Editorial for February 2005

Mike Easley

Remember the Joe Btfsplk character in the Li’l Abner comic strip? The one with the unpronouncable name and the rain cloud always over his head? The poor guy people ran from because he brought bad luck? Gov. Mike Easley hopes he won’t be remembered as North Carolina’s Joe Btfsplk.

But if his second term is anything like his first, Easley might be remembered that way. Since he’s been governor we’ve had three devastating ice storms, seven hurricanes and three budget emergencies. That experience has left many people with two mental images of Easley: In a flannel shirt stepping out of a helicopter at the site of the state’s latest natural disaster, or in a suit and tie behind a podium explaining why the state budget must yet again be cut by a king’s ransom.

With a second term in the Governor’s Mansion ahead of him, Easley is anticipating better economic times and hoping that Mother Nature will return our Carolina blue skies. If those things do occur he has a real shot at being remembered as he wants to be — for midwifing the state’s economic rebirth from low-tech manufacturing into a high-tech powerhouse where skilled workers command top wages. That’s his goal, as he told us during an extensive interview that’s the basis for this month’s cover story, which begins on page 44.

Here’s what he said: “The thing I want to have accomplished by the time I leave office is, I want to have elevated the level of knowledge of the state. I want to have transitioned this economy because I believe what we do over the next four years will be the determining factor to where North Carolina will be 30 or 40 years down the road.”

You could close your eyes and easily imagine former governor Jim Hunt saying the same thing. You also could close your eyes and imagine Jim Martin, our last Republican governor, saying:

“My top priority right now is to get the highest rate personal income tax down. And the reason is you tend to penalize your best minds by putting a higher tax on them and give them an incentive for them to leave the state. We need incentives to bring in more talent, not run it away.”

But it was Easley who said that in our interview, which underscores why he’s a different sort of governor than we’re used to. He’s a fiscal conservative, a social liberal and a moderate on most other issues. He doesn’t get up with the chickens and work till the cows come home, like Hunt, and he’s not a policy wonk like Martin, but apparently he doesn’t have to be to get the job done.

And he’s got a sense of humor. Wait till you hear him tell the one about the state trooper who’s also a part-time mortician. -- Steve Tuttle