I don't believe for one minute that Mike Easley would have appointed somebody he thought wasnt going to run without having a BACKUP candidate in mind; Easley just doesn't work that way.
Taken at his word, he appointed Nifong, who promised not to run.
Why would Easley extract a promise such as that?
Did he owe someone? Hardin? Stephens?
I sse. You know him better than me, but I wonder if a governor cares that much who is DA is Durham.
I do think Easley is just a Dim governor trying to the bidding of the local Dim establishment so they would help him in any future state wide run, as a GOP govenor would have likely not cared and taken his cue from the local GOP establishment for the same reason. And I tried to imply on my prior quick post before running to get my car from the body shop, Nifong likely said he did not plan to run and Easley probably did not take that as a promise as much as he claims now. He probably thought that if Nifong did not run who would run next would be the decision of Harden, Stephens and the rest of the Durham court house gang.
Let me just add one more thing to this discussion for those that might not know. Easley technically could not unappoint Nifong. Possibly Easley could have pressured Nifong to resign once he announced, but now that we "know" Nifong he might well have hung on this this job like a bulldog.