#ncgov: So, it’s ROY COOPER’S FAULT ????
[Verse]
Nobody’s fault but mine [X2]
Trying to save my soul tonight
It’s nobody’s fault but mine
Devil he told me to roll [X2]
How to roll the log tonight
Nobody’s fault but mine
Brother he showed me the gong
Brother he showed me the ding dong ding dong
How to kick that gong to light
Oh, it’s nobody’s fault but mine
Got a monkey on my back [X2]
Going to change my ways tonight
Nobody’s fault but mine
[Outro]
I will get down rolling tonight
Nobody’s fault
— Led Zeppelin
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*It’s a real profile in courage when you shift blame to someone else as soon as your decision begins to take some heat.* 
You may not have heard but there are a lot of folks in North Mecklenburg County a wee bit upset with the proposed tolls and subcontracted management for their stretch of I-77.
Some local officials lost their jobs or came close to losing their jobs over the tholl road agreement. And the blame game has begun:
Pushing the battle over Interstate 77 into the governor’s race, Republican Gov. Pat McCrory’s administration claims that Attorney General – and Democratic rival – Roy Cooper tacitly supported a controversial contract to build new toll lanes.
The claims came after the Observer reported that much of the anger over the I-77 toll project has been directed toward McCrory, who has declined requests to cancel the contract.
A Cooper campaign spokesman said the contract “would not have been signed in the first place” if Cooper was governor. That drew a sharp response from Transportation Secretary Nick Tennyson.
“(The contract) was developed through meetings in which representatives from the Attorney General’s office were actively involved,” he said in a statement to the Observer. “They had the opportunity to raise objections or ask questions at any time since those conversations began in 2012.”
Noelle Talley, a spokeswoman for Cooper, said his office “did not negotiate or sign the agreement.”
“Attorneys with our office who reviewed the contract did so to determine if it’s legal, not whether it’s good policy,” she said.
That’s, um, rich. Here’s our take on where the blame for all this lies:
- Thom-frickin’-Thillis. Our junior US senator, while he was
speaker of the state House, used an iron fist to ram the toll road legislation through the chamber. He refused to even consider the arguments of local opponents. He bent over backward to kill a proposed anti-toll plank for the state GOP platform. He went out across the state promoting tolls, and even dispatched henchmen like Skip Stam to do the same. - Local legislators. Senator Jeff Tarte and Rep. Charles Jeter – both
staunch McCrory and Thillis allies — were marching in lockstep with Thillis early-on in the toll debate. When local grassroots activists began to turn up the political heat, Charlie and Jeff began to sing a different tune. They’ve both talked a good game to local activists, but the records show they were right there, ready-and-willing accomplices to Thom Thillis’s tholl road scheme. - Pat McCrory. The governor threw up all kinds of roadblocks for the local activists. He started off just dismissing them. Then, he moved to putting the issue squarely in the ballpark of the legislature. Then, bizarrely, he decided the fate of the whole tholl road project would lie squarely in the hands of the Charlotte City Council. Gov. Pat has also told area residents that their local governments will be hit with huge penalty fees if the contract for the tolling gets canceled.
Roy Cooper is guilty of a lot of stuff. You could easily nail him for campaigning for governor 24-7-365 on the state’s dime for the last four years. You could easily nail him for basically ignoring the duties of his office for the last four years. But he is a minor, minor figure when it comes to this toll road mess.
This all boils down to a good-ol’-boy, smoke-filled backroom deal that went horribly wrong for the people behind said deal. There has been so much lying and so much arrogance by the powers-that-be. Very little representation of the people’s wishes.
Former state Rep. Robert Brawley (R-Iredell), who was run out of office
by Thillis and the gang for resisting the tholl roads and other assorted schemes, is gaining some traction in the governor’s race. He’s promised to cancel the toll deal once he’s elected. He’s also been quite critical of the governor’s team aiding CSX with a heavy-handed eminent domain deal in Johnston County.
The anti-toll leaders in that area missed an important avenue to deliver payback when they failed to recruit primary challengers to Tarte and Jeter. Their scalps could realistically be taken in the March 15 primary, while McCrory’s is a very long shot.
Jeter has an opponent in the primary.
http://www.votetomdavis.com
Davis lost by 500 votes 4 years ago and Jeter has a general election opponent on the Dem side. He is also in one of the few competitively partisan districts as well. It will be a tough climb for him the next few months.
Rep John Fraley also has a nominal opponent over the county line in Iredell County.
Agree with you though, more candidates are needed.
However, from seeing things on the ground here, it is clear the local dynamic has changed to a large degree.
This primary cycle came too quickly on the heels of the municipal elections for the newly activated grassroots to take full advantage of it.
I wish Brawley had run for his old House seat against that quasi-Marxist Fraley. Brawley could have won that and he would have made a real difference in the House. Getting started so late makes him a real long shot for governor. I would have rather had him where he likely would have won in the House.
After the revelations about Brawley I would say he is indeed a long, long shot. Pretty much he would need to hear the shot that was heard around the world. Toting that much baggage across North Carolina would be a Herculean task indeed.
The real baggage is McCrory’s attack on Southern heritage over the SCV license plates and his raft of liberal appointments in state government. But for low information voters, his existing name ID and greater financial resources will almost certainly get him through the primary.
The hit job on Brawley that you refer to as ”baggage” is a nothingburger.
Pat McCrory will never, ever take the blame for anything he does that is not politically popular. “Guvnor Pat” however won’t hesitate to take all the credit for all and anything done politically popular whether he even came with in 100 miles of the deal.
Which explains all of his Carolina Panther photo opps and comments.
Actually the anti HOT Lane plank was added to the platform of the Republican Party at the 2013 GOP Convention in Charlotte. It was the accompanying resolution that Tillis fought so hard to defeat, even walking out of the EC meeting on Sunday and urging friends and supporters to leave with him so a vote could not be taken. Of course, at the first opportunity the plank was removed.