Roy Cooper masquerades as an aw-shucks country boy who understands the struggles of ordinary North Carolinians.  Yet a midweek splurge to ritzy Las Vegas for the Carolina Hurricanes’ Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final — alongside Democrat Raleigh mayor Janet Cowell — again shows that Cooper is no middle-class working guy pinching pennies like the rest of us.

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In pictures plastered on Instagram by Cowell, there stood Ole Roy, under the bright lights of the Vegas hockey arena, grinning like a possum from high in the stands, with the ice in the background and his arm wrapped around Cowell, who reciprocated an elitist smirk.       

There’s nothing wrong with a midweek jaunt to Vegas if you can afford it, so long as you’re not hypocritically pretending to be like the rest of us.  But it's a bad look for a campaign feigning to give a damn about the cost of groceries at the Harris Teeter.  Cooper’s “I’m just like y’all,” routine is wearing thin.

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Time after time, Roy has proven himself to be detached from average North Carolinians.  In the U.S. Senate race, he rails on the campaign trail about “kitchen table issues” — the cost of milk, bread, utilities, and everyday life for working families — as if he were one of us, some kind of working guy who really gives a flip about the cost of a jar of peanut butter.

But the average North Carolinian simply cannot stop what he’s doing at the drop of a hat and fly to Sin City to yuk it up in front of the cameras with the mayor of Raleigh.

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On June 3, Cooper’s favorite newspaper, the left-wing Raleigh News & Observer, ran the numbers on such a trip.  Airline tickets alone run $570–$800.  Adding the lowest-cost hotel and game ticket, one person could expect to spend at least $1,363.  You can bet Roy didn’t crash at the Motel 6 on the edge of town.  On the high side?  Two to three thousand bucks is more realistic.

Most salt-of-the-earth folks cannot afford that — and not without advance planning.  Kitchen-table North Carolinians have to work during the week.  In Dolly Parton’s immortal words, somebody’s got to pay the bills “workin’ nine to five.”

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That raises the obvious question: Where does Roy get all his money?  How can he live like a king and fly to Vegas at the drop of a hat, while average folks work every day to pay their mortgage and put their kids through school?

Cooper lived off the public dole for nearly 40 years — from his first election to the N.C. House in the late 1980s through 16 years as attorney general and eight as governor.  He never missed a government paycheck.

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During COVID, Roy decided which North Carolinians could keep working and which had to shut down.  While he played God with people’s livelihoods, his own government check kept coming.  When he green-lit the release of thousands of criminals from prison to “protect” inmates from COVID — policies that put repeat violent offenders like DeCarlos Brown on early-release eligibility lists tied to the roughly 3,500 releases — the paychecks kept rolling.  “Pay to the Order of Roy Cooper,” signed by the taxpayers of North Carolina.

It wasn’t just taxpayers footing the bill.  Even more telling is Cooper’s coziness with New York billionaires at lavish fundraising parties in the most liberal city in the country.  In 2019, he held high-dollar events in Manhattan, including a re-election “kickoff” at the home of investment manager Nik Mittal.  Tickets hit the max $5,400 contribution.  Roy “kicked off” his campaign not in Raleigh, Charlotte, Rocky Mount, Greensboro, or anywhere in North Carolina — but in New York City.

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What does this say about his values?

Cooper raised over $420,000 from New York donors, including contributions from billionaire George Soros, Alexander Soros, and fashion designer Ralph Lauren.  A Charlotte television station, WBT, later sued for travel records related to those trips, raising questions about whether state resources were used and how costs were disclosed.

Once he left office after four decades on the taxpayer dime — and after squeezing money from New York’s millionaire class — Roy found another soft landing: a short-term teaching gig at Harvard.

Not ECU.  Not UNC.  Not NC State.  Not Appalachian State or Western Carolina — any of which would have welcomed a former North Carolina governor. Harvard.

This is the conservative South, not the liberal Northeast.  North Carolinians don’t identify with Harvard, Soros, Boston, or New York City.

Cooper has perfected the hypocritical art of presenting himself as a man of the people while hiding a lifetime on government paychecks, cozying up to New York billionaires, and taking lavish trips — all while imposing policies that hit working families and small businesses hardest.  The contrast between his rhetoric and his record is glaring.

Say what you want about his Republican opponent, Michael Whatley.  One thing is certain: Whatley never sapped a 40-year salary off the government dole, and he never took money from George Soros.

Tar Heel voters should take a hard look at that gap before deciding who truly understands — and will fight for — their kitchen-table realities.

In reality, Roy Cooper is not from North Carolina — not in any way that matters.  He should pursue a political career in New York or Boston, where his values better resonate.  Soros would welcome him back with open arms.

Don Brown is a former Navy Judge Advocate who served at the Pentagon.  A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the international law program at the Naval War College, he is a nationally bestselling author and commentator on national security, military justice, and foreign policy.  He previously served as a special assistant United States attorney and was a candidate for the United States Senate from North Carolina.

Image: Roy Cooper.  Credit: NCDOTcommunications via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 (cropped).