Cobey going, too

Just over a month after he was resoundingly re-elected as state Republican chairman, Bill Cobey stunned pundits and pols throughout North Carolina by resigning the party helm and declaring he would run for governor next year. "It was the right chemistry for this race, and the right thing to do," the 63-year-old Cobey told me last week. In launching his statewide bid, stalwart conservative Cobey said he would retain consultant-brothers Curt and Wes Anderson to oversee the campaign (Curt was formerly a top associate of Haley Barbour when he was Republican National Chairman; Wes was with the Fabrizio-McLaughlin polling firm) and that he estimated it would take $2 million to 3 million to win the Republican primary next May.

Once the athletic director of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Cobey lost bids for lieutenant governor in 1980 and the U.S. House in 1982 before finally making it to Congress two years later. Like friends and GOP classmates Tom DeLay and Dick Armey of Texas, Rep. Cobey was unabashedly conservative and in the forefront of such key causes at the time as the battles to abolish the Econornic Development Administration and the Legal Services Corporation.

Swept out of the historically Democratic Raleigh-area district in the strong Democratic tide of 1986, Cobey (lifetime ACU rating: 86%) went on to serve as deputy transportation secretary and then secretary of the environment under Republican Gov. (1984-92) James G. Martin. (Before declaring for the governorship last week, Cobey revealed, he had also put to rest media speculation that he was being considered to head the Environmental Protection Administration by informing the White House he was not interested in the appointment). Four years ago, Cobey won the party chairmanship over incumbent Sam Currin following a pitched convention battle.

Under most circumstances, someone who has lost more races than he has won and who last won elective office two decades ago would have long been relegated to the political scrapheap. But not Bill Cobey, whose strong conservative following statewide remains firm over the years and has kept his name alive in political circles. When I noted that Cobey had been identified in the media with the so-called "religious right," he replied that, while a proud Christian, "I won't trade on the fact that I'm a Christian" and that, as was his policy while state chairman, "I want a seat for everyone at my table."

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Jul 28, 2003
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