Wednesday's debate between Republican nominee for governor Pat McCrory and Libertarian nominee Mike Munger was a different look at Tar Heel politics from what we've seen in previous debates. One obvious reason: the decision of Democratic nominee Bev Perdue not to participate. Without the lieutenant governor's presence, the tilt between the Charlotte mayor and Duke University's political science department chairman was a more congenial affair, with the candidates often agreeing on issues.
Munger -- an economist who used to teach at UNC Chapel Hill -- is an interesting man whose classroom presence shows in his debating style. He's able to explain what he thinks about issues in a pretty clear way, and those watching the debate, broadcast statewide by UNC TV, may have seen something they like in his thoughts. He needs the help. Polls have shown him with just a few percentage points, trailing far behind McCrory and Perdue in what is seen as a tight contest.
I don't think I heard much new from McCrory, except that he went out of his way to say he likes the state's early childhood programs but wanted more evaluation of them. Just a week ago he was getting some criticism from Perdue and former Gov. Jim Hunt for tossing off a line about too many programs that rhyme, interpreted by some as slams on the Smart Start pre-school initiative of Hunt and the More at Four program championed by Gov. Mike Easley. McCrory also repeated something that makes little sense. He argues a new ethics law prevents him from even getting a bottle of water at some events. He's right that the law may be drawn too tightly and needs revision, but I don't think anyone takes seriously the claim he cannot get a bottle of water at a speaking event. It probably would be mighty hard to find a district attorney who'd prosecute him on a misdemeanor charge of illegally taking a drink of water. Please.
Everything Munger said was probably new to most listeners who may never have heard him before. He poked fun at the Global TransParking Lot, asserted that China has lost more jobs than North Carolina, said he was in favor of school vouchers and lifting the cap on charter schools and aimed a jab at Perdue. In previous debates, he said, she claimed she wasn't a member of the legislature and couldn't be held responsible for its excesses, and implied she wasn't part of the executive branch administration either. "So unless she's a judge, she's not in government at all," Munger joked.
Munger also said he didn't believe in capital punishment and that as governor he'd commute the sentences of all those on Death Row to life in prison. "I want the killing to stop," he said. McCrory wants to end the moratorium on executions. There have been horrendous murders in Mecklenburg and folks there have been waiting for more than a decade for the execution of two cop killers.
Munger also labeled the use of economic incentives to attract new businesses such as a Google plant to the western Piedmont as "economic prostitution." He said he supported allowing illegal immigrants to attend community colleges. McCrory opposes that.
Without Perdue's presence, McCrory perhaps was not as effective as he has been in some previous debates -- or perhaps it was harder for him to draw the distinctions between himself and Perdue, especially when it comes to his favorite lines about the "culture of corruption" in Raleigh. And I'm not sure he fully made his case when he said this election was the last opportunity to fix what's wrong. It may have sounded good as a rhetorical point, but the genius of our system is that we get to vote on a new government pretty regularly. If not now, there's always the next time.
