Mark Robinson Lite: Weatherman a featherweight with thin resume for NC lieutenant governor

The last thing Josh Stein would need as governor is another Mark Robinson as lieutenant governor.

That’s why state Senator Rachel Hunt’s race for lieutenant governor matters. Big time.

Hunt’s opponent, Hal Weatherman, is a political lightweight — Mark Robinson Lite.

More: Gary Pearce: VP Kamala Harris smoothly took over Joe Biden’s ship with ‘joy and hope’

Weatherman a lifelong GOP political operative

He’s such a lightweight you could call him “Featherman.”

He has never held public office. He’s a lifelong political operative.

He was chief of staff to Congresswoman Sue Myrick and to Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, who did all he could to undercut Gov. Roy Cooper from 2016 to 2020, before losing to Cooper in 2020.

Weatherman also worked for that distinguished North Carolina congressman Madison Cawthorn, who has gained notoriety in a number of scandalous headlines.

More: Pitts: North Carolina now part of 'Magnificent Seven' swing states in the presidential race

Weatherman will fight woke agenda, he says

Weatherman’s issues are as thin as his resume.

He says he would use the lieutenant governor’s seats on the State Board of Education and the State Community College Board of Directors to fight the “woke agenda.”

No doubt he’d be a nuisance to a Gov. Stein, like Robinson has been to Cooper for four years — while the lieutenant governor also was busy grabbing taxpayers’ money for his family’s Balanced Nutrition “nonprofit.” Robinson is the Republican nominee for governor, running against Stein, the Democratic nominee and current attorney general.

Robinson’s antics were a factor in Cooper withdrawing from VP consideration. Cooper told Politico:

“If I were to be out of state at a campaign event, if I had been the vice presidential nominee, he could claim he was acting governor. The attention he would get would be times 10 and it would be a distraction to the presidential campaign. And plus, we don’t know for sure what the Republican Supreme Court would decide.”

I know what Rachel Hunt is made of; she deserves to be NC lt. governor

Stein deserves a better lieutenant governor. Hunt will be more than better; she’ll be great.

I know where she comes from and what she’s made of. I’ve known her since her father, former Gov. Jim Hunt, hired me 48 years ago.

She and her husband, Olav Nilender, just celebrated their 30^th anniversary. They met when they were both working at a small rural hospital in North Carolina. She was a risk manager and he was an emergency room doctor.

She’s a lawyer and long-time public-school leader. She represented abused children in court and managed a battered women’s shelter. She has spent her life helping people.

Hunt's accomplishments include protecting reproductive rights

Unlike Weatherman, she has run for and served in public office – as a state representative and senator.

Republicans who controlled the House respected her enough to make her vice chair of the committee on community colleges.

She was the first legislator to propose a state constitutional amendment protecting women’s reproductive rights. Weatherman, like Robinson, would take those rights away.

She’ll use the gavel in the Senate and her education-board seats to lift up people and stand up for fairness and equal opportunity. Weatherman would posture about “the woke agenda.”

She’ll be a partner to Governor Stein. Weatherman would be a pest.

Gary Pearce was a reporter and editor at The News & Observer, a political consultant, and an adviser to Gov. Jim Hunt (1976-1984 and 1992-2000). He blogs about politics and public policy at "Talking About Politics."

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Weatherman the lightweight in match against Hunt for NC lt. governor