Kirk leads enterprise straight down the middle.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: North Carolina Citizens for Business and Industry president Phil Kirk - Capital

In a state where Democrats have taken back the governor's mansion and dominate the General Assembly, you'd think Republican Hall of Famer Phil Kirk might have lost some of his clout.

On the contrary, the president of North Carolina Citizens for Business and Industry has shown David Gergen-like savvy in mastering the change in political fortunes.

The reason, Kirk and his supporters say, is that party labels are meaningless when it comes to many key issues. Educational reform, for example, is as big at NCCBI as at the League of Women Voters. And though registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 2.5-to-1, so few vote a straight party ticket that the lead means little in practical terms.

Indeed, after years of working for key Republicans, Kirk got the NCCBI job in 1989 with a little help from some Democratic stalwarts. The group functions as the state's ex-officio chamber of commerce, and most major business leaders get involved sometime in their careers.

"I voted for Phil," says Guilford Mills Chairman Charles Hayes, who's on NCCBI's 23-member executive committee. "I believe in synergy. When we're all having a drink, you can't tell Republicans from Democrats." Hayes, 58, gave the Democratic National Committee $60,000 last year, lent $100,000 for President Bill Clinton's inauguration and with his wife, Sheila, gave $16,000 to the campaign of Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt.

Says Kirk: "I'm still able to hop on issues I strongly believe in, but with two Republican senators, a third of the legislature Republican and the governor's mansion switching back and forth, we've lost a lot of stereotypical party distinctions. We don't always agree with Gov. Hunt. When we don't, I'm willing to tell him."

A chairman of the state's Teen Republican and Young Republican groups in the 1960s, Salisbury-born Kirk worked part time as a radio announcer and reporter for The Salisbury Post from 1967 to 1972. After teaching English and journalism in the Salisbury schools, he was elected North Carolina's youngest state senator in 1970. He was 25.

He resigned during his second Senate term to become an aide to Republican Gov. James Holshouser Jr. Kirk later became secretary of the Department of Human Resources under Holshouser and Republican Gov. James Martin, an assistant to Republican U.S. Rep. James Broyhill and, finally, Martin's chief of staff from '87 to '89.

"Phil doesn't come with any baggage," says Richard Futrell, the Democratic Rocky Mount banker who was to have...