NCCU summit showcases Burr

DURHAM -- A sign outside the meeting Monday morning at N.C. Central University called it the "Burr-Bowles Summit," but it could have just read love fest.

Five years after Republican Richard Burr and his Democratic opponent,Erskine Bowles, spent $26million to tell Tar Heel voters why the other fellow was unfit for the U.S. Senate, the old rivals now can't find enough nice things to say about each other.

"Erskine Bowles is the best president of the university system we have had the pleasure of having," Burr said in introducing Bowles to 200 people at a conference on economics and education.

Bowles, if anything, was nicer. "I've had a chance to work with this guy for four full years, and nobody works harder or smarter for North Carolina than Richard Burr does," Bowles said.

The friendship between Burr and Bowles is about more than making nice. Bowles, as president of the 17-campus University of North Carolina system, which is struggling with budget cuts and layoffs, needs all the help he can get from Washington. And Burr faces a potentially tough re-election fight next year.

Monday's event was typical of Burr's style of campaigning while seeming not to campaign. Burr not only invited his old political rival to be a key speaker, but he also held his conference at a historically black campus in what may be the most Democratic city in the state.

Burr has developed an inclusive, easy-going style. Even at Republican rallies, he avoids the divisive rhetoric many find to be red meat for the party's base.

It is a strategy suited for a Senate seat that no party has been able to hold since Democrat Sam Ervin won re-election in 1968. The seat has flipped parties every six years from Democrat Robert Morgan to Republican John East to Democrat Terry Sanford to Republican Lauch Faircloth to Democrat John Edwards and finally to Burr.

His de-emphasis on partisanship suits Burr's style as a career businessman who seems to care most deeply about economic issues rather than the more controversial social issues, said Andy Taylor, a political science professor at N.C. State University in Raleigh.

"It's not only a function of strategic politics," Taylor said. "It's who the guy is. He's a businessman."

Burr said Monday that he hopes to hold a series of economic development seminars devoted to finding ways to ensure North Carolina's economic recovery.

Burr's business connections were evident Monday. Among the participants at the conference were Jim Goodnight, CEO of SAS Institute, the Cary software company; Bob Ingram, the retired GlaxoSmithKline executive; and Bob Greczyn, president and CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina.

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