the guy who said he came to work on JOBS, not social issues. I keep re-reading this Christensen piece, and he is dead on:
McCrory wanted to rebrand NC; the legislature is doing it for him
....
One of the reasons North Carolina didn’t mount a campaign of massive resistance against integration during the 1950s and 1960s was that governors such as Luther Hodges and the state’s business leadership thought it would scare away the corporations the state was trying to convince to locate here. So how does the current legislature’s agenda fit into the state’s image of a modern, moderate state where a smart 21st-century executive would want to invest?
....
Anti-gay laws? Shariah legislation? Guns in bars? Some of the worst-funded public schools and worst-paid teachers in the nation? Shrinking the once proud University of North Carolina’s budget? Harsh anti-abortion legislation? The list goes on.
....
The lawmakers claim not to be concerned about the national coverage. I believe them. But they should be.
They may not read or watch the national news. But guess who does? The deep pockets who decide where the jobs will go. Think about the companies that North Carolina is counting on to invest in its future: MetLife of New York; Citrix Systems of Santa Clara, Calif.; Fidelity Systems of Boston; Wells Fargo of San Francisco; GlaxoSmithKline of London; Cisco Systems of San Jose, Calif.; Lenovo of Beijing; and Credit Suisse of Zurich. Undoubtedly, someone will say, well what about Texas? That is a very conservative state, yet it attracts lots of corporations. But Texas is America’s Saudi Arabia, and unless North Carolina discovers another Permian Basin, it can not count on following the Texas model.
....
Six months into his administration, McCrory may have already lost control of the branding issue.
http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/07/06/3013805/mccrory-wanted-to-rebrand-nc-the.html#storylink=cpy
= new reply since forum marked as read
