August 8, 2024 10:00 am
Politico interviewed Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina about his decision to withdraw from consideration as Kamala Harris’s Veep. It’s a fascinating interview and well worth reading. Both parties consider North Carolina to be a key swing state.
Cooper talks about his conversations with both Biden and Harris and his reaction to the President’s decision to step aside.
But he swiftly concluded he could not run as Vice-President with Harris because of the danger that the Lt. Governor Mark Robinson would be Acting Governor in his absence and do something crazy.
Gov. Cooper said:
In North Carolina, we have in our constitution — back from the wagon wheel days — a provision that says when the governor leaves the state, the lieutenant governor becomes the acting governor. Many states across the country have this provision. You had no way to communicate. Back then, it made sense.
There have been a few cases across the country that have said, “Look, now with text and phone and email and Zoom and ways to communicate, this doesn’t make sense for this to be the case.” And courts have ruled that it doesn’t literally mean that. North Carolina courts have not ruled that, however, and fairly recently, Republicans have taken over the North Carolina Supreme Court. They have made some extremely partisan decisions here lately, particularly regarding voting and redistricting.
Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor, is the most extreme statewide candidate in the country right now. I was on a recruiting trip to Japan. He did claim he was acting governor. He did a big proclamation and press conference while I was gone. It was something about support for the state of Israel. It was obviously to make up for all of his antisemitic comments that he’d made, his denial of the Holocaust that he’d made over the years. But it was a big distraction. We analyzed this….
We also know that with our big statewide races, Josh Stein — our attorney general whom I’ve endorsed — running against Mark Robinson, his extremism; his disrespect for women, saying that men should lead and not women; saying that when you get pregnant, it’s not your body anymore; extreme abortion ban with no exceptions; saying that he has an AR-15 and that he would shoot government officials who got too big for their britches. It is on and on and on and on.
Posted by dianeravitch
Categories: Biden, Elections, Harris, Kamala, North Carolina
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Roy Cooper or another Democrat like him would be a far stronger presidential candidate than Kamala Harris is. She is down-the-line hardcore Left, although she is trying to deny that and her media cheerleaders (95+% of all political journalists) are trying to paint her as a moderate. Some of the best analysis these days is done on the blog I link to below, which is pro-Democratic but not blindly partisan like this blog is.
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-democrats-half-hearted-move-to
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By Jackie Kinner on August 8, 2024 at 10:45 am
For someone who leans old school Democrat, and is probably closer to the Republican “Never Trumpers,” The Liberal Patriot may be the place to be. I’m not sure what is gained by the obvious dislike of the Harris/Walz team at this point. Roy Cooper chooses his words in a way to encourage outrage at these “radical” Democrats. How they govern will depend on what happens in the down ballot races, just as how Cooper has governed has been dependent on the situation in NC. They both have demonstrated skills at working across the aisle that Cooper ignores.
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By speduktr on August 8, 2024 at 2:12 pm
Jackie,
Anyone who works for the Koch-funded AEI is not “moderate”. Anyone who thinks the Center for American Progress is too “liberal” and left them to find a home at AEI instead is not “moderate”. They are privileged old white dudes who can’t stand politicians – especially non-white politicians – who don’t embrace their long discredited belief that race doesn’t matter, only class does. Even Bernie Sanders got woke, but these old timers did not, and their commitment to social democracy turned out to be a lot less important than their commitment to their beliefs that white Trump voters are really just misunderstood and Josh Shapiro and not Walz knows how to woo them away from Trump. They have an extraordinarily high affection and admiration for white Trump voters, and very little for the Black voters in the Democratic party. Except to give them charter schools for their kids – if they are cheap to teach – while abandoning public schools and attacking them. It is not surprising that the link shows that liberal patriot and pro-charter Dem Jonathan Chait agree that Walz and Harris are very bad for the Democrats. They are just very bad for privileged older white men who are positive that they are always right and will countenance no one telling them differently. One reason I really respect Biden and Bernie is that they didn’t just keep ignoring reality and harping on the same thing. They changed. The reality is that Trump voters like the white supremacy part more than the policies and that isn’t going to change without the Dems losing their principles and condoning racism to keep white Trump voters happy Fortunately, I think young voters know how wrong these old white men are. It is THEM that the Dems need to appeal to, not white Trump voters as this AEI guy liberal patriot wants.
The fact that you (and liberal patriot) believe that supporting public schools and sensible gun control and abortion rights is “radical left” shows you that “liberal patriots” would have been conservative Republicans during the Jimmy Carter years, with LBJ and Truman being called “radical left”.
Walz is a gun-owner who spent 24 years serving the National Guard and years representing a conservative district in Congress. Liberal patriot sounds like he is mad that a voucher-supporter anti-public school politician is not being chosen because a voucher supporting anti-public school politician is what liberal patriot WRONGLY believes is “moderate”. FDR, JFK, Truman are what Democrats have always been. Walz is to the right of them on many issues.
The neo-cons at AEI are mad that their trying to turn the Democrats into Republicans just turned people off and they are mad that there is so much excitement about having REAL Democrats instead of neo-cons representing the party.
They’d rather have Trump than Walz. They were sure that the open convention they wanted would get them the neo-con Democrat of their dreams. Now they are trying to undermine Kamala because they’d rather have Trump than Harris, because they are, deep down, neocons and the Democrats of FDR and Truman are their enemies.
Sadly, this is the view of the NYT and they are beginning their mission to destroy the candidate. The NYT wrote a story amplifying every Republican lie about Walz military service, and only after 10 or 12 paragraphs did the NYT even bother to inform readers of “the other side”. It’s not journalism, it’s just a repeat of 2016. Expect the major media, led by the NYT, to spend weeks on stories about “Questions raised” about Walz’ integrity”. “Dems have doubts about Walz.” “Soldiers attack Walz military record”. And ZERO headlines about the real story – Republicans lie about Walz.
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By NYC public school parent on August 8, 2024 at 6:31 pm
One of the companies I worked with for over 20 years is based in Raleigh. I spent a lot of time in NC and have colleagues and friends all over the state. It is stunning to me someone like Mark Robinson could possibly become Governor. Or that he was elected to state wide office at all!
Roy Cooper made the right decision for his state, and he will be rewarded for his caution.
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By Running_Granny on August 8, 2024 at 11:06 am
Hoping Roy Cooper will win a Senate seat
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By dianeravitch on August 8, 2024 at 11:28 am
me too.
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By Running_Granny on August 8, 2024 at 1:57 pm
Roy Cooper is a good man. He has single handedly kept NC from completely going over the MAGA cliff ( Of course one foot is hanging in the air now). He would be an excellent Secretary of education.
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By pabonner on August 8, 2024 at 12:21 pm