Hunt’s Pragmatism Served Our State Well

By John Hood

RALEIGH — North Carolina is one of America’s most contested electoral battlegrounds. It has been for generations. It is also home to one of the most successful state Democratic parties in American history.

In this case, you can infer causation from correlation. While other Southern states transformed from starkly blue to richly red during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, North Carolina’s shift was more like blueish violet to reddish purple.

Since Reconstruction, state Republicans have held simultaneously the governorship and majorities in the state legislature and supreme court for only a single four-year stretch, 2013 to 2016. Most of our statewide races are highly competitive. Among the 10 elected executives on our Council of State are five Republicans and five Democrats.

No single individual did more to preserve North Carolina Democrats’ competitive edge than Jim Hunt, who passed away on December 18 at the age of 88. By far the longest-serving governor in state history — his first and second gubernatorial wins were in 1976 and 1980, his third and fourth in 1992 and 1996 — Hunt not only put his unmistakable stamp on state policy but also recruited, trained, assisted, and inspired a talented cadre of aides, candidates, and political professionals who remain active in state politics to this day.

Others who knew Hunt far better than I will eulogize him more comprehensively. But I did have the privilege of talking with him many times, at both his instigation and mine, and can attest to his boundless curiosity and seemingly limitless energy.

Although Hunt could be fiercely partisan, and doggedly persistent in advancing his personal causes, I think one of his most valuable traits was his pragmatism.

I’ll relate the first time Hunt called me. It was right after the 1994 midterm elections, the “Republican Revolution” cycle in which the GOP won both houses of Congress for the first time since the 1950s and one of the two chambers of the North Carolina General Assembly for the first time in a century.

I’d already met him, of course. Hunt was then in his third gubernatorial term. I was editing the John Locke Foundation’s magazine, Carolina Journal, while writing my first book as a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. The governor called the Locke Foundation office and left a message asking for the opportunity to speak at one of our monthly luncheons. Surprised and intrigued, we agreed.

At the event, held just after the beginning of the 1995 legislative session, Hunt pitched a tax-cut package larger than the one promised by the incoming Republican leaders of the North Carolina House. He also talked up causes such as fighting crime and reforming welfare that were popular with the new GOP majority in the state house as well as the conservative Republicans and centrist Democrats who together constituted a majority in the state senate.

Hunt didn’t say anything he didn’t believe. And, indeed, over the next four years North Carolina lawmakers passed historic tax, public safety, and welfare bills. But they also funded his signature early-childhood program, Smart Start, and enacted an education-reform package that raised academic standards, strengthened accountability, and boosted teacher pay. Keep in mind that before 1996, North Carolina’s governors lacked a veto. Even after he got it, Hunt never used it. He accomplished his goals largely through persuasion, perseverance, and compromise.

Many years later, I interviewed him while researching my biography of Republican Gov. Jim Martin, whom Hunt both preceded and followed. I’d say about a third of our conversation stayed on topic. The rest of the time, he lobbied me on various issues of mutual interest. I got the “Jim Hunt treatment,” with him gripping my right hand in his while his left grasped my elbow. He never stopped pressing his case. But he also never stopped listening and seeking common ground.

That’s why Jim Hunt so often prevailed. It’s a lesson smart politicians have emulated and foolish ones have spurned — at least until their inevitable defeat.

John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books Mountain Folk, Forest Folk, and Water Folk combine epic fantasy with American history (FolkloreCycle.com).