Choosing which office to run for
Agonizing over whether to run for governor or some other office, Holshouser printed out bumper stickers that did not specify what position he was seeking. He ultimately chose to try for the governorship, aiming to dismantle some of the rigid bureaucracy that had grown up around the office.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with James E. Holshouser Jr., March 13, 1998. Interview C-0328-2. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- JACK FLEER:
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Governor Holshouser, why did you want to be governor?
- JAMES E. HOLSHOUSER, JR.:
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Well it wasn't something that had been planned since
childhood. As a matter of fact in my first session of the legislature, a
lawyer by the name of Andy Jones drafted all of my bills that I put in
and we got to be good friends and we talked a lot. He said one time, he
said, "I don't know why anybody wants to be governor
you lose about a friend a day because every time you make an appointment
there were five other of your best friends that thought they were going
to get it or whatever. And no matter who you pleased every time you make
a decision you are displeasing somebody." As I kept going
through the legislative process I kept getting sort of a hidden sense of
frustration over not being able to get some things done that in some
cases I thought were pretty common sense and in other cases I thought
could never be done until you had sort of a major change, not like a
paradigm change, but a dramatic change in how the person at the top and
those around him viewed government. That the Democrat establishment had
been in so long, there were so many people within the bureaucracy even
at the near top levels who were just part of that establishment that you
couldn't break the mold of how problems needed to be
addressed. I don't think that was all to the Democrats as
oppose to say the Republicans in Iowa or Ohio or some place where if any
party that is in too long has the potential. And I
got more and more frustrated with some of the approaches to spending and
policy and just finally decided that I ought to try to do something
about it. It is a very hard decision to make because I tend to always
want, grew up playing cards close to the vest in terms of making
decisions, of analyzing every which way I could, rather than just trying
to make a snap judgment and it was very hard. The bumper strips that
came out in October '71 just said Holshouser because I had
some folks still trying to talk me into running for U.S. Senate or the
possibility to running for Congress if Jim Broyhill ended up running for
the Senate. So those bumper strips just came out with no office on them
at all. Folks that were trying to help me knew we were going to run for
something but they didn't know what. But I think that was the
cautious side of me. The part where my heart was said that as opposed to
Jim Holshouser political career which I never intended to have one that
where I thought I could make a difference was in the
governor's office. So even though we had never won in this
century I was enough of an analytical about it to know that the election
returns were getting closer all the time and you didn't know
when that breakthrough was going to be. But it could happen just as easy
in '72 as anytime.