Ring master: known for relentless polling, passion for Democratic politics and a raconteur's spirit, Raleigh businessman Dean Debnam has also built a company that lends a hand to workers across the globe.

• Author: Betts, Jack
• Position: Cover story

Dean Debnam embodies the classic North Carolina success story: a tobacco farming family's son who started working at age 12, despised authority so much that he left college after six weeks, and wound up controlling Workplace Options LLC, an employee-assistance company that posted $65 million in revenue last year. That's where the resemblance mostly ends. While many CEO peers couple their success with a passion for conservative politics, Debnam wakes up every morning on the other side of the partisan divide. He's one of the state's most ardent donors to Democrat politicians and liberal causes, while financing and creating Public Policy Polling, which is in the national spotlight almost daily during the wild political season. He boasts of being a rarity: a successful Southern liberal businessman. A favorite pastime is sniping at North Carolina's Republican leadership--and fellow Democrats who are not battling hard enough to win.

"There are far more Jim Hunt progressives among business leaders than there are [N.C. Senate President Pro Tern Phil] Berger conservatives, but they are afraid to speak out because those who write the laws are vindictive--the craziest bats in the barn," he says. "We have successful businessmen in this state, and I ask them if they invest in their own businesses to make improvements. It's the same way with running a state--you have to invest in schools and infrastructure."

Republican leaders, emboldened after more than a century of Democratic rule, are moving too quickly to change a state long considered the envy of the South, Debnam says. "I need to recruit employees in this state. But how many good employees are going to come here if the schools are getting an F? 1 want a good working environment here in North Carolina, where there's a good public infrastructure and where there are great schools. What we have now is complete insanity."

Debnam's analysis of the Republican surge in North Carolina is all wrong, Berger says. "One of the reasons we won in 2010 is that the business community finally abandoned support of Democrats in the legislature. [The business sector] wanted to support candidates who would support business, [who would be] pro-private sector." Over the last five years the state has invested a record amount in schools, universities and transportation infrastructure, while stopping the transfer of road funds into the state's general fund, he adds.

Debnam, 61, can get just as fired up on local issues. Last year, he financed an ad campaign in the Raleigh City Council race attacking Democratic councilwoman Mary-Ann Baldwin and others who favored allowing downtown bars to keep their sidewalk seating open until 2 a.m. The ad contended that Raleigh risked turning into "DrunkTown" as its center-city population skyrockets. Baldwin won her re-election campaign, while two other candidates criticized in the ad lost. Establishments now close their sidewalk trade by midnight on weeknights, 1 a.m. on weekends. "You would not need term limits if Dean were in public office," says his...