Too Beautiful to Last - Richard Morgan is Back in State Politics

:::sigh::: He's ba-ack! And this time, he's not alone! That's right folks, just when you thought Moore County could settle back into the quiet of non-Richard Morgan existence, through stealth and deception, he.....okay.

No, not through stealth and deception. He probably just drove to the Board of Elections office and filed. Not to run against Joe Boylan, who used a whole bunch of Art Pope's money to defeat him to take over NC House seat 52 in 2006, but to try his luck in the primary for the state superintendent of public instruction.

Just before noon on Friday, Morgan filed as a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction.

Morgan will be facing two opponents in the primary,Joe Johnson of Tryon and Eric Smith of Reidsville. For the Democrats, of course, there is incumbent June Atkinson, and Eddie Davis.

Morgan is not the only member of the family who is running for election this cycle. His wife, Cindy Morgan, is running against incumbent Sen. Harris Blake in the primary. Mrs. Morgan is currently a County Commissioner for District x in Moore County. I guess higher office is more important than the business of the county. She really should have the decency to resign, I think, so she can give her full attention to her campaign.

Full disclosure: When I assumed the Executive Director's position of my agency in 2001, Mrs. Morgan was on my Board of Directors. At least, her name was on the letterhead. Every month, a packet of information was mailed to her home. Every month, she never came. No donation was ever made to the agency while I was the director. For more than a year, I'd send a package of information to her, and invite her to come to the meeting. I'd never get an answer or reply, just a no show on board meeting day.

That is, until budget time at the legislature rolled around, and I started doing part of my job, which is advocacy (and I know the line between that and lobbying)with my clients. I told them what the issues were, what my personal concerns were, asked them what there concerns were, and helped them articulate them into letter form. We had letter writing parties. All of those letters were addressed to - you guessed it: Mr. Richard Morgan. This went on all through the budget process, which was months long that year. Every week, I'd get a call from Morgan's office saying that he was hearing from the parents and child care providers of Moore County. We kept on having our parties. Obviously it was having an effect.

One effect was that Mrs. Morgan resigned from our board. She never once showed up. Never bothered to do what was expected of her - what her fellow board members had elected her to do. She ran unopposed for her County Commission Seat. Now she wants to be a state senator. Fortunately, if she wins the primary, she will be opposed by Dr. Abraham Oudeh, who ran for the seat last time. I hope that Oudeh comes out even stronger and firmer than he did last time. Because Mrs. Morgan, in my experience, doesn't do what she's elected to do. She only does what she's told to do. To my knowledge.