News-Record.com

One day, the campaigns will end and I will go back to covering what these scurvy political critters actually do in office. Until then, here is another wacky – or is it? – political theory for you to ponder:

If Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, a Republican, wins the governor's mansion next week, he might have Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to thank.

"A lot of Obama voters are not excited about him because he's a Democrat and they're not excited because he's a liberal," said John Davis, who studies elections for the pro-business group N.C. Free. "It's an anti-establishment thing. In the parlance of this election, it's change."

Plenty of voters going to the polls will vote for Obama and stick with Democrats down the ballot, Davis acknowledges.

But there's another group, he said, upset with how things are running in Washington and Raleigh and interested in new management. Democrats such as McCrory's rival, Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue, have held the governor's mansion for 16 years. Davis argues the "change voters" Obama is bringing to the polls in the presidential race might favor the Republican running for governor.

Andrew Taylor, a political science professor at N.C. State, agrees that McCrory could be getting help from Obama's change-focused campaign.

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