Saturday's Internet Edition, May 17, 2008.
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“I wasn’t going to run because of the wheelchair and the whole thing, but then it hit me,” Snyder said. “We’ve been in two statewide races. We got 1.4 million votes in the last election when we lost to Beverly Perdue, the incumbent. This time there are no incumbents.”
Perdue is currently seeking the Democratic nomination for governor. Snyder, who likes to refer to his political races in the first person plural, ran for the U.S. Senate in 2002. He came in second in the Republican primary that year to Elizabeth Dole, who was elected and is currently seeking reelection.
“There shouldn’t be anyone else with our name recognition,” Snyder continued. “The North Carolina Republicans are running well against the Democrats in the polls for the governor’s race. The final coefficient is that Cherie Berry, Steve Troxler and Les Merritt lost the first time they had the Republican nomination for a council of state post. Then each of them ran again and won.”
Berry is North Carolina’s Secretary of Labor. Troxler serves the state as Commissioner of Agriculture and Merritt is the State Auditor. Snyder is battling State Senator Robert Pittenger, two-time Congressional nominee Greg Dority and Tim Cook, a biologist and chemist whom he finished ahead of in his previous two races, for the Republican nomination. The winner of the primary, being held on May 6, will challenge the winner of the Democratic primary in the November election for lieutenant governor.
“I think I’m doing the right thing based on the blessings I’ve had and the training I’ve had,” Snyder said. “Beyond that, I’m in it because I think we can make a difference.”
Snyder has indeed lived a storybook life. The Lexington native comes from a long line of distinguished Davidson County residents. Since his early days in life, Snyder, who took an interest in politics when he was 6, has been around famous people. At the age of 7, he stood next to Harry Truman when the incumbent U.S. president was breaking ground for the Winston-Salem campus of Wake Forest. By then, the young lad had already met Dwight Eisenhower, when the retired general and future president was serving as president of Columbia University. By the age of 15, Snyder had already grown to 6 feet, 6 inches and had the basketball talent to match. As a hoops player, he was personally recruited by both Dean Smith at Carolina and Bones McKinney at Wake Forest. He committed to Carolina and enrolled at UNC and practiced basketball there before changing his mind and transferring to Wake, honoring a Snyder family tradition. He graduated from Wake Forest and also earned a law degree there. Shortly after he was admitted to the bar, he succeeded his father, who died in his 12th term as a state representative. He chose not to run for reelection, but did serve for several years as chairman of the Republican Party in Davidson County.
The cerebral Snyder has also written 18 books, including The Conservative Mind, which has endorsements from Jesse Helms, George Will and Lauch Faircloth on its back cover.
“We want to reduce government,” Snyder said. “We want to combine areas of government. The SBI and the Highway Patrol could be combined. You could combine the administrations of all the state museums. You can facilitate a combination to a large degree of community college administrative functions. You can do away with the department that deals with the schools in North Carolina and leave these to the local boards. That should be done immediately.”
To illustrate his last point, Snyder, 62, pointed to the U.S. Department of Education.
“The federal Department of Education didn’t exist until about 1980,” he said. “Now it is an annual $56 billion operation that is compelling us to have 47 days of testing every year.”
Like Hampton Dellinger, a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, who was campaigning in Lexington last week, Snyder also would like to see the legal dropout rate for students in North Carolina raised from 16 to 18. It is also safe to say that Snyder and Dellinger differ on a lot of issues.
“North Carolina is pretty much at the bottom of every category,” Snyder said. “We’re in the 40s with SATs, 40s high school graduation, all the way up to 11th in low bridges, fifth in worst air days and we’re No. 1 in numbers of new cases of syphilis. Our state can do better than it has with a one-party system, which I think is on the way out .”
Snyder thinks a new lieutenant governor can help improve the discouraging numbers he pointed out.
“The lieutenant governor position is certainly a bully pulpit and it’s a place where people have got to listen to you,” he said. “I was on a program with Lt. Gov. Perdue. I asked, ‘What new questions have come from the lieutenant governor’s office in the last four years?’ I don’t remember getting an answer.”
The attorney is confident treatment for his back problems will get him out of his wheelchair and off his crutches soon. He also realizes he must make plans for his law practice to continue while he is unavailable due to the responsibility of the office he hopes to be elected to.
“The problem, as I see it, is we’ve got a lot of intelligent, good people in government, but we have a lot of followers in government,” Snyder said. “We have very few leaders with new ideas based on old ideals.”
Snyder still lives in Lexington with his wife Sandra, who was also his high school sweetheart. They have two daughters and six grandchildren.
“The best person I have known, I live with,” Snyder said. “I don’t know of one bad thing she’s ever done or any bad thought my wife has ever had.”
As in his marriage, Snyder is upbeat on his chances in the May 6 primary.
“It’s very important to understand that Republicans and conservatives are very loyal,” Snyder said. “They’re like the elephant. They don’t forget whose been out there, who has ideas and has given over 500 speeches around the state over the last five years.”
Staff Writer Kevin Reid can be reached at 472-9500, ext. 230, or at reid@tvilletimes.com.