Pop That Roy Cooper Trial Balloon Right Now
Tues., Dec. 14: He ain’t running, folks + MAB considers going maskless + more Durham gun violence + the real Person of the Year
»Roy’s Not Running, Y’all
On Sunday, the New York Times reported that donors were urging Gov. Roy Cooper—now the head of the Democratic Governors Association (just like Bill Clinton back in the day)—to consider running for president in 2024, which prompted the N&O to cheerlead about how he’d be a decent candidate and WRAL to talk to Dem operatives who stated the obvious: fat chance.
Pros: Democrats mostly like him. Republicans don’t hate him as much as they hate most other Democrats.
Cons:
Such a campaign would likely require Cooper to travel to states with make-or-break primaries. Doing so would mean that Cooper would have to leave Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson in charge of the state, giving executive powers to a political enemy.
“[Cooper] can’t take a family vacation to Iowa without handing over the reins to Mark Robinson," said a Democratic state lawmaker familiar with the party's fundraising efforts who also spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Also, there’s the simple fact that, unless nature intervenes, Joe Biden is running again.
If nature intervenes, Cooper would have to build a national machine from scratch. That will be a tough chore for a mild-mannered, moderate white man.
»MAB Considers Relaxing Mask Rules
I drove to Wake Forest this weekend and discovered that it doesn’t have a mask mandate—something that, after all these months, felt jarring but also pleasant. (So long as I don’t come down with Omicron.)
Last week, Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin asked the city’s staff to look into relaxing its mask rules after businesses complained that they were losing customers, especially gyms and small retailers. The city doesn’t have a timeline for any changes.
MAB told the N&O: “We’re dealing with COVID. But we’re also dealing with people whose health is being impacted, because they cannot work out, they don’t feel comfortable working out.”
Fewer than 60% of Raleigh residents are fully vaccinated.
Data show that masks significantly reduce the spread of COVID.
»2 Durham Teenagers Die, 4 Other Juveniles Shot
One week after Mayor Elaine O’Neal was sworn into office after promising to tackle gun violence, she gets this headline.
WRAL:
Middle school students were among the victims shot early Monday in a Durham neighborhood, according to people who live nearby.
Six people, most under the age of 18, were shot at about 3 a.m. before their SUV crashed into a power pole near the intersection at Mathison and Eugene streets, police said.
Yesterday afternoon, Durham cops said at a press conference that the shooting didn’t appear random, but they didn’t have any motives or suspects. (The DPD has solved about 42% of fatal shootings and less than 20% of shootings this year.)
O’Neal asked residents to volunteer three hours a week:
“We have to create and develop a safety net for our children,” she said. “Durham is better than this. The Bull City is better than this. And we cannot rest until every street, block, neighborhood and ZIP code across this city is safe.” (N&O)
This comes on the heels of new DPD chief Patrice Andrews’ announcement last week that she, along with detectives and other high-ranking officials, will be doing patrols to make up for staffing shortfalls.
The cynic in me can’t help but notice that this announcement comes just as the city council decides whether to transfer 15 additional police vacancies to the Community Safety Department. It’s probably a coincidence, because the staffing shortages are very real and have been for a long time. But still.
I also wonder if taking detectives off homicide and rape cases is the best way to battle violent crime.
Finally, this thread, from council member Jillian Johnson, is worth a read.
»The Real Person of the Year
You’ve probably heard that Elon Musk is Time’s Person of the Year, the annual announcement that reminds us that Time magazine still exists. If you’re like me, you rolled your eyes so hard they damn near got stuck.
But Time also honored four “Heroes of the Year” who worked on the mRNA vaccine technology that gave birth to the Moderna COVID vaccine and saved millions of lives—instead of whatever self-important bullshit Elon Musk did—including Hillsborough’s own Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett.
The vaccines that first arrested the spread of COVID-19—and that will almost surely be adjusted to thwart the Omicron variant and future mutations—were never a foregone conclusion. Far from it. They were, after all, produced by human beings, subject to the vagaries of systems and doubt. There were times in their careers when, deep in the work that would ultimately rescue humanity, Kizzmekia Corbett, Barney Graham, Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman felt as though the problems they faced were ones they alone cared about solving. But exposing the inner workings of how viruses survive and thrive is what made the COVID-19 vaccines possible.
The four were hardly alone in those efforts: scientists around the world have produced COVID-19 vaccines using a variety of platforms and technologies. Many—like the shots from Oxford-AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson–Janssen—came from more established methods, modified with impressive speed to fight a new virus. Still, Corbett, Graham, Kariko and Weissman achieved a breakthrough of singular importance, introducing an innovative and highly effective vaccine platform, based on mRNA, that will impact our health and well-being far beyond this pandemic.