Mark Binker says Gov. Mike Easley's not running for anything.
The Greensboro News & Record reporter picked up on the same High Campaign Mode speechifying at the Emerging Issues Forum that Dome and others heard.
Now the man says he doesn't have an interest. He's been asked three years in a row about a U.S. Senate run and put the kibosh on that. He's never really jumped up and said, "heck yes," when asked about cabinet level work. I think talk of a VEEP slot may actually make him break out in hives.
After the speech, Easley was asked if he had national interests, Binker writes on his Capital Beat blog. He says that Easley told him it was just a speech.
"I think energy is a national issue," Easley said.
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Re: politely put - bull.
Gov. Easley has made plenty of good policy speeches throughout the last seven-plus years. It's just that they haven't all been delivered Inside the Beltway in the Capital City and perhaps some political reporters in the state's capital press corps haven't been inclined to go out and experience the joys of "Variety Vacationland."
But there is news out there in the hills of the Piedmont and the West just as there is across the great inner and outer coastal plans of Eastern North Carolina. You just have to get out of Raleigh every now and then and write about what the people--and some of their elected leaders--are up to between Belhaven nad Blowing Rock.
Gov. Jim Holshouser used to hold periodic "People's Day" meetings in towns and cities across the state, and sometimes reporters would even show up to see what Joe and Jane Citizen had to say to the distinguished visitor. But back then in the early '70s, Raleigh didn't have all these new highway loops for reporters to cruise in looking for major news developments in and around the suburbs of the Capital City, so they would take a deep breath and embark on an occasional journey along the byways and back roads of Tar Heel political lore.
(Okay, this sketch of N.C. politics may not be as vivid as a Dwane Powell cartoon, but remember, cartoonists must be on good social terms with reporters and not draw them with curious faces of they might not get inside information on the latest lunchtime barbecue specials.)