6 THE PERQUIMANS WEEKLY, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9,2016 Perspectives Differences should not stop NC from finding way forward R ALEIGH—As I write this, the ballot ing isn’t yet over in North Carolina. But here’s an election result I can forecast with absolute confidence: most North Carolinians, like most Americans, will be dissatisfied with the outcome. I don’t just mean that roughly half the voters will end up supporting losing candi dates for president, governor, U.S. Senate, and other statewide contests. For months, it has been clear that North Carolina would be a tightly contested battleground. We were also a tightly contested battleground for president, at least, in 2008 and 2012, so this is nothing new. What really is new — perhaps even un precedented in American political history — is that both major-party candidates for president have higher disapproval ratings than approval ratings. Outside of hard- core partisans, voters across the ideologi cal spectrum dislike and distrust Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. It seems likely the next president will enter the White House cloaked in suspicion and dogged by scandal. Here in North Carolina, the contest be tween Richard Burr and Deborah Ross rates as one of the nation’s roughest Senate races, according to the Wesleyan Media Project, with 65 percent of the ads aired attacking the other candidate and only eight percent offering a positive agenda. And ei ther Pat McCrory or Roy Cooper will win one of the most brutal and expensive races for gover nor in state history. It is the sec ond-most-negative gubernatorial contest this year, according to the Wesleyan dataset, with 59 percent of the ads rated as negative and 19 percent as positive. I share the concerns of many North Carolinians, again across the spectrum, about how the 2016 cycle has played out. I JOHN HOOD share their disappointment with the actions of many candidates, party leaders, activists, and media figures. But I haven’t yielded to pessimism. Indeed, I still see reasons for optimism — about the Tar Heel State, anyway. Look, there’s not much chance of anything good oozing from our toxic-waste dump of a presidential race. But at the state level, the past few months have produced a ground- swell of interest in promoting civil dialogue and elevating the standards and Columnist practices of competitive politics. Early this year, a new project called the North Carolina Leader ship Forum made its debut. Af- filiated with Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and encompassing a broad range of current and emerging leaders, NCLF has given liberals, conser vatives, centrists, and libertarians ‘a valuable opportunity to develop personal connections, explore complex sets of data and argu ments, and better understand how people with good intentions and shared goals can form en tirely different opinions about what government should do. NCLF is funded by the Duke Endowment and two charitable foundations whose grantees usually find themselves diametri cally opposed on matters of public policy - the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and the John William Pope Foundation, for which I serve as president. Reynolds and Pope are also jointly funding several other projects and initiatives at the moment — including the N.C. Institute of Political Leadership, the news service EducationNC, and the ed ucation group BEST NC — and even com pared notes recently about disaster relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew. These efforts aren’t about trying to con verge to some kind of moderate consensus. That’s unrealistic and unnecessary. North Carolina is a large and growing state of diverse people and varying viewpoints. As should be obvious by now, I have strong opinions. I like talking about them, trying to persuade others I’m right, and then adjust ing my thinking to new information or good arguments as warranted. The goals should be to debate our differences more construc tively, seek agreement where possible, and lift the conversation above vicious ridicule and character assassination. I don’t mean to diminish the coming chal lenge. The blades of 2016 cut deep wounds. It will take discernment, diplomacy, and diligence to bind them up and begin moving forward. We will stride and we will stumble. But both will be steps in the right direction. That’s what healthy politics looks like. Per haps North Carolina can model it for a na tion yearning for something better. John Hood is chairman of the John Locke Foundation. ADDRESSES NC SENATE Bill Cool (R) N.C. Senate 300 N. Salisbury Street, Room 525 Raleigh, NC 27603-5925 (919) 715-8293 Bill.Cook@ncleg.net NC HOUSE Bob Steinburg (R) 919-733-0010 NC House of Representatives 300 N. Salisbury St., Room 306 A2 Raleigh, NC 27603 bob.steinburg@ncleg.net US HOUSE Walter B. Jones Jr. (R) 202-225-3415 252-931-1003 2333 Rayburn HOB Washington, DC 20515 cong- jones@mail.house.gov Letters to the Editor New Interstate 87 is not without problems for our area Dear Editor, Recent news in Edenton showed a photo of the governor unveiling an Interstate road sign as the lo cal politicians flapped their hands like a bunch of seals waiting for someone to throw them some fish. If Interstate 87 does indeed evolve, the local residents and merchants need to understand one thing. In terstate Highways have limited access. That means that all those center turn lanes, cut throughs, and U turn lanes will ultimately disappear. Many of the roads that currently access Route 17 will be cut off or rerouted. There are no traffic lights on Interstates so all turns will be by an elevated highway, not a jug handle. You may have to drive two, three or four miles or more to make a U turn. Route 87 will be just like the Route 17 bypass around Eden ton or Elizabeth City or Route 64 to Rocky Mount. Existing Route 17 businesses will die. In addition, there will be no agricultural equip ment allowed on the Interstate un less you can reach 45 mph. More jobs? Unless someone can entice a corporate business to the region the only new jobs will be temporary construction jobs to build the overpasses. New busi nesses are based on area popula tion density and natural or human resource location, not someone requesting your vote. Local residents, and especially merchants, need to keep abreast of all public meetings. Tell the county planner and county commissioner what your needs are. Your busi ness is important to our region. Retain your road access. Politi cians will say that this is a great Interstate from Raleigh to Norfolk and promise all these benefits, but slowing people down to stop and shop in our towns is more impor tant to us. Bob Escheman Hertford What does it take to embarrass Democrats like Hillary? Dear Editor, The picture of Michele Obama embracing Hillary Clinton was plastered all over the media this past week. That one photo, I main tain, is emblematic of everything that’s wrong with the Democratic Party: the wife of the President of the United States — who actually detests Secretary Clinton — low ering herself to embrace the most corrupt liar of any presidential candidate in the history of this country. Which begs the question, “What does it take to embarrass Democrats?” I might ask that question of Nancy Theodore who should be embarrassed by her letter to the editor on Oct. 26 that was filled with distorted facts and glaring omissions to refute my negative observations on Barack Obama’s legacy. Ms. Theodore has always been consistent in her support of Obama’s disastrous Affordable Care Act, his budget-busting tax and spend policies, his extra-con stitutional executive orders, his job-killing regulations, his sympa thies for Muslims, and his treason ous Iran agreement. For all these failures she still blames Bush and the Republicans. We can search in vain through all her letters critical of me to find anything critical of Obama and the Democrats. After all the WikiLeak expo sures of Clinton corruption, after Director Comey’s announcement that the FBI is reopening its inves tigation into Hillary’s emails, what more does Ms. Theodore need to be embarrassed by Democrats? If Hillary Clinton came to Hertford, would Ms. Theodore stand in line to give her a hug? Claude Milot Hertford Clinton, not Trump, more suited to improving people’s lives A few weeks ago I met a guy in Idaho who was absolutely certain that Don ald Trump would win this election. He was wearing tattered, soiled overalls, missing a bunch of teeth and was unnaturally skinny. He was probably about 50, but his haggard face looked 70. He was getting by aimlessly as a handyman. I pointed to the polls and tried to persuade him that Hillary Clinton might win, but it was like telling him a sea gull could play billiards. Everybody he knows is voting Trump so his entire lived experience points to a Trump landslide. He was a funny, kind guy, but you got the impression his opportunities had been narrowed by forces outside his con trol. One of the mandates for the next presi dent is to help improve the life stories of people like that. Trump speaks to this man’s situation and makes him feel heard. But when you think practically about which candidate could im prove his life, it’s clear that Clinton is the big ger change agent. Let’s start with what “change” actually means. In our system, change means legisla tion. It starts with the ability to gather a team of policy experts who can craft complex bills. These days, bills often run to thousands of pages, and every bad rookie de cision can lead things astray. Then it requires political deft ness. Deft politicians are not always lovely, as Lyndon Johnson demon strated, but they are subtle, cunning and experienced. They have the ability to work noncontentiously with people they don’t like, to read other people’s minds, to lure oppo nents over with friendship, cajolery and a respectful nudge. Craftsmanship in government is not like craftsmanship in busi ness. You can’t win people with money and you can’t order peo ple around. Governance requires ■ Columnist DAVID BROOKS enormous patience, a capacity to tolerate boredom and the skill of quiet herding. Frus trations abound. When it is done well, as a friend of mine in government puts it, each individual day sucks but the overall experi ence is tremendously rewarding. Change in government is a team sport. Public opinion is mobilized through institu tions — through interest groups, activist or ganizations, think tanks and political parties. As historian Sean Wilentz once put it, “politi cal parties have been the only reliable elec toral vehicles for advancing the ideas and interests of ordinary voters.” To create political change, you have to work within groups and orga nize groups of groups. Now, if you wanted to design a personality type perfectly ill suited to be a change agent in government, you would come up with Donald Trump: solipsistic, impatient, com bative, unsubtle and ignorant. If you wanted to design a per sonality type better suited to get ting things done, you might come up with James Baker, Robert Gates or Ted Kennedy, but you might also come up with Hillary • Clinton. None of us should be under any illusions. Wherever Clinton walks, the whiff of scan dal is always by her side. The Clintons seem to have decided that they are righteous and good, and therefore anything that enriches, empowers or makes them feel good must al ways be righteous and good. They surround themselves with some amazing people but also some human hand grenades who inevi tably blow up in their faces. But Clinton does possess the steady, pe dantic skills that are necessary for govern mental change: the ability to work doggedly hard, to master details and to rally the pow erful. If the Clinton campaign emails have taught us anything, it is that she and her team, while not hugely creative, are prudent, calculating and able to create a web of inter locking networks that they can mobilize for a cause. Passing legislation next year is going to be hard, but if Clinton can be dull and prag matic, and operate at a level below the cable TV ideology wars, it’s possible to imagine her gathering majorities behind laws that would help people like that guy in Idaho: an infra structure push, criminal justice reform, a col lege tuition program, an apprenticeship and skills program, an expanded eamed-income tax credit and a bill to secure the border and shift from low-skill to high-skill immigration. Many of us disagree strongly with many. Clinton policies. But any sensible person can distinguish between an effective operating officer and a whirling disaster who is only about himself. The thing about reality TV is that it isn’t actually real. In the real world, the process of driving change is usually boring, remorseless and detail oriented, but the effect on people out there, like the guy in Idaho, can be pro- found and beautiful. New York Times News Service THE Perquimans Weekly A PUBLICATION OF COOKE COMMUNICATIONS NORTH CAROLINA, LLC ESTABLISHED 1934 MIKE GOODMAN, Publisher/Editor 111 W. MARKET ST. BEV ALEXANDER, Advertising representative HERTFORD, N.C. 27944 252-426-5728 PETER WILLIAMS, News Editor The Perquimans Weekly (USPS 428080) is published each Wednes day by The Daily Advance, 215 S. Water St, Elizabeth City, NC 27909. Subscription rates are $27.00 per year plus sales tax in Perquimans, Chowan, Pasquotank Camden, Currituck and parts of Gates counties and $31.50 per year mailed to all other addresses in the continental US. Sales tax is required for deliveiy to all North Carolina counties at the sales tax rate in that county. Single copy newspapers are 50 cents plus PERQUIMANSWEEKLY@NCWEEKLIES.COM CIRCULATION DELIVERY, CUSTOMER SERVICE, SUBSCRIPTIONS, sales tax where applicable. 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