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Entries for 'Gary Pearce'
Gary Pearce posted on February 05, 2013 12:51
Governor McCrory is learning that it’s easier to run for office than run an administration. And message discipline is easier in a campaign. Especially when the legislature is in town.
McCrory wants his message to be jobs. But he sidetracked himself last week by picking a fight over the value of college education.
Monday, the headlines were about some mysterious trouble at the Capitol Police. This morning, the headlines were about the jobless – not about getting them jobs, but about the legislature cutting unemployment benefits. And about the legislature stiff-arming McCrory on Medicaid and health care.
Today the headlines are about Senate Republicans’ political power grab to take over the Utilities Commission, Environmental Management Commission, Coastal Resources Commission, Lottery Commission and Wildlife Resources Commission and abolish the Charter School Advisory Committee, Lottery Oversight Commission, Turnpike Authority, and Board of Correction.
They even tried to add two justices to the State Supreme Court.
(They might check their history. See “Court Packing – Roosevelt, Franklin D., 1937.”)
No wonder the Governor’s communications director left a six-figure job to go back to Tennessee. And his new press aide may be yearning for the calm, peaceful days she spent on Capitol Hill.
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Gary Pearce posted on February 04, 2013 10:21
While I was gone, Governor McCrory came out against college education and Republican legislators came out against women’s nipples. These are two (or three?) big reasons I’m not a Republican.
In fairness, the Governor took it back. He said he was for college education after he was against it. Kind of like John Kerry.
Then his communications director departed for Tennessee. (That’s right, blame the PR guy!)
But there is no retreat on the nipple front.
I’m looking forward to catching up with the other big news. We took a cruise to the Caribbean. Sat in the sun, swam in the ocean, ate good food, drank good beer and wine, ate more good fed, slept a lot and read five books.
Years ago, a wise friend told me that the secret to surviving winter is to go someplace warm in late January or early February. He was right.
By the way, a big thank-you to the pinch-bloggers, named and unnamed, who kept Carter company.
It was good to be gone and it’s good to be back.
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Gary Pearce posted on January 22, 2013 10:47
Gary’s taking a break from blogging. Pinch-hitting today is a TAPster with a long memory:
Re your blog posting about Art Pope (“The Budget Pope”): A lot of people either aren’t old enough to remember, or simply don’t know, that another wealthy Raleigh businessman was indispensable to Jim Hunt in that role.
John A. Williams knew where all the bodies were buried (including the ones he buried himself) and did all of the “nut-cutting” that the Governor didn’t want to dirty his hands with. The difference is that if John A. had a personal agenda other than to make sure that Hunt was successful, we never knew it.
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Gary Pearce posted on January 21, 2013 10:50
This headline is off-message: “NC Republicans want tax hikes on food, services” (WRAL).
At a time when Washington Republicans are cementing reputations as anti-tax hardliners, how did Raleigh Republicans get plunged into this morass?
The answer: a member of their caucus, Senator Bob Rucho, dragged them to the cliff. Question: Will Governor McCrory, Senator Berger and Speaker Tillis jump off it?
For the McCrory/Pope administration, it might be smarter politically to cut personal and corporate income taxes less drastically and cut spending, rather than make up the money. Then they can claim a victory for economic competitiveness, without the pain of raising taxes.
For Berger and Tillis in a Republican U.S. Senate primary, would cutting income taxes a lot make up for raising other taxes a lot?
How do all the big givers to their caucuses feel?
All this suggests a continuing Republican problem: how to handle extreme measures pushed by some of their members.
Witness: drivers’ licenses for immigrants. Lt. Governor Forest is dead-set against it. McCrory/Tata are debating it. Do they want to dig an even deeper hole with Hispanic voters?
And here’s tax footnote from a member of Governor Perdue’s administration.
“In 2011, shortly after the R's took control of the Legislature, Gov. Perdue submitted a budget that cut the corporate tax rate to the lowest in the South and kept part of the temporary sales tax in place to help fund education….Berger's response: Perdue wants to balance the budget ‘on the backs of North Carolina taxpayers and local governments.’ But now it's ok to balance the budget on the backs of those who struggle daily to buy food for their families, while giving the rich a huge tax break?”
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Gary Pearce posted on January 18, 2013 10:11
I avoid political events. Been there, done that. But last night I dragged myself out in the rain and cold to hear Eric Mansfield, who’s running for Democratic Party chair.
I don’t pretend to understand internal party politics. But here’s my opinion: A party with Mansfield as chair will be a party to be reckoned with.
It was the first time I met him, but not the first time I heard of him. Democratic friends have talked him up to me. But I first heard of him from a Republican lobbyist friend. He told me in 2011 that Mansfield, who was then a state senator, would be a star.
I get it now. Mansfield has brains, personality and presence. Last night he gave an impressive summary of how the party can get back in the game – not in seven years after the next Census, but today.
I was impressed. I’ll endorse him or oppose him, whichever helps him most.
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Gary Pearce posted on January 17, 2013 10:21
North Carolina Republicans are stepping out on a political high-wire.
Surely, most people love the idea of not paying personal or corporate income taxes.
But then you start looking at the details. Every business would pay a receipts tax. Everybody would pay (and businesses bill and pay) a tax on services – medical care, lottery tickets, haircuts, dentist visits, housekeeping and lawyers’ fees, just to name a few.
And your grocery taxes go up 400 percent.
Tax reform plans usually start out great, then wither when people see the details.
This one will be fun to watch.
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Gary Pearce posted on January 16, 2013 10:27
Sometimes the hardest and smartest thing to do – in politics as in life – is just to watch and wait.
Some patience now will pay off in the long run for North Carolina Democrats.
Governor McCrory already stumbled by giving his new Cabinet big pay raises. Dick and Jane at home get that – and don’t like it. That’s big money to them, and they don’t buy it’s hard for government officials to live on $100,000-plus salaries.
Then immigrants get a letter from the Governor and General Tata revoking their drivers licenses. So much for the idea that Republicans should stop alienating Hispanic voters.
And the legislature hasn’t even started. Wait until Speaker Tillis and Senator Berger try to out-bid the other for the Tea Party vote in the Republican U.S. Senate primary. While Senator Rucho abolishes the income tax and raises everybody’s sales tax. While Governor McCrory tries to drive just right of the center of the road.
Wait until hundreds of new political appointees begin diving into their new jobs in all the Cabinet departments, eager to undo 114 years of Democratic rule and set everything Right overnight.
In sports, coaches often say: let the game come to you. It’s coming.
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Gary Pearce posted on January 15, 2013 11:00
As Carter notes in his blog below, the boom in outside political groups is eclipsing the traditional parties. You can see three recent examples in Raleigh.
The big event Inaugural weekend wasn’t the traditional Junior League Ball or a Republican Party event. It was the Foundation for North Carolina (“F”-NC) fundraiser.
Last week, the House GOP caucus announced a new nonprofit to help “get our story out.” In other words, lay the groundwork for Speaker Tillis’ campaign for U.S. Senate.
And who has been out front as the Not-So-Loyal Opposition? Not the State Democratic Party, but the folks at ProgressNC.
There are many explanations: entrepreneurial political operatives, creative funding opportunities, the public’s poor opinion of parties and, not least, weak party leadership. So don’t look for the trend to end anytime soon.
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Gary Pearce posted on January 14, 2013 10:03
Raleigh was electric Saturday. The crowd was huge and enthusiastic. The stars outdid all their fans’ hopes.
Not the inaugural. The State-Duke game. (Go Pack!)
Governor McCrory’s early-season performance is like a basketball team that makes a brilliant play on one end, then commits a bonehead turnover.
His speech and its “Main Street” trope was good. But he said no money is “falling from the sky” right after he rained big pay raises on his Cabinet.
He pledged to embrace business and create new jobs, but he talks down North Carolina by saying it’s “broken” and its brand “tarnished.” Already, industrial recruiters say he has cost the state one big company by wavering on incentives.
He played the drums and mixed with the party crowds, but his friends at the Foundation for North Carolina (which cynics call “F*@#NC”) held a dinner at the Carolina Country Club and told the invitees to keep it a secret.
One Democrat saw McCrory's visit to the General Assembly on opening day as “good optics.” But, at breakfast this morning, another Democrat questioned the wisdom of linking his popularity to the legislature.
Another observer noted that new governors often have rocky starts. Looking to the long season ahead, he added, “The best thing Democrats have going for them is human nature.”
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Gary Pearce posted on January 10, 2013 16:13
When I read that Richard Ben Cramer died this week, I pulled down my dog-eared copy of “What It Takes” and started to read it. Again.
If you’ve never heard of Cramer or his book, get it. Read it. You’ll thank me.
It’s about the 1988 presidential campaign, but it’s timeless. Through 1,000-plus dense, funny, sometimes-zany but always obsessively researched pages, Cramer answers two big questions: What are presidential candidates really like? And what are their campaigns really like?
Cramer focused on six candidates: George W. Bush (“Poppy”), Bob (“the Bobster”) Dole, Gary Hart(pence), Dick Gephardt (“hakhakhak”), Michael Dukakis (“Duke”) and Joe Biden. Read the chapter “The Night of the Bronco” to understand our Vice President. Read the book’s first few pages, about then-VP Bush throwing out the first ball at a major league game, to understand the bubble that politicians disappear into.
Here’s what I love most. Throughout the book, Cramer mentioned hundreds of politicians, staff members, consultants, lobbyists, reporters and other hangers-on. He knew what they would do when the book came out: Rush to the bookstore, pull down a copy, look at the index and read the parts about them.
So he didn’t do an index. The bastards had to read the whole book.
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