I don't often disagree with my friend Chris Fitzsimon, who leads the excellent team at NC Policy Watch. But I have to take issue with his characterization of Pat McCrory's first year as "mediocre." If only that were true. Instead, Pat McCrory's first year as Deputy Assistant Governor was an unmitigated disaster.

The list of transgressions is familiar to us all. On every front, Deputy McCrory has done his best to tilt the balance in favor of wealth and privilege. Chris does a nice job summarizing the damage:

One thing McCrory can’t change is that he is rightly perceived by the voters as a governor who at the very least allowed the Tea Party General Assembly to slash education funding, attack women’s rights, make it more difficult to vote, deny health care to 500,000 people by refusing Medicaid expansion, deny emergency unemployment benefits to 170,000 laid off workers, dismantle environmental protections, and give tax cuts to out of state corporations and the wealthy.

But viewing the McCrory agenda as a set of individual choices masks a deeper disdain for people who are not members of his club. Even as he disclaims his prejudices, the evidence paints a different picture ... one of systematic discrimination against people of color, women, workers, teachers, Democrats, and anyone else who doesn't pay to play.