Rob Christensen of Raleigh’s News & Observer has an interesting column today in which he points out that North Carolina’s new governor is still “undefined” after last night’s State of the State address/chat/ad lib sound bite recitation.

“The State of the State speech – where governors usually lay out their programs – did not provide much of a clue to whether we are going to get Mayor Pat or Conservative McCrory.

McCrory said little Monday night that he had not previously said – promising to focus on improving the economy, education and government efficiency. He described himself as an “Eisenhower Republican,” which most people take to mean a moderate – although in this case he used it in the context of long-term road building.”

Unfortunately, McCrory’s actions are speaking much louder and clearer than his muddled public pronouncements. This morning, for instance, the Governor will sign a disastrous bill dictated in secret by business lobbyists that will roll back decades of modest progress in the state’s most important anti-poverty/middle class preservation program — unemployment insurance.

And in keeping with the Governor’s desire to keep having it both ways (i.e. to preserve the illusion that he is somehow an “Eisenhower Republican” while governing like a Newt Gingrich Republican) he will sign the bill in his office without any public ceremony. Actually, it’s a fitting finale for this execrable legislation — a secret, behind-closed-doors signing for a measure that was developed behind closed doors, passed without opportunity for meaningful public comment and whisked through the General Assembly in record time.