Poor Pat McCrory. Never has the governor of any state been so disrespected by the other leaders of his own party. This weekend, Republican Senator Tom Apodaca told the Asheville Citizens-Times, “The governor doesn’t play much of a role in anything.” Ouch!

McCrory came to Raleigh with little understanding of the legislature and has been a slow learner. He seemed to think that governor was nothing more than a ceremonial position, similar to his role as a ribbon-cutter as mayor of Charlotte. Instead, he found a rough-and-tumble world of politics where a new group of leaders from his own party were jockeying for power.

McCrory tried to play nice but got rolled by the legislature. None of his initiatives took off and his vetoes routinely get overridden. At one point Republican Senator Bob Rucho, a fellow Charlottean, dismissed McCrory’s opposition to the Senate budget by saying, “If Pat had real business experience, he would not make such a poor policy decision.” McCrory worked for Duke Energy prior to running for governor.

McCrory has brought much of the scorn on himself. He has real trouble with the truth. He’s built a legacy of saying one thing and doing another. He opposed new abortion restrictions before he signed them into law. He’s created stories out of whole cloth. He told reporters he regularly attended Moral Monday protests when he hadn’t. He blamed Obama for cutting unemployment benefits when he signed the bill into law. It’s hard to earn respect when nobody believes what you say.

McCrory’s also surrounded himself with incompetence. He appointed Aldona Wos to head the Department of Health and Human Services and stuck with her despite cronyism, cost overruns, and blatant mismanagement. He’s stuck with his lawyer Bob Stephens, who is apparently also his fall guy. Stephens took the blame for the serial misfilings of ethics forms showing suspicious stock sales and money taken from companies after he became governor. Most recently, Stephens admitted that he knew for a year of the conflicts of interest that forced State Board of Elections member Paul Foley to resign last week.

As governor, McCrory has been a failure. Apodaca spoke the truth when he called him irrelevant. He lacks the political skills to successfully promote an agenda or challenge the legislature. He lacks the judgment to surround himself with highly competent administrators. He lacks the forthrightness to build the trust of either his peers or the press. He lacks the gray matter to come up with any truly innovative ideas to overcome his weaknesses. He should have stayed a ribbon-cutter in Charlotte.

Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >