During the week of September 22-28, the Governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory, and winner of the Gov. Rick Perry Talk Alike Contest, made the remark that North Carolina has too many journalists, and I quote: “We’ve frankly got enough psychologists and sociologists and political science majors and journalists. With all due respect to journalism, we’ve got enough, We have way too many.” The Governor was “reportedly” offering his views on career options facing present and future workers. The Governor went on for some reason to buttress his reasoning with the additional riposte that his economic policies were “too complex for the journalists.” [Source: The Charlotte Observer, http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/09/28/5203770/too-many-journalists-in-nc.html, September 28, 2014].

This naturally brought forth howls of protests from wounded journalists and huzzahs from the crowd that wishes to ship all intrepid, nosy, bothersome reporters and paparazzi off to North Korea “where they would have a lot more material” as one political wag and sarcastic friend of mine declared. All this got me to thinking. The Governor could be starting a “How much is enough (or too many) campaign” to carry him for three more years in North Carolina. By way of explanation, in North Carolina, the gubernatorial elections are held in the off year, the year after the national Presidential elections. For instance, the next Presidential election will occur in 2016 while North Carolina’s Gubernatorial Election would be in 2017. Apparently this was decided political eons ago so that the campaign backers and Super PAC funds would be so broke that North Carolinians would not have to hear the non-stop headache-inducing political ads that are descending on us now. So  the Governor of North Carolina is starting early with a few test issues and you can never start too early in political campaigning.

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