Political Career
Vinroot was a member of the Charlotte City Council from 1983 to 1991 and served as mayor of Charlotte from 1991 to 1995. As mayor, Vinroot was successful in establishing a Taxpayer Protection Act, limiting growth of the city’s budget. He created the state’s first “drug court” to speed prosecutions. A national magazine named him Municipal Leader of the Year. Vinroot decided against running for a third term in order to focus full time on his first run for North Carolina governor in 1996. Vinroot lost in a close primary to then-state representative Robin Hayes of Kannapolis. Hayes went on to lose the general election to incumbent governor Jim Hunt.
Vinroot ran again for governor in 2000, and secured the Republican nomination over state representative N. Leo Daughtry. He faced North Carolina's attorney general, Mike Easley, in a bitterly contested election. Despite a favorable national Republican tide that won North Carolina for George W. Bush, Democrat Mike Easley won by 52% to 46%, and succeeded fellow Democrat Jim Hunt as Governor. In the closing weeks of the race, actor Andy Griffith filmed an ad endorsing Easley, which some observers believe led to Easley's victory, called the "Mayberry Miracle".
In 2004, Vinroot attempted a third run for governor, but never made it past the Republican primary. He conceded the race to Wilmington State Senator Patrick J. Ballantine, who lost to Easley in November, 55.62% to 42.88%.
Since his retirement from politics, Vinroot has served on the boards of Martin-Marietta Materials, Inc. and the North Carolina Institute for Emerging Issues. He also was appointed to the search committee for the next chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2012.
Read more about this topic: Richard Vinroot
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or career:
“I would wish that the women of our country could embrace ... [the responsibilities] of citizenship as peculiarly their own. If they could apply their higher sense of service and responsibility, their freshness of enthusiasm, their capacity for organization to this problem, it would become, as it should become, an issue of profound patriotism. The whole plane of political life would be lifted.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)