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Entries for May 2011
Gary Pearce posted on May 24, 2011 10:02
Contrary to what some people think, I believe the most powerful weapon in politics isn’t a negative ad. It’s a positive message. And Senator Phil Berger seems to have figured that out.
He realized the Republicans were losing ground by having to defend their education cuts – including laying off teachers. So last week he came back with his positive plan, as the N&O reported:
· “Shrinking class size in grades 1-3, toward a goal of a 15-to-1 student-teacher ratio
· “Paying teachers based on performance instead of seniority
· “Extending students' school year by five days by converting teacher workdays to instructional days."
Being a Republican, he had to take a step backward by proposing getting rid of teacher assistants, possibly in all but kindergarten classes. That in effect doubles the student-teacher ratio.
Berger was able to shift the debate. He even put Governor Perdue on the defensive a bit. She now has to shift the debate back to how the Republicans’ extreme cuts will hurt the schools.
And ask: If smaller class sizes are good, why don’t we spend the money we get from the one-cent sales tax to reduce class sizes? Now.
The fact is that money makes a difference in schools. In the late 1990s, Governor Hunt’s Excellent Schools Act put more than $1 billion in new money into the schools. (By the way, Republicans like then-Speaker Harold Brubaker co-sponsored Hunt’s bill.)
Most of the money went to higher teacher salaries. By the end of the decade, teacher pay in North Carolina had reached the national average. And SAT scores jumped 40 points, N.C. students made dramatic gains on national tests and governors like George W. Bush of Texas were citing North Carolina as a model of progress in education.
On a personal note, I can attest to the value of smaller classes. My daughter just got a great high school education at St. Mary’s School in Raleigh, where no class has more than 15 students. The best part is that none of them are boys.
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Carter Wrenn posted on May 23, 2011 16:39
It’s ‘déjà vu’ all over again.
A couple of years ago up in New York they had a Congressional Race where a liberal Democrat was running against a liberal Republican and then a CPA – who’d never run for anything – jumped in the race as the candidate of the New York Conservative Party and almost whipped both of them.
At the end of the election the liberal Republican – exhausted and plummeting in the polls – withdrew in a fit of pique then got revenge by endorsing the liberal Democrat (who won).
Now the New Yorkers have another three way shootout on their hands in Buffalo.
It all started when incumbent Republican Congressman Chris Lee got caught emailing sexually suggestive pictures of himself to a lady he’d met on Craigslist – and resigned.
Then Republican Jane Corwin jumped into the Special Election against Democrat Kathy Hochul and then the unexpected happened again: A third candidate, an official ‘Tea Party’ candidate – Jack Davis – jumped into the race.
Only Davis turned out to be not your usual Tea Party candidate. Because he’d run before. Three times. As a Democrat.
Davis also ran head on into a ‘tracker’ (with a video camera) from Corwin’s campaign and ‘took a swing’ at him – which backfired.
But he’s spent $3 million of his own money to get elected so he’s barreling along.
About a week ago the Siena College poll showed Corwin leading narrowly:
Democrat Hochul – 31%
Republican Corwin – 36%
Tea Party Davis – 23%
Then the Democrats at Public Policy Polling took their own poll and announced the lead had switched. Hochul was ahead:
Democrat Hochul – 35%
Republican Corwin – 31%
Tea Party Davis – 24%
Which the Democrats promptly boasted was proof Hochul’s opposing Congressman Paul Ryan’s plan to reform Medicare was a ‘silver bullet’ for them in the next election because it had Hochul leading in a Republican district. But it’s hard to see a Democrat getting 35% of the vote in a district that’s 32% Democratic as sea change.
Davis the ‘Tea Partier’ (not Paul Ryan or Medicare) seems to be Republican Corwin’s problem – Davis is getting a quarter of the Republican vote and 30% of the Conservative vote and that’s put a hole in Corwin’s boat.
And, long term, that’s not a happy trend line for Washington Republicans. They’re losing voters to their left on Medicare reform and voters to their right by not keeping their promise to cut spending $100 billion.
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Gary Pearce posted on May 23, 2011 16:25
My daughter and her 87 classmates lucked out at their St. Mary’s School Commencement Sunday: Their speaker was Betty Ray McCain.
Betty, a 1950 St. Mary’s Junior College grad, is not only a pioneering example for young women and one of the state’s most accomplished leaders, but also one of the funniest people in the world. And she was firing off one-liners like a machine gun Sunday.
Here’s her best: “My high school in Faison was so small we had to use the same car for driver’s education and sex education.”
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Gary Pearce posted on May 23, 2011 09:29
The CIA has water-boarding. The N&O has editorial-boarding.
I sat in on an N&O editorial board meeting Wednesday that starred Dr. Bill Atkinson from WakeMed (full disclosure: my client) and Dr. Bill Roper from UNC Health Care.
I felt like I was back in a campaign debate.
The N&O story stressed the fireworks: “Hospital rivals go to the mat,” the headline said. Alan Wolf’s story said “the two bosses…intensified their animosity” in “an often-frosty meeting with reporters and editors” and described it as “heated, but polite, similar to a political debate.”
I enjoy this sort of thing, you understand. It’s like getting my campaign fix without having to go through one. And, selfishly, I liked the contrast between Roper, who focused on what’s right for UNC, and Atkinson, who focused on what’s right for the community and the state.
It was enlightening to hear both sides in one sitting. In fact, I even suggested to a couple of N&O chieftains that they tape future sessions and post the video on their website.
Publisher Orage Quarles, who recused himself from the session because he’s on the Rex board, emailed me back: “I like having both sides at the same time. I think we get more clarity with responses.”
But one thing nags at me. The very nature of the meeting seems to encourage conflict and exacerbate emotions, which always run high on hotly debated issues. I wonder: Does that contribute to resolving differences – or make resolution harder?
One editor asked, in effect, “Can’t you guys just work together?” Well, did the editorial face-off help – or hurt?
Is this a case where the media morphs from reporting news to creating news? And is there anything wrong with that?
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Posted in: General, Issues
Carter Wrenn posted on May 20, 2011 15:44
The first Egyptian mob chanting and demonstrating a month ago on CNN was out to get rid of Hosni Mubarak and President Obama, figuring the mob was a sign of a ‘fledgling new Democracy’ being born in front of his eyes, gave Mubarak a shove.
The second Egyptian mob about a week ago wanted to tear down the US Embassy in revenge for Navy Seals ambushing Osama bin Laden. The Egyptian army stopped them.
The third Egyptian mob in a street fight two days later burned down a Coptic Christian Church, leaving 12 people dead and 230 wounded.
Is this one mob three times or three different mobs? Let’s hope it’s three different mobs. Because if it’s the same mob it’s going to be a pretty good sign all that talk of ‘fledging democracies’ was Whiffenpoof music.
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Carter Wrenn posted on May 20, 2011 14:47
Like the British Empire before us and the Roman Empire before them we’ve been living high on the hog for so long it’s hard to imagine the good times ending.
But, right now, there are a fair amount of economic prognosticators who say our current Recession isn’t a hiccup or another one of our periodic economic doldrums – that this time we may have landed in a ditch that none of us have seen before and this recession isn’t a hiccup; it’s a harbinger that our self-indulgence has caught up with us at last.
The whole problem seems to boil down to how long the government can go on borrowing money.
Congress now owes $14 trillion.
And no one knows exactly when our creditors will say, No more. It could be this fall or two or three or four years from now but since $1.5 trillion of the good times Congress has been paying for each year have been paid for with borrowed money when our credit runs out we won’t be able to pay for 40% of our Social Security, 40% of Medicare or 40% of the Pentagon Generals’ salaries.
We’ve been rich so long it’s hard to imagine being so broke we can’t pay Social Security checks. Plus, we’ve become so addicted to having whatever we want no one (and especially no rational Congressman) wants to be the one to tell us the good times are over.
So from Washington to Sacramento government goes merrily on its way spending and borrowing, digging the hole deeper.
For example over in Chapel Hill the Durham Chapel Hill Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization is anxious to build a ‘lite-rail’ system for $1.4 billion. And like most hopeful Americans they figure if they want it why shouldn’t government buy it for them. So while in Washington they’ve borrowed slam up to the debt limit in Chapel Hill they’re about to vote to spend another $1.4 billion.
Next election anyone with any common sense ought to vote against any politician who makes even one rosy promise. But we won’t. De-nial is more than a river in Egypt.
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Gary Pearce posted on May 20, 2011 11:24
I take great pride in my fact-checking, proofreading and copy-editing. After all, my first grown-up job at the N&O was as a copy editor. (I started out as a copyboy, which is newsroom-speak for errand boy.)
And I had taken great pride that, since its publication in November, no one had found a typo in my biography of Governor Hunt.
No more.
I let one get by, and it’s a beaut.
I got his birthday wrong. It’s May 16, not May 18 (page 14).
I can’t tell you how many times I missed that in proofing the manuscript. And I knew his birthday is the 16th.
Here’s how I found out about the typo. A friend’s daughter was reading the book (which makes me happy). She told her father, who had worked with Governor Hunt, that his birthday was Wednesday. So he promptly called the Governor to wish him Happy Birthday. Thanks, the Governor said, but that was Monday.
So I’m red-faced. But there is an upside. I get to post another blog promoting the book. And I get the opportunity to wish Governor Hunt a happy 74th birthday.
Many happy returns to you!
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Carter Wrenn posted on May 19, 2011 18:12
There’s a story floating around the legislature: A couple of weeks ago when the House budget writers sent their budget over to the Senate Leadership the minute Senator Richard Steven’s saw it he saw red.
Stevens, the rumor says, erupted over how much the House was cutting UNC’s budget and grabbed Speaker Thom Tillis and Tillis not wanting to offend the powerful UNC alumni any more than Stevens went to the House Republican Caucus and told them they had to cut the public schools to give more money to UNC.
But Tillis miscalculated.
The sixty-six House Republicans staring back at him in that caucus didn’t represent hardly a single state university and not one of them was elected in a district anywhere near Chapel Hill. But they all had plenty of public schools in their districts. So Tillis’ own Caucus told him no and passed their budget and sent it to the Senate where Senate Leader Phil Berger promptly announced he was cutting $87 million out of the public schools and community colleges to give to UNC.
Which drops the hot potato back in Thom Tillis’ lap.
Because now Tillis has either got to tell Phil Berger, No way, or tell his own Caucus, Boys, I’ve got bad news – again.
‘Again’ because the House already had one run in with the Senate over making state employees pay for part of their own health insurance. The House said they shouldn’t. The Senate said they should. And instead of telling Phil Berger no, Thom Tillis got his people into line and passed the Senate Bill.
Of course the back benchers in the House may be more stubborn when it comes to cutting public schools to give more money to UNC – than they were about making state employees (most of whom live in Raleigh) pay a little more for their health insurance.
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Carter Wrenn posted on May 19, 2011 12:39
Congress is in debt up to its eyeballs and if the government isn’t quite flat-broke it’s just a couple of steps from being flat-broke but it looks like most Americans (and almost all Congressmen) have gotten so addicted to spending it puts Charlie Sheen on a bender to shame.
Take the latest flap here in Raleigh about federal largesse.
The U.S. Post Office Department has been hemorrhaging money for years so, at last, they’re going to cut costs and start closing post offices that lose money. Including the old Century Post Office downtown. A decision that Mayor Meeker denounced as mystifying saying, “It doesn’t make any sense.”
No sense? There’s another post office a mile away.
But, Lord help us, reason should never be allowed to get in the way of sentiment – the Mayor waxed nostalgic opining how the 140 year old post office has served Raleigh through two world wars and added, “We must keep it…”
It’s the most popular American song: I want it. I have to have it. The government ought to buy it for me and it doesn’t faze anyone Congress is going to have to borrow the money to keep two post offices a mile apart open.
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Gary Pearce posted on May 19, 2011 10:36
It’s revealing when politicians – specifically, Republican legislators – clearly believe they are better off when fewer people vote.
Actually, the Republicans are right. The GOP did well last year, when 1.7 million fewer people voted than in the Democratic sweep of 2008.
So the solution is obvious: Cut early vote down by a week. Eliminate Sunday voting. And no more registering to vote at the polls.
Why stop there? Why not restrict the franchise to property-owning white males (so long as they’re angry white males)? Or just count three-fifths of certain people’s votes (you know who)?
In Washington, Republicans just want to take away your Medicare. In Raleigh, they want to take away your vote.
The strategy may work for a while. But it reveals the fundamental vulnerability of Republicans long-term: Their base is shrinking.
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