“Hunt criticized the Democratic controlled General Assembly for raising taxes in 1991 during the recession, saying the budgetary shortfall was ‘sheer government mismanagement.’”[i] Rob Christensen, News & Observer, The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics
Twenty-five years ago, in Washington DC, U.S. Senator Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican, was beginning his third term in the world’s greatest deliberative body.
In Raleigh, former two-term Governor Jim Hunt, a Democrat, was returning to the practice of law. He had lost to Helms in the 1984 epic battle of political titans in the US Senate race. Hunt was all washed up; a mere single-entry footnote in the annals of state political history. Wrong.
Jim Hunt, today’s patriarch of the North Carolina Democratic Party, went on to serve a third and fourth term as Governor, a first since 1776. He achieved an extraordinary and unprecedented list of accomplishments … not the least of which was the exalted partisan political triumph of becoming the state Republican Party’s worst nightmare of the past two-and-a-half decades.
As News & Observer political writer Rob Christensen pointed out in his book, The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics, “Hunt kept the Democratic Party from going under during a Republican tide by his political skills, ideological nimbleness, and the fact that he never stopped working.”[ii]
Jim Hunt has become the Michael Jordan, the David Thompson, and the Christian Laettner of modern-day North Carolina politics … that player that is simply better than everyone else on the court. You know the one … the one with the most wins.
This report examines the teachable personal qualities of Jim Hunt, such as “ideological nimbleness” and work ethic, along with the political skills that have made Jim Hunt the extraordinary winner that he has become. What if Hunt had gone to Washington DC in 1985 and Helms had stayed in North Carolina? Is there a Republican Jim Hunt?
Teachable Quality: Persuasiveness.
“Damn, he really believes this stuff!”
In 1985, the state GOP had much about which to boast. President Ronald “Morning in America” Reagan was in the White House, Republican Governor Jim Martin was in the Mansion, and Sen. Jesse Helms was making liberal Massachusetts Sen. Teddy Kennedy miserable day after day.
It was about this time that my friend Roger Bone, a loyal Democrat and seasoned lobbyist who represented the tobacco and pork industries, suggested that a newcomer to North Carolina political circles like me would benefit from a visit with Jim Hunt. He made the appointment. [click to continue…]
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