Which way will the GOP go?

• Author: Mooneyham, Scott
• Position: CAPITALGOODS

Wine glass in hand, retail mogul Art Pope mingled with other GOP insiders, candidates and well-wishers gathered at the downtown Raleigh Marriott to bask in Election Night victory. For the first time in more than a century. Republicans had won majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly, and finding a frown in the place was about as easy as getting a cable-TV pundit to shut up.

Pope, whose Variety Wholesalers Inc. owns, among other chains, Rose's, Maxway and Super Dollar, had been accused by some Democrats of mounting a one-man effort to buy the election. Groups tied to the Raleigh businessman had put $2.1 million toward unseating Democratic incumbents. To Pope's critics, this was exactly the kind of corrosive corporate money that had been predicted to flow into political campaigns now that the U.S. Supreme Court had let loose the floodgates with its decision that blurred distinctions between individual and company.

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But in the ballroom, and out in the halls, Big Business was noticeably absent. No more than four or five business lobbyists made it to the shindig. It's not that they and their corporate clients were caught off-guard by the Republican rout. They had spread their money around this time, to Republicans and Democrats, knowing what was in the wind. Groups such as the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce and the state chapter of the National Federation of Independent Businesses endorsed Republicans in key races. Chamber officials privately toyed with working against Democratic Rep. Jennifer Weiss of Wake County, a House Finance Committee co-chair and a top lieutenant of House Speaker Joe Hackney.

The idea of a Republican legislature less friendly to regulation appealed to a broad range of business interests. Still, the lobbying establishment in Raleigh was accustomed to Democratic rule, the majority of them steeped in Democratic, not Republican, party politics. With the GOP set to take control of the state House and Senate in January, that alignment will be one of the first things to change in Raleigh. Lobbyists will either shore up their relationships with Republican legislators or lobbying firms will add Republican insiders to their rosters.

The changes won't stop there. This new Republican majority will have a very different relationship with Gov. Beverly Perdue than that of her old Democratic colleagues in the legislature. For the first time since North Carolinians gave their governor veto power, a...