With former NC Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand (D-Cumberland) having stepped down, supposedly to take over the chairmanship of the State Parole Board, inquiring minds have to wonder, who is going to be next?
Naturally, the rumor for several years, has been that the Feds have been "after" NC Senate President Pro Tempore, Sen. Marc Basnight (left). However, your blogger feels that if that was the case, it would have already happened. You can't prop a rumor up forever.
However, Basnight has Parkinson's Disease, an affliction KCC wouldn't wish on her worst enemy. The disease has steadily been slowing Mr. Basnight down and he just doesn't look "himself". The diagnosis also caps a series of personal tragedies for Basnight. Several years ago, a restaurant he owned in Dare County burned, and later his wife passed away.
Even if Basnight turns out to be clean as a whistle, you blogger feels he will not run again for re-election and will leave the Senate by the start of the long session in 2011. However, the Basnight/Rand fundraising machine hummed along like a well-oiled machine, fanning the flames that something just isn't quite right in Democratland.
The Raleigh News and Observer, Thursday, opined that with an increasingly liberal Democratic Party, old dogs like Rand and Basnight are being on the verge of being outflanked from the left. Oddly, their brand of old-style, back-room dealing, moderate politics, is on the way out and being replace with a more modern, more liberal version.
Though it will be a good change to see the old warhorses in other pursuits, the left wingers being increasingly elected should bring a chill to the spine of every moderate and conservative North Carolinian. Liberals like to spend your money, and lots of it.
If we are ever going to have a crack at taking back the NC General Assembly, we must look close to home, at our own legislators and ask them the tough questions. Keep up with how they voted on key issues.
Meanwhile, mums the word on Basnight's future. However, your blogger is betting it will be a short one in the NC Legislature.
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