Gov. Pat McCrory: Democrats & Gays Orchestrated The Bathroom Issue So That I Won’t Be Reelected

Seriously. He said that. From the New York Times: 

McCrory, 59, last week could barely contain his irritation that the law had taken center stage in the election, siphoning attention from his central message: that he has been a wise steward of the economy who had engineered what he and his team have branded the “Carolina Comeback.”

This hornet’s nest, he argued, was first kicked not by him, but by the Democratic City Council in Charlotte, which passed a nondiscrimination ordinance in February allowing transgender people to use men’s or women’s bathrooms. Before it passed, he said, he emailed the Council to warn it that if it changed “basic restroom and locker room norms,” he would be forced to support a state law overriding them.

On Thursday, he said he suspected that the entire matter had been orchestrated by Democrats and the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights group, to give Democrats an advantage in a tight governor’s race.

The backlash, he said, has allowed for no dialogue on “a very complex issue.” Dissenters to the left-wing position, he said, were being intimidated. Mr. McCrory used the word “Orwellian” twice. “You’ve got to be politically naïve if you think this is not coordinated by a very effective — a very effective — group,” he said.

The most recent poll shows McCrory trailing Attorney General Roy Cooper by eight points. Cooper has said that he will refuse to defend HB2 in court.