Richard Morgan couldn't stay away from North Carolina politics - or stay quiet about it - for too long.
     
The former House co-speaker and flash point for infighting among Republicans much of this decade left the Legislative Building and returned to Moore County after losing a bitter primary in 2006.
    
After stepping away for some rest and rigor, Morgan surprised everyone at the State Board of Elections back in February – 75 pounds lighter - while filing paperwork to run for state school superintendent. Morgan won the Republican primary but lost to Democratic incumbent June Atkinson last month.
     
In another step trying to revive his political career, Morgan has written a memoir offering his version of the theater that led to the Legislature's most recent historic moments.
     
"The impetus for me to write the book was to correct history and to tell my side of the story," Morgan said. He acknowledges his own errors, although not for actions for which fellow
Republicans still label him a partisan traitor.
     
Atop the list: failing to confront Democratic House Speaker Jim Black over alleged dealings that ultimately sent Black to federal prison.
     
"You first have to admit in politics and especially over there in that building, there's a lot of sinning that goes on," Morgan said in a recent interview. "As much as sinning may be just plain outright, you can sin just the same by not raising a question."
     
In the self-published book, "The Fourth Witch: A Memoir of Politics and Sinning," Morgan tells the story of his 35-year political career, sprinkled with observations of political heavyweights, from former governors to current Gov. Mike Easley and Senate leader Marc Basnight.
     
The 56-year-old insurance broker and cattle farmer worked in Gov. Jim Holshouser's administration in the mid-1970s. Morgan ran campaigns with tutelage from the powerful Congressional Club, the organization of conservative U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms. It may be a surprising political lineage for someone sometimes identified as a "moderate" Republican.
     
"I'm not labeled that easily," he said.
     
Morgan joined the House in 1991 and four years later became the powerful rules committee chairman when Republicans took over the House for the first time in 100 years.
     
Morgan brokered a first-of-its-kind deal in the state with Democrats in 2003 to share the speakership duties with Black.
     
His ascent to the dais split Republicans. Some accused Morgan of failing to support Rep. Leo Daughtry, R-Johnston, for speaker and secretly making his own deal.
     
But Morgan declared his candidacy even when Republicans held a 61-59 advantage in the chamber after the 2002 elections because he and other allies didn't care for Daughtry. GOP Rep. Michael Decker later switched to the Democratic Party and set up a 60-60 split.
     
"I got the best deal that could have been gotten for Republicans," Morgan said. "There wouldn't have been Republican (chairmanships) and responsibility, I don't believe. There wouldn't have been a Republican holding the gavel."
     
By 2006, Decker admitted in federal court that he took $50,000 in exchange for supporting Black for speaker. Decker went to prison, as did Black, who accepted punishment in 2007 in state court for bribing Decker without pleading guilty to the charge.
     
Black also is serving a five-year federal prison sentence for taking thousands of dollars in cash from chiropractors while promoting their agenda at the Capitol.
     
Morgan said he can't explain Black's actions except for what he describes as the "high-octane rarified political lust" for power.
    
"My sin wasn't that I agreed to share power with Jim," Morgan wrote. "It was in my not looking him in the eye, later, and saying, 'I can read a newspaper report. Is it true you bribed Mike Decker?"'
     
But his Republican opponents believed Morgan was dishonest as co-speaker, helping give Democrats an advantage in redistricting and keeping tax increases in place.
     
Led with money from companies operated by the family of former Rep. Art Pope, GOP groups worked to defeat Morgan and other GOP members who endorsed the power-sharing agreement. Morgan held his legislative seat in 2004, then narrowly lost in 2006.
     
"The Republican primaries in 2004 and 2006 did not have anything to do with personal grudges from the 1990s as portrayed in Richard Morgan's book," Pope said, alleging that the book contained some conspicuous omissions and lies, particularly in the details of the Republican infighting.
     
Daughtry quipped: "I don't read fiction."
     
The defeat of Morgan may have been the best thing for him. He traded diet sodas he nursed constantly on the House floor for Crystal Light, started eating less and walking more. Now acquaintances do a double-take when they see a fitter Morgan on the street.
     
Morgan said he's not ruling out future campaigns and plans to keep talking about reform within the state Republican Party. He said the party has failed at raising money for candidates and bringing women voters back to the GOP fold.
     
"I don't think my political career is over," Morgan said. "It's just been set back a bit."