Republican gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory came under fire Monday for supporting Duke Energy in its successful effort to land $204 million in stimulus money.
The campaign of his Democratic opponent, Walter Dalton, questioned whether it was a conflict of interest for McCrory to lobby the Energy Department on behalf of his former employer. And it questioned McCrory's efforts in light of his public criticism of stimulus money.
“At the same time he was criticizing the stimulus in the Wall Street Journal, he was using his mayor's office to try to get a piece of that funding for Duke Energy, his longtime employer,” said Schorr Johnson, Dalton's spokesman.
“I bet he doesn't tell his all the Tea Party groups about the $200 million he helped land when he blasts the stimulus and President Obama,” Johnson said.
While he was still Charlotte mayor in 2009, McCrory wrote Energy Secretary Steven Chu asking for the stimulus money to build an energy internet project.
“This work leverages and builds upon Duke Energy's industry leadership in the deployment of smart grid technologies that maximize energy efficiency, promote resource conservation, and enable customers to make better-informed choices sited to their budget and lifestyle,” McCrory wrote.
But the McCrory campaign said there was no conflict, because he was no longer a Duke Energy employee when he wrote the letter. And the campaign said McCrory's criticism of the stimulus package was specifically aimed at using the money for recurring expenditures, not for infrastructure projects.
“It's hard to believe that Walter Dalton would approve such a ridiculous press release as this, but apparently desperate times warrant desperate measures,” said Brian Nick, McCrory's spokesman.
“Dalton and his political lackeys have consistently missed the mark in questioning Pat's ethics, but in this case they have gone to the outright absurd,” Nick said. “Part was obviously acting in his capacity as mayor of Charlotte in support of a local company's project as did on many occasions.''
“He criticized Governor Perdue's use of one time federal stimulus money for the state because of the potential to create a long term fiscal crisis, which it did,” he said.
Comments
He writes a column in the
October 22, 2012 - 8:22pm — WilmingtonDemocratHe writes a column in the Wall Street Journal saying how horrible the Stimulus Program is and then two weeks later writes a letter to his political enemy, President Obama begging for $200 million.
What a joke, does North Carolina really want a Governor who has been a Charlotte lobbyist. What an exhibition of character.
Is he a tea bagger or does he beg President Obama for money?
Read
October 22, 2012 - 5:12pm — S28117"No longer a Duke Energy employee when the request was written"...read the text. Probably, if, no telling, shouldn't, no wonder.....nothing firm here but McCrory's ethics and untarnished reputation.
Pat McCrory ran around the
October 22, 2012 - 5:10pm — WilmingtonDemocratPat McCrory ran around the state for all of 2010 raising money for Speaker Tillis and Senate President Berger. At every stop, he criticized the Obama stimulus and health care plans.
I mean it's kinda like his answer on whether he is a lobbyist, I was for the stimulus before I was against it?
Or maybe, I was against the stimulus except for the company that paid me $2 million dollars.
Kinda like the lack of respect he shows the citizens of NC by not saying how he will pay for $11 blilion in tax cuts. At least have the decency to tell old people you will have to cut their medicaid and children you will cut education and make their math classes have 40 students instead of the 39 they know have.
Charlotte residents had a Mayor working for them
October 22, 2012 - 4:51pm — concerned53So Obama spends $819 billion on "shovel ready" projects or recurring expenditures and McCrory, doing his job as Mayor of Charlotte, requests that $200M go for an infrastructure project that would help position Charlotte as an energy hub? Heck, I want McCrory to be as successful for NC as he was for Charlotte.
Was he supposed to have all of the federal taxes paid by Charlotte residents go to Portland, OR? Whether he was for or against the stimulus, once shoved through, it was his job to get the dollars spent to help Charlotte and North Carolina. And better to be spent on an infrastructure project that actually could improve something than recurring goverment expenditures.
So Pat gets paid hundreds of
October 22, 2012 - 4:22pm — WilmingtonDemocratSo Pat gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by Duke Energy for 15 years.
He then uses his position as an elected official to ask President Obama to give them $200 million. Whether you think it violates the tea party/Romeny for President message, shouldn't he at least recused himself?
I mean he gets paid probably $2 million over 15 years by Duke, (you figure he was making at least 200K in salary per year.) and then he uses his government position to solicit President Obama?
No wonder he won't release his tax returns - if he was up to these kind of antics, no telling who he has been getting paid by for the last 4 years.
And he is going to reform Raleigh?