A major bullet dodged for Larry Kissell:
A rendezvous at a Concord barbecue joint Tuesday helped change the political outlook in North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District.
Former Republican U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes and Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory met to talk about next year’s House race. As the two sipped Diet Cokes, Hayes asked McCrory the question he’d asked before: Would the mayor run?
No, McCrory replied.
“It was obvious that he wasn’t going to do it now,” Hayes said, “so I needed to get out of the way and let the primary develop so we can win the general election.”
McCrory is staying publicly mum for now, but the Charlotte Observer reports that he’s told “party insiders” not to expect a race out of him. McCrory likely would have been the strongest possible candidate the GOP could cough up here, but it looks like it’s back to the drawing board for the NRCC.
RaceTracker Wiki: NC-08
Most likely running for governor again, which is a better shot for him given Bev Perdue’s dismal job performance so far.
including passing up opportunities for various races?
Retired Army colonel Lou Huddleston and Union County DA John Snyder. Huddleston lost a state House race pretty badly in 2008, 62% to 38%, so he doesn’t feel like too much of a threat. Snyder is harder to tell. Union County is divided between the 8th and 9th CDs. The county is pretty Republican but backed Kissell in 2008 and only narrowly backed Hayes in 2008. So on paper at least Snyder could take some of Kissell’s votes away from him. Hopefully someone who knows more about the area can help handicap how well Snyder might do.
As I’ve said before, if McCrory ever runs for Congress, it will be to succeed Sue Myrick in NC-9. The sliver of Mecklenberg County (Charlotte) that is in NC-8 is heavily Democratic and was most likely lost by McCrory in the governor’s race. The eastern half of the district would be even more hostile to him, as both an R and as a city slicker.
If McCrory would have decided to run against Kissell, wouldn’t you think that – if he would have run and beaten Kissell, he could have still run for Governor in 2012 and he would have been the odds-on favorite? He would have been up for re-election in the House in 2012 anyways, so I don’t see that a successful run for the House in 2010 would have preventing him from running for Governor in 2012.
Reading between the lines, then, the suggestion here is that McCrory was concerned that he would not beat Kissell, and he decided to leave well enough alone so that his Governor prospects for 2012 are preserved.