Friday Five: Bob Orr - By The Numbers

Recently, I announced that I was endorsing Bob Orr for North Carolina Governor. I’ve also spoken at events in Cabarrus and Davidson Counties on behalf of the campaign. In that post, I discussed briefly why I decided to choose him over the other candidates.

For this week’s Friday Five, I’m going to explain why I’m backing Orr using five numbers - 9,797; 16; 4; 0; and 14:

5. 9,797: That’s the difference in the number of words on the “Issues” section of Bob’s website and those of his opponents for the GOP nomination…combined. No kidding, here’s the breakdown.

Here are a few thoughts:

McCrory - The issues section of his site is just a bunch of bullet points - like a half-baked PowerPoint presentation. It’s brevity is along the order of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address (277 words); but without the genius. Also, I don’t think you’ll see his Cliff Notes version of how he’ll run the 10th largest state on a large marble slab next to the McCrory Memorial Monument that our great-grandkids will pay for right next to what will then be the old NASCAR museum.

Graham - He capitalizes WE all of the time throughout his listing of the issues. That tells you that he’ll likely point out the problem and leave it to someone else to come up with the solution.

Smith - Much like his days as a college athlete - I’m grading on the curve here. The 9,383 words includes his policy statements, op-eds (which has a lot of material copied from his policy statements), an endorsement letter, and the entire text of a floor speech on the lottery. Take those away - it goes down to about half of that.

Orr - Not only does his word count exceed the sum of the numbers for all of the other candidate; but you’d have to double the aggregate of their counts to exceed his word count.

There’s a reason for this. Allow me to demonstrate.

For this exercise, I linked to the issues section of each of the candidates in the table. Go to each one, but Orr’s and read them. Go ahead. It really won’t take that long.

Now, ask yourself this question: how hard would it be to write a bill from the material that they have on the site? Do you understand what the issue is, what solution they believe will fix it, and how the solution will be implemented? In some cases you can and in some cases you can’t.

Go to Orr’s site and pick out a few issues. See how it’s a little easier to answer those questions. It doesn’t have to do with the fact that he’s some super-human genius, it has to do with the fact that he and his staff actually worked on the statements and involved serious input from smart people from across the state. In other words: ready to serve on Day 1.

And how does he know who the go-to people are?

4. 16: The research for the word count took longer than the research for this number. 16 is the number of years that he spent as an official in an office that’s elected statewide. The Democrat candidates have 8 years each. The other GOP candidates don’t have a single day among them. When voters go to the polls on May 6 for the Primary, whether they are Democrat, Republican, or Unaffiliated - the Orr voters will be voting for the most experienced candidate.

The question is what did he do during that time? As an Appellate and then Supreme Court judge he spent most of his time on court cases that would make for great insomnia aids; but there’s one that sticks out. The Leandro case established what constitutes an adequate standard for education. Justice Orr wrote the majority opinion on that case. Orr voters will not only be voting for the most experienced candidate but the one who as actually done something substantial for the education of all of the children in this state.

3. 4: When Justice Orr won a seat on the Appeals Court in 1988, he was the first Republican elected in a statewide judicial contest in 92 years. He would go on to win three more statewide elections.

These weren’t layups.

For instance: in 1992, Justice Orr was supposed to be in the middle of his terms; but due to certain circumstances (explained here) - he had to run for reelection…with months to prepare. Keep in mind he was the lone Republican on the court at the time and the odds of reelection were against him.

He won in spite of that.

Two years later, in spite of having the security of a full 8-year term, he helped put together a GOP team that got himself and Justice Lake elected to the Supreme Court. He would go on to win a fourth statewide election to the North Carolina Supreme Court. That’s 4 statewide elections.

Here’s the kicker, though. On this day, 20 years ago, the members of the Court were elected in partisan elections - because one had to be a Democrat to be elected. However, given the the GOP victories that ensued since - the Democrat-controlled General Assembly changed the rules such that these races are non-partisan and funded under some impossible-to-understand public financing scheme. That’s to stop the trend that Bob started.

Oh - just a reminder - the total number of statewide elections the other GOP candidates have won: 0.

2. 0: No, I’m not going to rub in the lack of statewide wins of the GOP challengers. 0 is the number of other GOP candidates that showed up at two important candidate forums they were invited to.

The first was the NC NAACP candidate forum held at the beginning of the year. In 2004, a liberal coworker asked me why the “Land of Lincoln” couldn’t produce a Republican candidate to oppose Barak Obama in the Illinois US Senate race - the GOP had to recruit an eccentric from Maryland. Well, he knew that I knew that he knew what I would answer the question with nothing more than a grunt and a shrug.

Similarly, I know that you know that the NAACP knew that they might get little more than an uncomfortable “thanks” to an invitation from a GOP candidate followed by a lame excuse about why they couldn’t show up.

Justice Orr knew that they knew that he knew that most of them wouldn’t be voting in the GOP primary - especially with Barak Obama on the ticket. In spite of that, Bob Orr showed up. Not only did he show up, but - as the lone Republican - he delivered a zinger to the major Democrat contenders on the forum.

He was himself - which is all anyone asks of any candidate of any color in any venue. If more candidates would follow his lead, we wouldn’t be asking the question “Why don’t more African-Americans vote for Republicans?” in stupid op-eds and blog posts when every last author of this drivel knows that we know that they already know the answer.

The second was a Duke University forum on water issues in the state held recently. In the North Carolina GOP, we have one candidate who plastered a few sentences about water issues on his website, one who probably discussed what a problem it was as he downed sweet tea in between BBQ sandwiches, and another who works for the utility that plays a major role in regulating the water supply for a large number of residents - not one of them shows up - except for Bob Orr.

Here’s why: The water issue is important, but complicated and a political minefield. An answer you’ll give on IBT will lose twice as many votes in Hickory as it will gain in Concord and vice versa if you take an opposing stance. Also, not one candidate was going to walk away looking like they were brilliant by telling the crowd what they wanted to hear in a sound bite - which is their strength.

How did Orr handle it? This is a statement he made to the moderators about the complexity of the water issue: “We shouldn’t be up here giving you our opinions. You should be educating us”. Ladies and gentlemen, intelligence and humility in a candidate for major office - it happened; but none of the other GOP candidates were there to get the lesson. I guess they were too afraid they’d be beyond their depth in the water issue.

1. 14: This is the number of days you have to register to vote or change your registration to Republican or Unaffiliated to vote for Bob Orr. April 11 is the last day to register to participate for the Primary Election. You can check your registration here - I would suggest doing it before then…just to be sure.

Some other important dates in this election:

• April 29: The last day to get an absentee ballot in
• April 17 - May 3: One-Stop Registration & Voting
• May 6: Primary Election Day

That’s right, there’s a very strong chance that you might not see Bob Orr’s name on the ballot in the November election. Why not? Well, let me share a story that Winston Churchill told:

There was a exhibit at the Berlin Zoo where a lion and a lamb lived peacefully in a cage with each other.

A patron asked the zookeeper, “Where did you ever find that lion”

The zookeeper replied, “The lion isn’t a challenge. The tough part is finding a new lab each morning.”

Over the past decade, the state GOP seems to be on a quadrennial search for a better lamb. In this election, the GOP has two self-made millionaires and a mayor that built up a war chest by raising money for a decade and a half in Mayoral elections that were more like foregone conclusions.

All of the candidates are accomplished men, but when it comes to winning statewide races in November: we’ve got three dilettantes with money to burn and one veteran.

Winning the GOP nomination in May would be a nice addition to any candidates resume, but wouldn’t it be nice - for once - to choose the guy with the resume to win in November and bring some thoughtful change to Raleigh?

See y’all Monday.

When Justin Thibault is not stumping for Orr For Governor - he’s the administrator at the Cabarrus Cheap Seats: a multi-user blog holding a spirited discussion on life in Cabarrus County.