Moore hasn't tried to hide from big battles

RICH SQUARE -- The smell of coffee fills Claudine's restaurant, where deer heads stare from paneled walls as Richard Moore works the morning crowd.

He moves methodically from table to table in this small Northampton County town. Smiling broadly, he greets diners with a hug or a handshake, reaching out with one hand while clasping their arm with the other.

"I tell people all the time, I don't know how good a politician I am, but I am a very good manager," he says later. "I've had the most accountable job in politics the last seven years. I've got nowhere to hide."

Richard Moore has never been one to hide.

As state secretary of crime control and public safety during the terrible floods of the 1990s, his constant TV presence earned him the nickname "The Flood Stud." As state treasurer since 2001, he lifted an obscure job onto the national stage, joining counterparts from bigger states in attacking Wall Street abuses.

He's also come under fire for taking campaign contributions from executives whose companies help manage state investments that he oversees.

Now, at 47, Moore is running for governor in the May 6 Democratic primary.

A lawyer with telegenic looks and a degree from the London School of Economics, he calls himself "a big bean counter." The Granville County native plays up his country-boy side at places like Ralph's BBQ in Weldon.

"It's real easy if you want to get to my mama and daddy's house," he tells diners. "Just pull out of Ralph's, take a right ... go 58 miles, take a right in my mama and daddy's driveway. Y'all come by."

But Moore rarely fails to remind voters that he fought Wall Street corruption and oversees $90 billion in state investments, including $80 billion in pension funds.

Admirers praise his intelligence and performance. Critics call him a self-promoting grandstander who has used the clout of his office to solicit campaign contributions. Even supporters acknowledge his drive.

"He is very ambitious," says Joe Stewart, who worked for Moore at the treasury and at crime control. "(He's) always had a clear sense of wanting to serve as what he would characterize as the state's CEO."

Moore makes no apologies.

"I'm not ashamed that I understand Wall Street," he says. "I've never forgotten that I'm from outside Oxford, North Carolina."

Lessons from Oxford, N.C.

Just south of the Virginia border, Oxford used to be a center of the tobacco economy. Bales of brightleaf filled wooden downtown warehouses. It was a place where Moore's family and political roots ran deep.One colonial ancestor was a solicitor for King George. Six generations of his family served in the N.C. House. A grandfather, Frank Hancock, was a member of Congress.

When Moore was growing up, blacks and whites lived in Oxford in almost equal numbers. Sometimes tension flared. But what Moore and others remember is the town's effort to move beyond it.

"Oxford's willingness to confront its own history in an honest and redemptive way is really much more distinctive than the racial (strife) of the 1960s and '70s," says Timothy Tyson, who grew up in Oxford and wrote a book about its racial unrest. "I think Richard moves in that spirit. ... He seems to cross those lines with comfort and some sensitivity and historical understanding."

From Oxford, Moore went to Wake Forest. Roommate George Hart, a Charlotte physician, recalls him as carefree, but already interested in politics. It was in college that Moore met his wife, Noel, whose grandfather founded a grocery chain that's now one of the nation's largest privately held companies, now known as H-E-B.

After study in London and law school at Wake, Moore went to Washington as a corporate lawyer before returning to Granville County as a federal prosecutor.

He won election to the state House in 1992. His boyish looks caused a sergeant-at-arms to mistake him for a page and bar his entrance. Two years later he ran and lost a race for Congress but caught the eye of then-Gov. Jim Hunt, who named him to head the agency overseeing disaster response.

During his tenure, the state experienced a string of storms including Hurricanes Fran in 1996 and Floyd three years later. Floyd, North Carolina's worst natural disaster, battered the coast, leaving 51 dead.

"He really proved himself in the terrible hurricanes we had," Hunt recalls. "I was constantly around the state, but Richard Moore was out there more than I was. He just worked at it day and night."

Raising his profile

Soon after he was elected treasurer in 2000, Moore did what politicians long to do -- give away money. He went around handing out checks from the state's unclaimed property fund to people who didn't even know they were owed.

"Isn't it just like a politician," Moore would say, quoting his wife, "to give you your own money back and make a big deal of it."

He raised his profile and that of his office when, in response to corporate scandals such as Enron, he came up with a list of "investment protection principles" to govern companies that directed public investments. He sought to multiply his clout by bringing on board counterparts in states such as New York and California.

"He was really the one who realized we had tremendous market power to change market behavior," says Phil Angelides, California's former treasurer. "While sometimes those of us in bigger states got more visibility ... it was really Richard who pioneered this notion of all of us together using our marketplace clout."

Moore's efforts won praise in places such as The Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek. He also pushed to broaden North Carolina's investments. That meant persuading lawmakers to allow "alternative" investments in areas such as hedge funds and more risky corporate bonds while maintaining the state's AAA credit rating.

This year, the rating agency Standard & Poor's reported that the state has the second highest level of pension funding in the country. Greg Brown, finance-area chair at UNC Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School, credits Moore with moving to "more progressive and increasingly popular investment strategies."

"There's a lot of states out there that wish they had the North Carolina state pension fund," he says.

Fundraising controversy

A year ago, Moore was the subject of a Forbes article headlined "Pensions, Pols, Payola."It said he "parlayed his clout into one of the biggest fundraising machines in the state" by accepting campaign contributions from companies he does business with.

Last year, Moore got $128,000 from employees at firms that manage the state's pension. Critics include Dana Cope, executive director of the N.C. State Employees Association.

"There's no question in my mind that he used that to his political benefit," says Cope, who has close ties to Moore's opponent, Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue. "That's what concerns me the most, when the line is crossed where self-promotion affects the official duties of the office."

No one has accused Moore of breaking laws. And he calls the Forbes piece "politically motivated" in response to his attacks on Wall Street.

"Richard has played within the rules," says former Lt. Gov. Dennis Wicker.

Says Moore: "I've had one of the best performances in the country, and no 30-second ad from my opponent is going to take my performance away from me."

To Stewart, his former colleague, Moore's main fault is impatience.

"He's a smart guy and moving very fast," Stewart says. "Sometimes he's not always careful to fully communicate what that vision is and how he hopes to accomplish it. It's just that he's so clear in his mind what the goal needs to be that ... he's in a hurry to get it done."

Decision 2008

5TH IN A SERIES OF PROFILES OF CANDIDATES FOR N.C. GOVERNOR

Richard Moore

• Party: Democrat.

• Residence: Kittrell in Vance County.

• Age: 47.

• Family: Wife, Noel; two children.

• Education: B.A. Wake Forest University, 1982; London School of Economics, graduate degree, 1984; J.D. Wake Forest, 1986.

• Profession: Lawyer, N.C. treasurer.

• Political resume: Elected to N.C. House in 1992. Ran for U.S. House in 1994. Served as N.C. secretary of crime control and public safety 1995-1999. Elected treasurer in 2000 and 2004.

• Top priority if elected? To enact his economic stimulus package, which incudes raising the minimum wage and senior property tax relief and free community college tuition for recent high school graduates.

• Personal note: Likes to play basketball, used to play on legislative team.