One year ago, candidate Michael Whatley couldn't stop talking about Donald Trump. But at a campaign stop in Gastonia last week, he barely mentioned him at all. The shift was striking enough that local media devoted an entire story to asking whether the Republican is putting some distance between himself and the president.
Naturally, the media use the story as a club against Trump, saying he's bad and everyone hates him and candidates are running away from him. And I mean ... they are, in some cases, of course. That happens every midterm election and there are always endless stories about it. The Democrats seeking shelter from Hurricane Biden last time were particularly amusing, I thought.
Still, Whatley's... let's call it avoidance of the Trump nuclear football is pretty noticeable even given all those throat-clearing caveats.
WFAE noted that Whatley invoked Trump at least ten times when he kicked off his campaign last year. At his latest Gastonia stop? Two mentions. Both were about Hurricane Helene recovery. And when reporters asked whether he was trying to put some daylight between himself and the president, he didn't answer the premise at all. Instead, he pivoted straight back to Roy Cooper and the state issues he wants voters thinking about.
Which is kind of answer in itself, right. The media says it's because of Trump's approval numbers. But they say that so often it's lost all meaning, if it ever had any. The fact is, Trump's issues, his administration's general priorities, line up pretty well with Republican voters here. But it's true there have been rumblings and dissatisfaction over Iran and some other moves. You also can't discount that voters in the state have their own local priorities and issues - many of which are very bad news for the Democrats but also aren't top of mind in national politics.
Or maybe that avoidance is just the realization that Senate races are won by talking about the guy on the other side of the debate stage. Whatever the case, the campaign does seem to have put 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on the back burner. Very noticeably so.
Even Whatley's campaign website seems to be on the same, uh, page. Front and center is a photo of him stepping off Air Force One — but with the presidential seal blurred out.
And while that oddly symbolic image holds the center, the front page is all under a banner that proclaims "ENDORSED BY PRESIDENT TRUMP."
Mixed messaging? That's our state alright.
BUT, EVEN SO, AND, YET, ALTHOUGH, AND STILL ...
you've gotta admit that Democrat opponent Roy Cooper, the bad governor who is pitching himself as a bad potential senator, has an even less enviable task than tip-toeing around Trump.
Roy Cooper has to distance himself from Roy Cooper.
As I wrote the other day at Howe It Is:
I see ads for Cooper’s Senate campaign every day. Seriously every damn day. And he’s running this barrage on how health insurance companies are the Big Bads and he’s out to get them. Trying to make "insurance companies are mean to you" the centerpiece is such an obvious attempt to latch onto a politically “safe” issue to avoid the more uncomfortable issues like “Why are Democrats so crazy?” or “Why is the new Democratic Kingmaker a loudmouth dog-abusing anti-Semite?” or “Why are anti-American communists taking over Democrat politics?” or “Why did you release a dozens of repeat violent offenders including the man who brutally murdered Iryna Zarutska on public transportation in your state?” and, well, you get the idea.
Yeah so that's the thing. There's always another fish, if not a bigger one.
North Carolina politics, I've come to learn over the decades, ain't beanbag, as they used to say. Not sure what that means but I like how it sounds. But "pobody's nerfect" and other pseudo-pithy sayings aside, it's really something after all these years to watch the way North Carolina candidates for national office have to dance in two completely different styles of music. Or eat two different kinds of barbecue, maybe. The vinegar based when they're here, whatever the trend is when they're in terrible places like D.C.
But hey, maybe the real vinegar is the disappointed former friends they made along the way.
By the way, and it probably goes without saying: Roy Cooper is worse than ... well, anyone.
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