HOMEWORK.

• Author: Maley, Frank
• Position: Mike Easley - Brief Article - Interview

Like his predecessor, the new governor considers education the key to building a strong economy.

In November, North Carolinians elected Mike Easley governor. As attorney general since 1993, the 50-year-old Democrat from Rocky Mount had been both boon and bane to business. He successfully defended tax-backed economic incentives for recruiting industry before the N.C. Supreme Court while gaining a reputation -- and building his base for the governor's race -- as a consumer advocate. A protege of Jim Hunt, the popular four-term governor (1977-85, 1993-01), Easley is expected to continue many of his predecessor's economic and educational policies. In early December, he sat down to talk business with BNC.

BNC: You took some heat from business leaders for running an insular, TV-oriented campaign. Can business now expect more accessibility?

Easley: From June 1 to October 15, I'd done 187 public fundraisers, plus about half that many political events. Fundraisers aren't covered by the media very much, but they do tend to be a necessary evil of high-dollar politics, which we have to deal with at some point. We're finding that people are not out there for the politicians just as much as the candidates aren't out there for the people. It's hard to get a crowd nowadays. We saw that on the bus tour, when we toured every region in North Carolina. People expect to be talked to in their living rooms through the television. So that puts a lot more pressure on the candidate to raise money and be on television, and that takes a lot more of your time. Now that the fundraising is over for a while, I hope to see a whole lot more of the people.

What can you do about campaign-finance reform on the state level?

I don't have a specific program, but I do know it's a problem, and that is important -- just to recognize that the problem is out there. The soft-money problem exists. Businesses are getting hit by every candidate running, from county commissioner to school board to legislature on up to Council of State. We had what we call a Better Campaigns Commission, where we used the four former governors as co-chairs, and we came up with some pretty good ideas, but we were very short of a big solution. I just think it's an issue that's going to take more study.

What do business leaders say about it?

The business people were the ones who were complaining the most to me about getting so many requests from so many candidates, not just small contributions but high dollars, for what's not a particularly significant office to that business. You hear an awful lot of the lobbyists with political action committees really grumbling that this is getting out of hand and they just can't continue to raise that kind of money.

Your...