Where’s the change we were promised?

My wife is fond of saying she doesn’t understand why anyone would run for political office.

She’s not an Obama fan, but she points out the current U.S. president can’t kill a fly (as he did on camera during a recent TV interview) without somebody trying to make a deal out of it. I heard a PETA guy was on television the other night showing off a contraption that would have allowed the president to practice catch-and-release with the pesky insect.

Anyway, I think what may be worse is having a professional degree in an occupation or years of experience in a job only to have your knowledge and advice ignored by overseers who won’t budge unless a quid pro quo is in place.

This happens in the private and public sectors. Stories abound of people who made proposals to help efficiency or sell more product, but their ideas were ignored by higher-ups because of (a) hubris, (b) jealousy, (c) insecurity, (d) greed, and my No. 1 candidate, (e) stupidity.

In the 1960s, I knew a backyard mechanic who invented a device that recirculated hot engine exhaust into his Ford Galaxy’s carburetor to boost mileage. It worked; I saw it work. He was 72 when he died, still waiting to hear back from any U.S. automaker.

Similar examples from N.C. fisheries and wildlife management:

• Two saltwater-resource bills languish in the N.C. House Committee on Aquaculture and Marine Resources: H918 and H1344. H918 would give gamefish status to speckled trout and red drum in coastal waters. These species already are classified by the NCWRC as gamefish, meaning they can’t be netted in inland waters and sold. Specks and reds make up six-tenths of one percent of annual saltwater commercial netting revenues. There’s no reason to not classify reds and specks as gamefish and reap the benefits of sport fishing. The bill’s going nowhere.

• H1344 would stop factory “reduction” boats (menhaden processing boats) from coming within three miles of North Carolina beaches to net these valuable baitfish. Omega Protein of Reedville, Va., recently entered state waters, and a net break spilled thousands of pounds of pogies. But H1344 also is bottled up in the House Committee on Aquaculture and Marine Resources, and probably will die a slow death.

• Without rehashing the snafus of the current N.C. Wildlife Resources commissioners, it’s known that one former commissioner asked Gov. Beverly Perdue to reduce the number of appointed commissioners from 19 to 11 — the Commission had only 11 members about 20 years ago. It seems when the Commission expanded, loopy proposals and actions began to multiply exponentially. Moreover, many states with small numbers of wildlife commissioners are admired for their fish-and-game management. But our Guv responded with a letter, saying “The Governor has no authority to change the current law.”

Technically, she’s correct. But she could ask Senate leader Marc Basnight or another legislator to introduce a bill to reduce the Commission’s size. She’s been asked to help with H918 and H1344, but she apparently won’t touch those bills either. Why? Good question.

Most Commission appointees are from the governor’s party. By dismissing or not re-appointing them, she would be admitting a mistake. Getting a boss/politician to admit a mistake is as difficult as acknowledging a product defect, repealing a tax or returning campaign cash.