Maybe Gov. Beverly Perdue really believes North Carolina needs a better-educated populace if she thinks we're dense enough to buy the line that her decision not to run for re-election was "selfless." Walking away from a battle that every poll says she was destined to lose is hardly selfless. It's legacy preservation.
The Democratic governor's attempt to hold on to power until the last possible moment has really put her party in a bind. Her late call inherently favors those such as Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton, who had already ramped up for re-election, and state Rep. Bill Faison who's been ready to run for governor practically since his first week in the legislature. For other, perhaps stronger, possible candidates such as Erskine Bowles and U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, raising money, organizing and executing a modern, statewide primary campaign in less than 100 days may prove too high a barrier.
Perdue says she's stepping down so she can be free to fight for a sales tax increase and to restore the cuts made to the education budgets. But if that decision was truly selfless, it would have been made last summer, after the Republican-led General Assembly overrode her budget veto and allowed the temporary sales tax to expire.
Throwing down that gauntlet would have elevated Perdue from a weak governor to a statesman. She would have garnered public admiration that would have transformed her into a formidable force when the General Assembly returns this May. A summer decision would have also given her party time to raise money and organize against Pat McCrory, a shoo-in for the Republican nomination, who has a four-year head start on the eventual Democratic nominee.
Instead, Perdue's decision relegates her to lame-duck status, delivering the same old lame speeches. Sadly, the real losers in what's left of her term are the causes whose advocates depend on Perdue to be a strong voice at the legislature.
The biggest disservice of Perdue's retreat is yet to come. While the governor says her move was made in the name of education, it's simply for a tax increase. What's more, the $800 million or so annually that would be derived from the .75 cent sales tax increase she wants would simply go into the state's money pile.
Perdue has yet to identify a plan, program or single goal she wants to achieve using a form of tax that is as hurtful to poor families as they come.
Goodness knows, the money could be designated to worthy education goals such as increasing the state's high school graduation rate or attacking the academic achievement gap between white and Asian students and their African-American and Hispanic counterparts. How about investing it in vocational education?
But since the governor has no measurable plan, the political debate surrounding it will be reduced to this tired refrain: Democrats want to raise taxes and Republicans don't care about public education. The electorate deserves better.
It's also a shame that Perdue apparently won't use her remaining days in office to bring bold leadership to areas where it's sorely lacking, such as mental health. Too many of our state's mentally ill, particularly children, still can't find treatment outside of an emergency room. It's a shame the governor isn't fighting to preserve the Dorothea Dix campus in Raleigh.
We don't need another park. But it's only a matter of time before we will need another first-class mental health treatment center, particularly in such a populous and fast-growing region of the state.
If Perdue committed to using the governor's pulpit to inform us of the plight of the mentally ill, and tied a proposed tax increase to improving their care, at least this taxpayer would ask if .75 percent - that is, a sales tax hike of three quarters of a penny - is enough.
Problem is, that would require leadership, largely absent from the Perdue legacy. Based on her "selfless" decision, Perdue is destined to be known as North Carolina's first woman governor, but not one of its best.
