We probably should have known something was up with Thom Tillis when he started rocking those bolo ties.

A bolo, the number that looks like a shoelace held together with a little belt buckle, is nothing to wonder about when you see it on a politician from the Southwest. Barry Goldwater, Mr. Arizona, took to it naturally. So did Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the Northern Cheyenne senator. And when you see very un-bolo looking politicians in the West, like Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, slip on the strings, that’s an act of conformity, not rebellion.

But Tillis represents North Carolina in the Senate, and while he moved around a lot as a kid, his roots are solidly in the Southeast. Fitting in for him means developing strong opinions about pork barbecue and college basketball, not dressing like Clint Eastwood in "Coogan’s Bluff." North Carolina has a substantial Cherokee population, and while the bolo has Native roots, it is very much Western wear.

About the same time some weeks ago that I noticed Tillis sporting a bolo, I heard a rumor from a few sources that he wasn’t going to seek reelection. I wouldn’t say that I dismissed it, but I figured it was mostly wishful thinking from Democrats and MAGA Republicans.

In his two terms, Tillis has been a frustration to both of those groups. Tillis nicked Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan by a point and a half in 2014, one of the furthest reaches of the red wave that washed over the country that year. Six years later in his reelection bid, Tillis, an incumbent Republican running in a presidential election year and whose Democratic opponent got caught in a lurid scandal weeks before the vote, couldn’t........

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