August 22, 2007

By Barry Smith

RALEIGH — “Hey judge,” someone said to Bob Orr at Big Ed’s Restaurant in Raleigh’s City Market the other day.

Many people dropping by the restaurant for breakfast know him as Judge Orr, for his eight years on the N.C. Court of Appeals, or Justice Orr, for his 10 years on the N.C. Supreme Court bench.

He’d like people to know him as Gov. Bob Orr.

Orr, a Republican candidate for governor, took time out of his campaign schedule to have breakfast with a handful of members of the Capital Press Corps.

Orr doesn’t have the personal wealth to draw from that his other two primary opponents — Salisbury attorney Bill Graham and state Sen. Fred Smith, R-Johnston — have. According to campaign reports, he’s raised $106,826, while Graham has raised $226,563 and Smith $185,317.

Despite the financial disadvantage, Orr said he believes he’ll be able to get his message out to Republican primary voters.

One advantage Orr has is that his name has been on the statewide ballot four times already.

And he won all four times, the last one in 2002. So voters are used to seeing his name on the ballot.

Orr believes he can appeal to unaffiliated voters, too. People who are registered unaffiliated are allowed to vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary.

“I’m trying to encourage my friends who are Democrats to register unaffiliated,” Orr said. “They don’t have to cross the line.”

One issue that Orr is known for is incentives offered to corporations to locate or expand in

North Carolina. He believes that issue will be one that both Republicans and unaffiliated voters can identify with.

“I think it resonates in a large part of the population,” Orr said.

Orr said he’s all for worker-training programs that have an impact across the board, not just for new and expanding businesses. But he said North Carolina’s policy of providing incentives and special deals to businesses has set the state on “a downward progression.”

He’d rather see lower overall taxes.

“We’re pouring a huge amount of revenue down the pipeline,” he said. “The system is so fundamentally broken … that we’ve got to change it.” Orr said the incentives issue is one that he has to bring to the table because others aren’t. He added that he believes it will be a positive issue for Republicans.

“I think it’s the best issue Republicans have,” Orr said. “The Republican mantra is lower taxes.”

We don’t know how the corporate incentives-corporate welfare issue will resonate among voters. It’s one that could make a lot of Republicans who are small-business owners and independents take notice.

A lot will depend on how well he gets his message out.

Barry Smith writes for Freedom Communications Inc.’s Raleigh bureau. He can be reached at bsmith@link.freedom.com