The Third-Most-Influential Piece You’ll Ever Read About Charlotte

The Democrats’ Convention City Is Big on Banking-and Ranking

 

We hear so much about presidential candidates–and so little about life in the states that elect them. In “Beyond the Circus,” writers take us off the trail and give us glimpses of politically important places. Today, Charlotte.

I was a high school senior the first time I saw a cigarette boat–those sleek aggressive vessels that can reach speeds of up to 100 miles an hour–on Lake Norman in North Carolina. Several of us were floating in the water off a friend’s dock and we could hear the boat before we saw …