Bev Perdue’s stormy weather

Gov. Bev Perdue speaks at a press conference Sunday, a day after the brutal storms. (Takaaki Iwabu - AP) North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue (D) was struggling politically before last weekend — with polls suggesting she is an underdog for a second term next November. Now her public image has been further battered by poor handling of a classic political problem: getting caught out of the state in the middle of a disaster.

There was no word from the governor in the hours following Saturday’s huge mid-afternoon storms, when over 90 tornadoes hit the state. Around 9 P.M., Perdue’s communications director said the governor had been out of town on a “family obligation.” At 11 P.M., the governor held a press conference and declared a state of emergency.

A day later, a Perdue spokesman said she had been visiting old friends in Kentucky, including fellow Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear, and went to a horse race Saturday. Communications director Chrissy Pearson countered that report by noting that Perdue had rushed home after the storm hit, missing the race entirely. Pearson chalked it all up to a minor miscommunication, saying “we respect her privacy as a citizen who values her family and friends.”

Perdue’s office did not return repeated calls for comment on the incident.

Republicans have already punced on the incident, however.

“It’s not like people would be furious to know she was in Kentucky,” said Brian Nick, a Republican strategist who worked for former North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole. “I think the problem is that it was a state secret the whereabouts of the governor during a disaster.”

Perdue’s problem is far from unique among officeholders. New Jersey governor Chris Christie and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg were both hammered for taking vacations during massive snowstorms this past winter. Washington (D.C.) mayor Adrian Fenty was in Jamaica when four people were killed in a horrific shooting; when he did come back to address the tragedy, he was booed. And then there was the grandaddy of all out-of-state scandals: Mark Sanford and the Appalachian Trail.

In every case, initial attempts to play coy about the politician’s whereabouts only made the situation worse. And Perdue can’t afford to be so careless.

In recent polls, she was less popular in the state than President Obama and former Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory, who narrowly lost to her in 2008, is expected to run again. The Rothenberg Political Report, a non-partisan political handicapping service, rates the race as “lean Republican”.

The argument in Perdue’s favor is that with President Obama campaigning hard in the state — as he’s expected to do, especially considering the Democratic National Convention is being held in Charlotte — reliable party voters who are miffed at Perdue now will eventually come around.

Democrats also point out that it’s a tough time to be a governor of either party, and that a number of state leaders who struggled in polls last year — Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, for example — ended up winning relection. Of course, you can point to counterexamples where bad polling predicted losses: former Iowa Gov. Chet Culver, former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland.

In fact, Perdue’s policies tend to poll better than she does personally. Her challenge is to get people to connect the two. To do that, she’ll have to cut down on unforced errors like the one she committed over the weekend.