Democrat Mike Easley backed starting a game when he ran for governor four years ago. That was a popular move since polls say a majority of North Carolinians support the state getting into the gambling biz.
Easley won but hasn't delivered the goods. And it's fair for lotto fans to wonder whether he would be able to do so if elected to a second term.
Unlike 2000, the current gubernatorial campaign offers a clear contrast on the issue. Easley's opponent, Republican Patrick Ballantine, doesn't want a lottery. Last time, GOP nominee Richard Vinroot voiced personal discomfort with a game but supported letting the public make the call in a referendum.
Easley didn't drop the ball when he assumed office. He mentioned a lottery in both of his State of the State addresses to the General Assembly and, irksome to many lawmakers, built a budget on profits from a nonexistent game of chance.
Legislative allies filed bills calling for a referendum. He brought in Georgia's lottery director to talk up a game to lawmakers over breakfast at the Executive Mansion.
Easley doesn't suggest that North Carolina residents have an inalienable right to purchase Pick 5 tickets at a nearby convenience store. His argument is financial: some North Carolinians already play the lottery in neighboring states, so why don't we start our own and keep the proceeds here to pay for smaller class sizes, prekindergarten and school-building construction?
There's also the everyone-else-is-doing-it-so-we-should-to argument, which has grown only more potent since Easley became chief executive.
Virginia and Georgia were lottery states when his term began. Now South Carolina and Tennessee are, too, making North Carolina surrounded by places where people line up to buy tickets for the slim odds of winning the mega jackpot.
Easley's staff has projected that the treasury could reap as much as $450 million a year from a lottery. That'd be a jackpot for the state budget.
Yet if we're at such a disadvantage by not having a lottery, Easley doesn't handle the situation as an emergency.
His pitch to lawmakers is soft: A lottery would be fine and dandy to help our children receive a better education, he'll say, but if you can find other ways to pay for academic improvements, go ahead and try.
So far, they have.
Easley toned down even this low-key approach after the state House rejected his referendum measure in 2002, a vote he called "unbelievable."
Perhaps, but the vote -- a decisive 69-50 against the bill -- illustrates the difficulty Easley faces in the assembly.
The lottery isn't partisan. Republicans and Democrats teamed to oppose it on various grounds: it preys on the poor with unreal promises of wealth, offers an unstable source of revenue, fuels gambling addictions.
A spokeswoman said last week that no one should assume Easley has given up on his quest.
"The governor has never wavered from his support for a lottery," said Cari Boyce, his communications chief. "... At every opportunity, the governor has publicly supported a lottery."
Sensing traces of skepticism in the questions, she added: "Has he been out on a lottery tour? No. But does that mean he's ever wavered from his support for a lottery? No."
Politically, the absence of a lottery shouldn't hurt Easley. As an unfulfilled promise, he can sell it on the campaign circuit and point his blaming finger at lawmakers as the villains who stood in his way. That's a nice segue to noting that Ballantine would put up yet another obstacle to a game becoming reality.
Should he defeat Ballantine and Libertarian Barbara Howe this fall, Easley would have a few more years to persuade the legislature to give him a lottery. But he might need to crank up his lobbying efforts and transform a game into something that lawmakers -- no matter their qualms -- cannot refuse.
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