Low Profile, No Apologies
Amy Gardner, Staff Writer, News and Observer

Halfway through his first term in office, Gov. Mike Easley's hair is a little whiter -- and his political fortunes a little darker. He has promoted an unpopular tax increase that passed, demanded a vote on a lottery that failed and taken millions from the coffers of cities and counties. He has turned his back on the
political traditions of his office by skipping a long list of public events and ignoring the barbecue circuit and patronage.

All of this, along with the state's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, has cost North Carolina's 67th governor. Easley's popularity has bounced up and down, and he has alienated lawmakers, local officials, business leaders, even some who helped elect him two years ago.

"I think Mike Easley's a nice guy. I personally like him," said Sam Hunt, a former lawmaker and Cabinet secretary from Burlington who helped raise money for the governor in 2000 but has no plans to do so in 2004. "But I do not think he's been
effective with the legislature. He hasn't recruited businesses. He's alienated the cities and counties and has taken money out of the Highway Trust Fund. He's alienated some of his best supporters. With so many elected officials against him, how can he possibly be re-elected?"

Easley, 52, is unrepentant about his performance. A former attorney general and prosecutor never embraced by the political establishment, he says he did what was necessary to manage the budget crisis -- including remaining out of view. He has accumulated a long list of accomplishments, he says, starting
with a new pre-kindergarten program and prescription-drug assistance for the elderly. If he has angered some, he says, it is because he won't play their political games.

And he promises that won't change. Even as he braces for a third consecutive budget shortfall -- and a new Republican-controlled House of Representatives -- the governor plans to continue expanding his education initiatives and to
demand new money to do it. He is mindful of the view that he is an invisible governor, hiring a strategist and seeking more camera time in recent weeks as he begins preparing to seek re-election.

But Easley predicts that voters will judge in two years that he has made wise use of his time.

"Life is short and political life is even shorter," the governor said in an interview this month. "And I believe I have got to make as much progress for the kids and the people in North Carolina as quickly as I can. And if that ruffles some feathers
of the political apparatus, that doesn't bother me one bit."

'The ghost'

Easley's most visible departure from the patterns of past governors is that he regularly skips big events that others expect him to attend. Such absences have ruffled political insiders and left some less willing to help him get things done.
But Easley's public profile also worries the governor's own allies, who say he has missed too many chances to promote the agenda he claims so passionately to be fighting for.

Easley's schedule speaks for itself. Every Thursday or Friday, his press office issues his plans for the following week. One hundred such schedules have been published since his 2001 inauguration. Thirty-one have been blank.

Consider these absences:

On March 8, 2002, Easley skipped the annual conference of the North Carolina Association of Educators.

Also March 8, he missed the memorial for the first soldier from North Carolina killed in Afghanistan.

He was absent from the funerals of two lawmakers who died in office: state Sen. Luther Jordan, a Democrat from Wilmington, and state Rep. Larry Justus, a Republican from Hendersonville.

He missed the annual meeting of the state NAACP, and the annual banquet of the General Baptist State Convention.

He skipped the Wright Brothers centennial kickoff ceremony in Kill Devil Hills on Dec 17.

And his most glaring absence was on Nov. 5, when North Carolina Democrats gathered at the North Raleigh Hilton to celebrate its few election night victories and console its headliner, U.S. Senate candidate Erskine Bowles, on his loss to Republican Elizabeth Dole.

Even those sympathetic to the bewildering schedule demands placed on a sitting governor say this one seems particularly hard to find. There's a reason, they say, that Raleigh insiders refer to him as "the ghost."

"It's unfair to compare him to Gov. [Jim] Hunt, but he has not been to nearly as many education events as Gov. Hunt," said Phil Kirk, chairman of the state Board of Education and a former chief of staff to Republican Gov. Jim Martin. "I don't know how much of that is attributable to his personal style, or how much is the
budget crisis."

Easley and his staff cite dozens of public appearances, including school visits, promotional stops for his prescription-drug program, and television interviews granted in outlying cities on his way to and from his home in Southport,
where he often spends weekends. They object to the analysis of his weekly schedules, because events are often added mid-week.

But the governor also acknowledges that he rarely attends a certain kind of occasion -- the back-slapping receptions where political insiders like to score points, trade favors, see and be seen.

About that, Easley is unrepentant. He has been focused on the tasks before him, he says: the budget crisis, his education programs, recruiting industry and jobs to North Carolina.

"There are some people who want me speaking on different issues when I can't get there," he said. "But a lot of times it's people who want you to be there for Boss Hogg's barbecue, when I'd rather be there for your children's education and your mom and dad's prescription drugs. That, I think, is the right call. And it takes a lot of discipline. It takes a lot of discipline when all these people are pulling at you to be in different places."

And, later in the interview: "It's real important not to confuse motion with action."

A ton of bricks

There are more than a billion reasons why Easley has remained out of view more than some would like, he and his supporters say. Three successive shortfalls surpassing $ 1 billion each have consumed him since he took office.

Easley inherited a state government that was spending more money than it was taking in, and a state economy that not only was suffering the effects of the dot-com downfall, but also was enduring a permanent and devastating shift away from traditional manufacturing.

To close the first spending gap, Easley went on statewide TV seeking a tax increase -- and got it from a reluctant General Assembly.

To close the second, he took $ 333 million in aid to cities and counties and eliminated hundreds of state jobs. He asked for a lottery but didn't get it.

Now, confronting his third spending gap, Easley is thinking about wiping out a scheduled reduction in the state sales tax. Undeterred on the topic of the lottery, he also plans to pressure lawmakers to consider that again so he can continue expanding his two major education initiatives: smaller elementary class sizes
and the pre-kindergarten program More at Four.

In each instance, critics have found fault in Easley's actions.

Lawmakers questioned the political wisdom of Easley's TV tax appeal; local governments balked at losing millions; and fiscal conservatives in both parties said he was irresponsible for expanding education programs during a budget crisis.

"I think the governor genuinely believes that that is a good way to go. I think a lot of people do," said outgoing state Rep. Alice Graham Underhill, a Democrat from New Bern who was defeated in November in part, she believes, because Easley persuaded her to support a procedural vote that saved More at Four last year. "It's just, can we afford to do that right now? And I don't believe that we can."

The governor, whose blue eyes sit above circles that are a bit darker than two years ago, says he had to make difficult choices. Easley's friends point out that, no matter what he had done, someone would have complained.

"Gov. Easley comes off looking as if he's floundering, and in some cases maybe he is," said outgoing state Sen. Howard Lee, a Chapel Hill Democrat. "... But anyone who has found themselves in the position of making the kind of decisions that Mike Easley has had to make would come off on occasion looking like they're floundering, too."

As for pushing ahead with the education improvements, Easley is adamant that it was the right thing to do.

"We can't grind up our seed corn," he said. "We have to continue to invest in education, to invest in our universities and research. If we do that, you'll see this state right at the top of the heap in just a few years."

Easley also argues that, despite the budget crisis, he has accumulated an impressive list of accomplishments:

- $ 28 million to expand More at Four to 7,000 underserved preschoolers, despite overwhelming opposition in the Democrat-controlled Senate and among Republicans in the House.

- $ 26 million to continue lowering class sizes in kindergarten and first grade.

- Senior Care, to help up to 50,000 low-income elderly purchase prescription drugs.

- The Clean Smokestacks bill, which eventually will cut polluting emissions from coal-fired power plants by 70 percent.

- The Economic Stimulus and Job Creation Act, to attract jobs and investments to the state.

- $ 1 billion in program cuts last year alongside expanded spending for public schools, community colleges and state universities.

In any event, Easley is not the only sitting governor facing budget woes -- or popularity problems. Gov. Gray Davis of California faces a budget shortfall of $ 35 billion in the coming year -- and approval ratings as low as 39 percent.

Easley's approval ratings, meanwhile, are on the rise. According to a poll of 603 active North Carolina voters conducted for The News & Observer last week, 52 percent of North Carolinians believe Easley's performance as governor is excellent or good. That's more than 10 points higher than Easley registered in the fall.

"Easley's had a lot of luck in his life, so he's not going to start complaining," said Mac McCorkle, a Durham-based political consultant who does work for the governor. "But a ton of bricks fell, and he's just coming out of the rubble."

A different governor:

Easley's aversion to traditional politics is another source of his troubles. He rarely trades favors or rewards jobs to political friends, and he openly frowns on the practice.

In November, Easley issued the first veto in state history -- of an obscure measure designating dozens of appointments to boards and commissions. An annual exercise in political patronage, the legislation was the work of the two most powerful Democrats in the General Assembly, Senate leader Marc Basnight and House Speaker Jim Black.

Easley declared that his technical objections to the bill -- including the appointment of two dead people -- were more important than the possibility of alienating his allies.

Similarly, the governor shook up the Highway Patrol last year by removing a handful of political appointees and ignoring virtually all patronage requests to replace them.

"Easley basically says, 'I'm going to do what's in the best interest of the state of North Carolina, and I'm sorry if I disappoint or even anger my political supporters. But I'm going to do it,' " said Doug Parsons, a criminal defense lawyer from Clinton and a law school classmate of Easley's wife, Mary.
Parsons should know: During the Highway Patrol shake-up, he recommended a friend for a promotion, and Easley said no.

Easley also didn't campaign heavily last fall for Democratic legislators, many of them battling for their political lives.

"We needed more support from the governor and the bully pulpit he's got," said Democrat Andy Dedmon, an outgoing state representative from Cleveland County defeated in November. Dedmon says he lost, in part, over budget actions the governor urged lawmakers to take, such as withholding aid from local
governments. He was disappointed that Easley wasn't out more at election time, helping lawmakers defend those moves.

"I don't think the governor really realizes how big a megaphone he really has in this state," Dedmon said. "I think Gov. Hunt understood that. I don't think Gov. Easley really understands that yet."

Easley also pushes the legislature in directions it doesn't always want to go.

Without enough votes to win, the governor still insisted on a vote to put an education lottery on the ballot. On Sept. 17, when the measure failed 69-50 in the House of Representatives, lawmakers were confounded that Easley had set them -- and himself -- up for defeat.

Easley and his defenders say his actions speak for themselves -- and have come without regard to political consequences."This guy has no fear," said John Merritt, one of Easley's top advisers and an old college friend from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "He has an internal guidance system that
makes him believe he is on the right track."

But Easley is hardly tone-deaf when it comes to politics. The governor has never been shy in front of a camera, and he spent much of the $ 11.1 million he raised in the 2000 election running his image on TV. His best friend in the General Assembly is state Sen. Tony Rand of Fayetteville; Easley appointed Rand's son,
Ripley, to the Superior Court bench last year.

Some believe that Easley's actions since becoming governor have been acutely political -- just in a different sort of way. He has choreographed his actions as part of a performance as outsider, some say; it's a role he has relished since he was a prosecutor in Brunswick County and local Democrats tried to petition his ouster.

'Charisma-plus'

Despite an insistence that he won't change, Easley's direction has shifted in subtle ways as he has begun preparing for two upcoming challenges: a difficult General Assembly session and re-election in 2004.

Easley's campaign manager in 2000, Jay Reiff, has returned to his staff as a "special adviser." His public appearances are on the rise; he toured three More at Four programs in the past week alone. His confidants are speaking privately about the need to win back the political supporters who helped him two years ago.

And to reach out to Republicans as well as Democrats in the legislature, Easley is planning a series of bipartisan oyster roasts, the first to occur as early as the end of the month in Easley's hometown, Rocky Mount.

When Easley does venture out, he dazzles. At a classroom visit last week, school children laughed and tugged at his tie. In the back of his state-issued SUV or in the state helicopter he sometimes uses, he makes prank calls to other politicians, mimics his friends and grins at his own mischief. At the mansion, he regularly banters and shoots hoops with the troopers who protect
him.

"He's got charisma-plus," said Bobby Owens, a member of the Utilities Commission and a long-time Democratic activist. "If he poured it on, he'd have everybody in the state of North Carolina snowed."

For seven straight days after the December ice storm, Easley visited shelters, toured storm-damaged neighborhoods, encouraged residents to help each other. He called out the National Guard. He called on President Bush to declare a disaster. During one media briefing, he spoke to the cameras in Spanish, warning the state's Hispanic population of the perils of carbon monoxide
poisoning.

In a speech last October to a forum arranged by the Rural Economic Development Center, Easley disarmed his audience by acknowledging how challenging it can be to read him. "I want you to know," he said, "that every step of the way for the past 22 months -- every single step -- has been calculated and has been very deliberate."

That's even true of the less obvious decisions, he explained, such as the push on TV for a tax increase. "I wore a real pretty tie," he said with a laugh, "because I knew that I would see at least 30 seconds of that again in 2004."

Afterward, he received more than 40 handwritten notes of congratulation, he said.Such remarks and reactions to them suggest that playing the
political outsider is a winning formula for Easley. Whether that will remain so as he confronts a still-struggling economy, a divided legislature and another political campaign is the test of the next two years.

"The only numbers I care about are the number of kids that need pre-kindergarten and don't have it," Easley said. "The number of seniors that don't have prescription drugs and need them. The number of kids in the classroom, the number of teachers that we've got to have.

"The measure for success of any administration is: Did you make progress -- even during tough times?"