View from the left: The bliss of GOP ignorance collides with real-world politics... again

Rss@dailykos.com (kerry Eleveld) · Saturday, May 07, 2016, 2:08 pm

He’s an affable governor from a conservative pro-business state who swung into damage control within hours of signing a plainly discriminatory bill that overrode local LGBT nondiscrimination ordinances. He fervently sought to correct misinformation. He went on national TV and puzzled at all the fuss. He felt misunderstood, blamed the media, and utterly failed to see his own missteps. And finally, after he demonstrated week after week of willful ignorance about the cause of his state’s undoing, the local media began writing his political obituary:

When you have to "clarify" a horribly damaging piece of legislation that you raced to sign, when you dodge a question on national TV about whether discrimination is legal in your state, when you deal your state a crushing economic blow, when you seem incapable of understanding the role you have played in creating this mess -- well, that makes clear that you are not in the right job.

That governor is Mike Pence of Indiana, though it all sounds shockingly reminiscent of what we’re witnessing right now with Gov. Pat McCrory in North Carolina. With perhaps one difference: Mike Pence was not up for re-election last year after he signed Indiana’s discriminatory “religious freedom” bill and the state started hemorrhaging jobs. Instead of losing his governor’s seat, Pence’s 2016 presidential ambitions went down the drain.

And while McCrory’s obit hasn’t been written yet, even he is starting to see the writing on the wall.

“Society is changing quickly and anybody who gets in the way is in trouble. And I might be in trouble,” he admitted Tuesday on a Charlotte radio show.

But for that one moment of clarity, McCrory still marveled at just how he wound up in this situation.

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