North Carolina’s Politics Shift
On July 30, Pat McCrory, North Carolina’s Republican governor, walked out of his mansion to a group of women protesting a law he’d signed that they said would close abortion clinics under the pretext of protecting patients. Flanked by guards, he handed one a plate of chocolate-chip cookies, said “God bless you” and left.
The offering didn’t work, according to a survey released last week by Raleigh’s Public Policy Polling. Fifty-seven percent of respondents thought it was inappropriate to deliver snacks instead of engaging the protesters, and 51 percent disapproved of McCrory’s job performance.
McCrory’s awkward outreach has become emblematic of the 56-year-old governor’s first eight months in office. Foes wonder where the man who campaigned as a moderate stands, and friends explain why he appeared to follow instead of lead as Republican lawmakers approved the abortion measure, relaxed gun laws and restricted access to the polls.
“There’s been a lack of leadership from him all year and this just put it all into perspective,” Thomas Mills, a Democratic political consultant in Carrboro, said of the cookie incident. “He’d just broken a political promise to these women and they were extremely angry. And instead of dealing with that anger, he brought them cookies.”
-snip-
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-22/mccrory-s-cookies-sour-voters-as-north-carolina-s-politics-shift.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
