#NCGov McCrory up to his old tricks

aShortChronicle recently told you about Governor Pat's in-kind campaign contribution from an article on the Forbes Magazine website by a big time McCrory campaign campaign donor.  That's an in-kind donation highly unlikely to be claimed by the McCrory campaign.

Well, now ProgressNC is accusing the Governor and his campaign of doing something similar by illegally coordinating with the official groups supporting the "Connect NC" bond  referendum for this fall.

Here's the response from McCrory mouthpiece Ricky Diaz according to a WBTV report.

"Instead of helping to pass the bipartisan ConnectNC bond that invests in education, national guard readiness and infrastructure without raising taxes, it's pretty obvious that Roy Cooper, the Democrat Party and their SuperPAC ProgressNC are trying to undermine it.They have been coordinating for months and laying the groundwork to try and thwart the bond this (sic) with a bogus complaint just like this, which will only waste taxpayer money and get thrown out like their other frivolous complaints. In fact, I predicted it on Twitter a few days ago. It's just a shame that the Democrats, their SuperPAC and their leading candidate for governor say they support higher education, but now it seems like they only support it if Democrats get the credit."

Now, while there almost certainly is some truth to Diaz's claim this is about politics (it is campaign season after all), it's also likely there is some truth to the complaint about coordination.

The walls between campaigns and PACs are notoriously thin.  Staff and supporters often float seamlessly between the two groups.  Ad agencies and other connected groups support both parties.  In this case, the complaint indicated McCrory's campaign and the Connect NC campaign are using the same Virginia based law firm - a firm with connections to Karl Rove.

Having a controversial referendum on the ballot while at the same time running for high office provides a bad case of deja vu when it comes to McCrory.

Back in 2007 when Mecklenburg activists first worked to repeal the county's 1/2 cent transit tax, McCrory (then the mayor of Charlotte) immediately jumped into the referendum fray.

From this article at Charlotte Business Journal, as Mayor, Pat McCrory took the lead in coordinating the "counter offensive" to the citizen-led repeal effort.  He even directed the use of government resources to oppose it.

When the Vote Against Repeal effort ramped up, it engaged in all sorts of shady tactics.  Read this piece from MeckDeck.com for the details.  McCrory was running for re-election as Mayor and planning his first run for Governor.  McCrory filed to run for Governor in January of 2008, just 2 months after winning re-election.

When it comes the Connect NC bonds, nothing that happens in the next weeks until election day should be at all surprising.  Doing whatever it takes to impact a referendum involving one of his pet projects is par for the course for McCrory.