Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010

McLeod faces uphill climb to unseat Rouzer

Jody McLeod isn't naïve.

The popular mayor of Clayton said he realizes it will be tough for Democrats to win elections this year. Recent races outside of North Carolina have brought success for Republicans, and some say the trend will continue closer to home. Even so, McLeod, a Democrat, is trying to take David Rouzer's state Senate seat.

"I know that it's going to take a lot of work," McLeod said.

A Democrat hasn't held the District 12 seat, which represents Johnston County and a portion of Wayne County, in a decade. It's a district where old meets new, and rural meets suburban sprawl.

McLeod, 44, is a little bit of both. He grew up in Clayton when it was still a sleepy town and a mere afterthought in the Triangle. But McLeod has had a front-seat view of western Johnston County's boom. Clayton's population has more than doubled in the last 10 years as families looking for affordable housing and good schools have headed east of Raleigh.

Now, McLeod is a small-business owner who runs Annie V's Florist -- a distinction that he hopes will resonate with voters.

"I know the struggles on Main Street," McLeod said.

Rouzer, a Durham native who spent summers in Johnston as a kid, said he knows this: "If you're a Republican, it's as good as it's been in a long, long time. ... There has been a major political shift in the last year, and here in North Carolina in particular."

This year's race is a different ballgame from 2008, Rouzer said. Then, local Democrats enjoyed the success of Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Obama carried North Carolina.

In Johnston, Rouzer barely squeaked out a win over Democrat Kay Carroll, a well-known pharmacist and former Johnston school board member. Carroll lost Johnston by only 141 votes.

Fast forward 16 months and the story has changed, said Andrew Tyree, chairman of the Johnston County Republican Party. Attendance at the party's monthly meetings has increased by up to 35 percent, he said. To accommodate the 50 or 55 excited Republicans, the party is looking for a new meeting place because it has outgrown its space next to White Swan Bar-B-Que in Smithfield.

"There's a lot of upset individuals out there," Tyree said, adding that Rouzer is right to be more confident this time around.

McLeod, who has served as mayor of Clayton since 2004, is confident too. He had wanted to run for the Senate seat in 2008, but the county Democratic Party backed Carroll.

Now, he said, it's his turn. McLeod said his campaign would focus on his leadership track record. Clayton has fared better than many other areas during the recession, and McLeod points to successes: the announcement of a maajor expansion at drug-maker Talecris that will bring more than 200 good-paying jobs and the arrival of the oven-making company Turkington.

McLeod is popular in Clayton, but Rouzer said whoever wins the seat must reach beyond western Johnston.

Voters in wester nWayne County gave Rouzer the extra push to beat Carroll in 2008.

McLeod said he will have to venture east of Clayton to visit areas such as Pine Level, Princeton and Kenly. And McLeod said he thinks he can pull plenty of western Johnston voters away from Rouzer, who lives in the McGee's Crossroads community.

Johnston County has more registered Democrats than Republicans. Of the 98,906 registered voters in the county, about 39.5 percent are Democrats, and 37.7 percent are Republicans.

But many of those Democrats are conservative and don't hesitate to vote Republican, Tyree said. He also points to the more than 22,000 unaffiliated voters as a boost for Republicans this year.

Pat Branch, of the Johnston County Democratic Party, said elections get harder and harder to win, even without a nationwide swing to the right. "You've got to have a message that's concise, that gets people's attention," she said.

Rouzer's message during his time in office has been to reform govenrment and cut spending.

McLeod now faces the task of getting out his own message.

"I'm hoping the people are just going to give me a chance," he said.