North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory balances hometown expectations, GOP austerity

“He’s got a very difficult balance to strike,’ said Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx. ‘The expectations that are there within his party may not mesh well with the expectations people in this state have.”

Bev Perdue, North Carolina’s ‘thin blue line,’ makes way for a GOP wave

Gov. Bev Perdue of North Carolina won’t have that title much longer, but she is making the most of her last few days in office. To end 2012, Perdue issued a full pardon of innocence for the Wilmington 10, nine black men and one white woman accused of firebombing a white-owned grocery store in Wilmington, N.C., in 1971, a time of racial unrest in the region.

Perdue, a Democrat, made history when she was elected North Carolina’s first female governor in the Obama 2008 wave. But she saw her popularity drop and Republicans gain control of the state legislature in the 2010 mid-term elections. She decided in early 2012 not to run for a second term, and former Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory, the Republican opponent Perdue narrowly defeated in 2008, handily defeated Democrat Walter Dalton in November to win the governorship. President Obama also lost North Carolina in November, a state he won by 14,000 votes in 2008.

While Democrats celebrated a national win in this election cycle, including a strengthened Senate majority and pickups in the GOP-controlled House, North Carolina trended from purple to red, with Perdue’s one term being emblematic of the shift.

Jesse Helms is still stirring up controversy

Jesse Helms is at it again. When the longtime North Carolina senator died on July 4, 2008, eulogies couldn’t decide if he was a statesman who stood up for his beliefs or a pugnacious politician whose divisive principles changed little as the world moved on. Now that a conservative U.S. congresswoman from the state wants to honor Helms by stamping his name on a federal building, that legacy lives on.

Is a diverse presidential ticket necessary for a GOP recovery?

After a resounding Electoral College loss in the 2012 presidential election, many have offered reasons and advice for Republicans hoping to turn it around in 2016. There’s been no shortage of blame heaped on Mitt Romney for a personality and message that never came into focus, except when the candidate was caught on tape complaining about the 47 percent of non-Romney voters or suggesting that Obama voters were bought with gifts of government services.

But the loudest chorus has been repeating the chant “demography is destiny,” noting the failure of the GOP to woo and win African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans and the young, especially young female voters. Casting a clear eye on America in the future and the Democratic ticket that prevailed in the past two elections, will either party – particularly Republicans trying to reach out – ever again field a ticket that looks like Romney/Ryan and most every other in the history of the United States?

Jill Biden and daughter hit issues checklist in North Carolina stop

HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. – It was a mother-daughter double team on the day before the last day of early voting in North Carolina. Jill Biden and daughter, Ashley Biden, spoke to an overflow crowd at the Obama campaign office in this town just north of Charlotte on Friday.

4 years after Obama’s breakthrough, few black pols on the ballot for major offices

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick was a hit at the Democratic National Convention in September with a spirited speech that defended the party’s principles. In a recent trip back to Charlotte to campaign for the president, he continued his attack on Mitt Romney as someone who, while a “very, very skilled campaigner,” cut funding for education and “stymied innovation” when he held Patrick’s job.

A future presidential prospect? The rapt volunteers at an Obama campaign office thought so, as they happily imagined Patrick on the 2016 ticket. With his place in the pipeline that leads to national office, the only sitting black governor in the country is a standout. But he also stands alone. Four years after Barack Obama’s historic election as the nation’s first black president, there are fewer African-Americans in the U.S. Senate and governor’s offices across the country than at the time of his 2009 inauguration…