bulls in the legislature didn’t want to give him anything. The Democratic-dominated bureaucracy resisted him. The media was tough on him; he got off to a bad start when several appointees flew around the state on a helicopter firing state employees. Then came Watergate, Nixon’s resignation and the 1974 elections, which left one Republican in the state Senate and nine in the House. Then came the Republican civil war in 1976.
Holshouser kept his sanity and balance through it all. He and Terry Sanford started a law firm together. He helped Republicans build a fortress in Moore County. He worked tirelessly for UNC. He and Hunt worked together on issues like campaign reform and against private school vouchers. He suffered through his wife’s death and his own health problems.
There is a tendency now to underplay the fierce political battles of 40 years ago. They were tough and brutal. But there was a time when Republicans and Democrats worked together in North Carolina. That time is gone now, never to return.
Republicans have gone farther right than even Jesse Helms and Jim Gardner dreamed. Let them go. Democrats should remember that elections in North Carolina are won in the middle, that powerful stream where Jim Holshouser spawned and swing voters swim.
Jim Holshouser
2013-06-18/
They don’t make Republicans like Jim Holshouser anymore.
Big pay raises for teachers? Statewide kindergartens? Coastal Management Act? Rural health centers? Expansion of the state park system? More African-Americans and women in government? Help for black business enterprises?
They’d throw him out of the party today. Actually, they did in 1976. As Rob Christensen noted, Jesse Helms’ forces booed Holshouser at the state GOP convention and denied him a seat as a delegate to the national convention. Holshouser supported President Ford; Helms was for Ronald Reagan.
Holshouser was tougher than he looked. He beat two charismatic politicians in 1972: Jim Gardner in the primary (for which North Carolina owes Holshouser a debt of thanks) and Skipper Bowles in the fall (with George McGovern’s help).
About 10 days before the November election, the 38-year-old Holshouser told the 35-year-old Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor: “I think it’s going to be you and me.”
Holshouser and Lt. Governor Jim Hunt had their fights over the next four years, but they also worked together on education, health care and environmental issues. When I interviewed Holshouser for my biography of Hunt, he laughed, “Every month or so Jim would whack me publicly, but I knew he had to do that.”
Hunt, who was looking four years down the road, also helped him fight legislators’ efforts to strip powers from the governor. Holshouser was the last Governor who couldn’t succeed himself, so they weren’t going to run against each other.
Holshouser arguably had a tougher row to hoe than any Governor in the 20th Century. The Democratic bulls in the legislature didn’t want to give him anything. The Democratic-dominated bureaucracy resisted him. The media was tough on him; he got off to a bad start when several appointees flew around the state on a helicopter firing state employees. Then came Watergate, Nixon’s resignation and the 1974 elections, which left one Republican in the state Senate and nine in the House. Then came the Republican civil war in 1976.
Holshouser kept his sanity and balance through it all. He and Terry Sanford started a law firm together. He helped Republicans build a fortress in Moore County. He worked tirelessly for UNC. He and Hunt worked together on issues like campaign reform and against private school vouchers. He suffered through his wife’s death and his own health problems.
There is a tendency now to underplay the fierce political battles of 40 years ago. They were tough and brutal. But there was a time when Republicans and Democrats worked together in North Carolina. That time is gone now, never to return.
Republicans have gone farther right than even Jesse Helms and Jim Gardner dreamed. Let them go. Democrats should remember that elections in North Carolina are won in the middle, that powerful stream where Jim Holshouser spawned and swing voters swim.