Fierce Competitor
Tough decisions created enemies in both parties, but governor stays course, steps up visibility
Anna Griffin, Charlotte.com
October 17, 2004

After four years, the folks in Raleigh still aren't sure what to make of Gov. Mike Easley.

During his first term, he has been irreverent to the point of being goofy, introverted to the point of seeming detached, stubborn to the point of appearing mule-headed.

Yet polls show the Democratic incumbent with a double-digit lead just a few weeks before Election Day, and a study of his first four years in office shows that he's done almost everything he said he would.

So why is he campaigning so hard, and so rough? Why is he criticizing his opponent, former State Sen. Patrick Ballantine, at every opportunity instead of following conventional political wisdom and ignoring him?

Two reasons: Easley's style and stances have made him enemies in both parties. Plus, his tendency to stay in the shadows hides a fierce competitive streak, the trait that got him this far in the first place.

Made his name in a hurry

Easley, 54, grew up on his family's Nash County tobacco farm, one of seven children. He struggled with a reading disorder in high school and college, graduating from UNC Chapel Hill only after spending two years at Belmont Abbey. He earned a law degree from N.C. Central only after begging the dean of admissions to let him in.Like his opponent, who first ran for public office at 29, Easley began his political career young. He became the top prosecutor for Brunswick, Bladen and Columbus counties at 31, six years after passing the bar exam.

He made a name for himself in a hurry, charging local politicians with corruption and going hard after drug dealers -- so hard that he and wife Mary, also a prosecutor, began sleeping with a shotgun by their bedside.

For a man who dislikes much about campaigning, Easley has always been ambitious. In 1990, he ran for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate against former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt, pushing him to a runoff.

Two years later, Easley was elected North Carolina's attorney general. He served two terms, helping negotiate the national tobacco settlement and earning a reputation for achievement tinged with eccentricity.

Easley would leave the office at 5 p.m., then get up in the middle of the night to leave staff members long, detailed voice-mail instructions about pressing issues. A remnant of his reading problems, he prefers getting information verbally rather than through memos or e-mails. At least one staff member began leaving cash tucked into documents, just to see if Easley actually read them. The money didn't always disappear.

Four years ago, Easley won the state's top office with a campaign that relied on TV ads rather than the Democratic Party's grass-roots network. He took office at the dawn of the worst budget crisis in modern state history, the result of massive manufacturing losses, natural disasters and a spate of spending in the late 1990s. He responded by raising taxes, taking several hundred million dollars from local governments and borrowing from state retirement and trust funds.

None of those moves made him popular, and all of them gave Ballantine and the Republicans ammo for this campaign.

"I don't know that there have been a whole lot of governors who have come into office and had to make the decisions I had to make," Easley said recently. "But somebody had to do it, and in the end, I did what I said I was going to do."

He's right about that, though critics will argue that he didn't set the bar all that high.

In 2000, Easley campaigned on three basic promises: He said he would pass a plan to help seniors pay for prescription drugs, lower class sizes in early public school grades and create an academic pre-kindergarten for the state's poorest children. He's done all three.

His administration has suffered from no major scandals among his appointees; disgraced former Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps was a fellow Democrat, but she was elected by N.C. voters; and there's been remarkably little turnover in his cabinet. Even his harshest GOP critics give Easley credit for hiring talented people and managing to keep them happy -- or, at least, to keep them.

Yet the governor still doesn't have all that many fans in the General Assembly, or elsewhere in Raleigh's government-lobbyist-media establishment.

He's angered liberals by refusing to consider a temporary halt to executions. He's irritated conservatives by raising taxes. He's alienated fellow moderates within his own party by declining to campaign hard for other Democratic candidates, including skipping numerous appearances by vice presidential nominee John Edwards this summer and fall.

"There are a lot of people out there, Republican and Democrat alike, who wouldn't shed a tear if he lost," said Sen. John Kerr, a Wayne County Democrat. "But you have to give him credit: He has shown tremendous intestinal fortitude. He is, fundamentally, a tough, tough, tough guy."

Ballantine is finding out just how tough. Since almost the moment he won the Republican primary, Easley has been bashing him in TV ads, accusing him of voting to increase state spending and lying about the progress the state's public schools have made. It's the same strategy Easley used against former Charlotte Mayor Richard Vinroot four years ago: Running to the right of his Republican opponent.

Easley noticeably avoids talking about social issues, and his stances on such topics are complicated: He's a pro-choice Catholic, but also an avid hunter who recently won the National Rifle Association's endorsement. He opposes gay marriage but seems to have no problem with gay people. Julia Boseman, the Democratic nominee for Ballantine's old N.C. Senate seat and a lesbian, has said that Easley encouraged her to run for the General Assembly.

In their first debate earlier this month, Easley was the aggressor, criticizing Ballantine every chance he got, including one unscripted zinger that made even his staff cringe: "If Patrick Ballantine is a champion of education, then Saddam Hussein is a champion of civil rights." Ballantine's campaign manager demanded an apology. Easley's aides refused. The off-the-cuff insight suggests just how much Easley wants this race.

His style has changed

Over the past year, the governor has changed -- or at least, become more focused. His schedule, once left blank by his assistants, has become cluttered with economic development announcements and ribbon-cuttings. He's begun hopscotching the state to celebrate rising test scores and to raise money for his campaign.

On TV, looking at the camera as he talks about how he's pushed for school uniforms and character education, he seems authoritative and engaged, the same way he once must have looked in front of a jury. On the stump, he can be charming, flashing a wide grin, offering uncanny impersonations of Gov. Jim Hunt and Senate leader Marc Basnight and generally behaving as if there's nothing he'd rather be doing. What insiders find annoying, many voters seem to find endearing.

What would four more years mean for the state? In a second term, Easley says he would renew his push for a lottery to pay for public school improvements, address the state's dropout rate by shrinking high schools and offering students a chance to earn an associate's degree for an extra year of classes. He would continue his class-size reduction effort and the More at Four pre-kindergarten.

"We've done a lot of good things, but we're just starting to see the results," he said recently. "We've gotten through the hard part, we've made the really tough decisions, we've almost weathered the economic storm. Now comes the fun part."

Maybe that's why he's campaigning so hard.

Easley says he'll . . .

• Continue to push for a statewide lottery for public education.
• Expand the More at Four pre-kindergarten.
• Combat the dropout rate by shrinking the size of high schools.
• Offer high school students an associate's degree if they'll stay an extra year.
• Lower the corporate income tax rate.
• Restructure the state's tax code to reflect the modern economy.

Mike Easley

Party: Democratic.

Age: 54.

Home: Raleigh, Southport.

Family: His wife, Mary, is a former prosecutor and law professor. Their son, Michael, is a student at UNC Chapel Hill.

Education: B.A. in political science, UNC Chapel Hill; law degree from N.C. Central University, 1976.

Political experience: District attorney for Brunswick, Columbus and Bladen counties, 1982-1990. Ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, 1990. N.C. attorney general, 1992-2000. Governor, 2001-present.

Leadership style: "You have to listen to people, to get input from all the smart people you know. And then you, as the person elected, have to sit down and make the decisions, knowing that usually the decision you reach is going to make somebody mad."