Stewardship isn’t what it used to be in N.C.

A WRAL story about a historic office reveals something deeper about the kind of politics we reward today

WRAL published a story yesterday about the lieutenant governor’s office, and what’s become of it since Mark Robinson left.

It’s a little hard to follow, but the takeaway is clear. When Dan Forest took office in 2012, he inherited a “dump” of a building: the historic Hawkins-Hartness House in downtown Raleigh. Over eight years, he and his wife, Alice, led a meticulous restoration — raising private money, fixing decades of neglect, and turning the space into something truly special.

“We want to pass it on for generation after generation,” Forest said in a short documentary as he left office. “A showplace for lieutenant governors well into the future.”

But four years later, Rachel Hunt walked into something far different. The once-proud office was mostly bare. Furniture the Forests had carefully collected was stashed in the basement, deteriorating. Nothing appears stolen, just ignored.

What was carefully built wasn’t carefully kept — and neither the building nor the office was handed off wi…