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North Carolina - Democrats
Carter Wrenn posted on September 26, 2012 17:17
If Mitt Romney feels like he’s up to his hips in alligators – he ought to consider the alligators that have chomped down on poor Tony Tata.
Two years ago, the newly elected Republican School Board made short shift of the old School Superintendent and hired Tata. Then the Democrats won the next election and their School Board set out to give Tata the boot.
Elections do have consequences.
Next, proclaiming it the “War at the School Board,” Wake County’s Republican Chairman Susan Bryant blasted the Democrats and emailed a call to arms to local Republicans, saying, ‘The radical extremists… are preparing to fire our great Superintendent, and we have to stop them.’
Unfortunately for Mrs. Bryant she ran head-on into a deadly foe: A sense of humor – which the News & Observer’s Barry Saunders has in abundance. Gently poking Mrs. Bryan in his column Saunders wrote: Chill, sisterwoman. ‘Radical extremists’ are those people who stormed our embassy and killed our ambassador and others in Libya…’
Anyway, it’s all over now. Yesterday the Democrats removed Tata.
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Gary Pearce posted on September 26, 2012 17:05
Even strong Democrats believe the Wake school board flunked this test. The board majority may have done the right thing, but they sure did it the wrong way. And Democrats may pay the price.
It was a mistake to fire Tony Tata without first setting out a bill of particulars. You can’t fire a superintendent, then refuse to say why because “it’s a personnel matter.”
Board members finally began explaining themselves today. That was a day late. They gave the public stage over to their Republican critics yesterday. At the start of the evening news broadcasts, no less.
John Tedesco, Paul Coble & Co. were happy to take the stage.
Tedesco may be the big winner here. He may stir up enough votes in Wake County to get elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Coble now has an excuse not to give the schools more money.
And Tata gets a years’ pay so he can start (some critics theorize) running against Senator Kay Hagan in 2014.
But keep one thing in mind. This board didn’t do what Tedesco’s board did. His crowd forced Tata’s predecessor out immediately. This board gave Tata a chance. But Tedesco and his colleagues are shocked, shocked!
As Bill Clinton would say, it takes brass to attack a guy for doing what you did.
Still, the board botched this. They now get blamed for anything bad that happens in the system. They may pay the price next time they run. And the debacle may hurt Democrats in this election – all the way up the line to President Obama, who carried North Carolina in 2008 with the help of a huge majority in Wake County.
This is not acceptable work. See me after class.
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 26, 2012 15:26
It’s a fad: Paul Ryan put his mother on TV, then David Rouzer put his grandmother on TV, then Tom Murray (who’s running for State House) put his mother in a TV ad. So which will folks say, ‘No one knows him better than his mother’ – or – ‘Does that mean he couldn’t get anyone except his mother to say something good about him?
David Rouzer has also done another ad people might look at two ways.
Back in 2008 two white-haired gentlemen sat down on a porch in a pair of rocking chairs and made a TV ad for Kay Hagan that all but sunk Liddy Dole. Two years later, the same two white-haired gentlemen reappeared, rocking and saying they’d made a mistake last election and this time they were voting for Senator Richard Burr. It was clever – and humorous and it worked.
Now David Rouzer has put the same two gentlemen in an ad, rocking for him – so will the third time turn out to be a charm or too much of a good thing?
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Gary Pearce posted on September 21, 2012 09:14
Watching the Dalton and McCrory TV ads, you see the opening that Dalton could exploit if he has enough time and money.
McCrory’s ads are content-free. Apparently, he’s going to solve unemployment and $4 gas by drilling everywhere under our feet and off the coast. And he’s responsible for Charlotte’s success. How would he do in a public setting where he’s forced to defend both claims?
A Republican friend had a negative reaction to McCrory’s appearance in the ads: “He looks smug,” like a college frat’s rush chairman. Where McCrory is squinty-eyed and maybe city-slick, Dalton has a down-home openness and sincerity.
Dalton has some jobs ideas that, presented right, would be a strong positive message. And he could raise questions about McCrory’s tax plans just as Obama has with Romney.
Polls show Dalton can pick up votes with Democrats and Independents, and he could draw blood by tying McCrory to an unpopular Republican legislature.
With enough time and money, you can see Dalton’s path to victory. But time and money are the problems. Bottom line: Governor Perdue’s late decision put him in a hole.
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Gary Pearce posted on September 13, 2012 12:42
Walter Dalton put out a strong, thoughtful and comprehensive jobs plan this week. It was long on good ideas, but – unfortunately – short on political punch. It illustrates the challenge Democrats face in a short-attention span age.
Republicans have the virtue of brevity and simplicity, if not quality. Pat McCrory has a bumper-sticker jobs plan: “Cut taxes. Cut regulations. Drill, baby, drill.”
Dalton’s plan has solid, thought-provoking ideas: “Make out-of-state businesses compete for our incentives.” “Establish an infrastructure bank (I-Bank).” “Establish a comprehensive state energy plan.”
But reporters had a hard time boiling it down. Even the campaign struggled. Its news release said the plan is “focused on refocusing and retooling our economic development approach so it’s more strategic and results-oriented, recruiting businesses and investors to stimulate job growth and retraining our workforce for 21st Century jobs.”
That’s a bit long for a bumper sticker. Or even a 30-second ad.
One Triangle CEO who likes Dalton was surprised there wasn’t more about education. Especially given his work on pioneering Early College initiatives.
You can combine thoughtful ideas with punchy presentation. Bill Clinton was the unmatched master at that.
Dalton’s theme could have been three words: “Innovation. Infrastructure. Education.”
As a Southern politician once said: “You have to get the hay down where the goats can get it.”
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Gary Pearce posted on September 11, 2012 08:14
The convention gave President Obama a surge (possibly short-lived) in polls and fundraising. But he’s got another edge that won’t be short-lived: a “fired up and ready to go” ground game and the technology to make it go.
The Obama campaign has spent years and millions upon millions of dollars building it. They have honed the technology. They use social media to forge, direct and motivate a truly awesome ground game. And they are way ahead of the Republicans
The Obama campaign knows how to measure results. In a call to convention-goers who couldn’t get into Obama’s speech last week, the campaign manager said daily reports in the Chicago headquarters show North Carolina “blows the doors off” in calls and contacts made each day.
One boost from the convention: an army of excited and enthusiastic volunteers – especially in North Carolina and Virginia.
This is new politics. It didn’t exist at this level of sophistication four years ago. It’s not as evident as the dueling TV ads. It is below the vision – and beyond the grasp – of even the best political reporters.
Those reporters often cite one number to show how hard it will be for Obama to carry North Carolina: 14,000 – his margin in 2008. But that works the other way, too. There are 100,000 Hispanic voters in North Carolina. There are more than 100,000 new African-American voters who can be brought to the polls. There are tens of thousands of college students.
If they turn out, Obama could win by a lot more than 14,000.
For all the focus on conventions, debates, superPACs and negative ads, the real dynamic that decides this race could be what’s happening in phone banks, Twitter feeds and voter turnout work.
Silent and deadly.
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Gary Pearce posted on September 08, 2012 12:12
I’m glad Hunt did it. What a shame it would have been if Terry Sanford hadn’t been honored at a Democratic convention in North Carolina.
So pardon some history, youngsters: In 1960, Sanford risked his race for governor by endorsing John F. Kennedy for the Democratic nomination. Everybody else from the South, including the North Carolina delegation and then-Governor Luther Hodges, were for Lyndon Johnson.
Sanford didn’t just endorse JFK, he gave a seconding speech for him at the convention in Los Angeles. Sanford sent an important message: JFK can win in the South.
Later that decade, Presidents Kennedy and Johnson took up the cause of civil rights. That took away the South fromk the Democratic Party for a long time. Jimmy Carter took it back briefly in 1976. Bill Clinton made a strong run in 1992.
It was a long road – a 52-year-road – from a North Carolina governor endorsing JFK to North Carolina hosting a national Democratic convention, for an African-American President, no less.
Democrats, remember how you got here.
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Gary Pearce posted on September 06, 2012 10:49
Bill Clinton gave this campaign three things it hadn’t seen so far: substance, civility and good old Southern country-boy wit and charm. It was a powerful combination – and a tutorial in political communications.
Where Tampa Republicans spewed venom and vitriol at President Obama, Clinton treated his opponents with kindness, courtesy and respect. Then he eviscerated them with logic, arithmetic and a smile.
Where other Democratic speakers sharpened our political polarization, Clinton staked out center ground where compromise isn’t a dirty word and politics isn’t “blood sport.”
Where political ads blithely ignore facts, Clinton served up an hour-long feast of facts, statistics and reasoned arguments.
Where conventional political wisdom is that you never repeat your opponents’ attacks on you, Clinton took the main Republican attacks on Obama, stated them clearly and then – like a crack lawyer walking the jury through a complex case – demonstrated why they don’t stand up.
And he performed the most elegant takedown of a vice presidential candidate since Lloyd Bentsen told Dan Quayle “you’re no Jack Kennedy.” Analyzing Paul Ryan’s Medicare attack on Obama, Clinton ad-libbed: “It takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did.”
The video introduction reminded you how much things – and Clinton – have changed in the 20 years since Democrats nominated him for President. The Big Dog shows some age and some dents and dings. He’s leaner from a vegan diet he took up after quadruple-bypass surgery. His voice is raspy, and his hands a bit shaky.
We thought politics were mean back in the 1990s, when Republicans accused the Clintons of having political opponents murdered and Newt Gingrich was busy impeaching Clinton over an extramarital affair while having his own affair. We hadn’t seen anything yet. Still, Clinton and Gingrich (and Erskine Bowles) worked together to give us welfare reform and a balanced budget.
Wednesday night, Clinton did again what he did so well back then. He showed us an alternative to “the brain-dead politics of Washington.” He taught us that politics can be honorable, constructive and – yes – fun.
One more thing: A shout-out to another Southern politician who can rise above it all, my man Jim Hunt. He gave a tight, focused, optimistic speech about what we’ve done in North Carolina and why Obama should be reelected.
It was good to see these two thoroughbreds on the track again.
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 04, 2012 15:08
In case you missed it there’re two new polls this week but nothing’s changed. Republicans are still voting rocklike for Romney, Democrats are still rocklike for Obama, and if you want a portrait of a swing voter she’s a mother with young children living in the suburbs in a nice (but not too nice) home.
She’s not from the South, probably moved here because of a job, but, now, the earth has shifted beneath her feet – so she’s got very definite ideas about her goals this election: She wants the recession over.
She figures Obama’s proved he can’t get the job done but she’s not certain Mitt Romney can either so it looks like when she walks into the voting booth on Election Day she may have to gamble and as a female with children that’s the last thing she wants to do.
Her credit cards were valued possessions not long ago but now she abhors debt, not only her own but government debt. However, at the same time, she’s against cuts in Medicare and Social Security and supports cheaper student loans and government mortgage subsidies to families about to lose their homes.
She’s pro-choice to her fingertips yet at the same time she’s worried about the decline in religious values. Unlike almost everyone around her – who’s either a Republican or Democrat voting their party line this fall – she’s an Independent with no loyalty at all to either party.
Wooing and winning her is the fixation of both conventions. She’s why Ann Romney gave the first speech in Tampa and why Michelle Obama’s leading off the Democratic Convention and it’s a safe bet before the Democrats pack up their tent and leave Charlotte she’s going to get courted a lot more. But she’s nobody’s fool: She hasn’t been swayed by gossip about tax returns and doesn’t give a toot about Barack Obama’s birth certificate – she just wants the hard times behind her and she means to pick the suitor who’ll get the job done.
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Gary Pearce posted on September 04, 2012 14:55
Over the past few weeks, a stream of state and national reporters asked essentially the same question: “Was it a mistake for Democrats to come to Charlotte?”
Let’s set aside the existential question of whether it’s ever a mistake to come to Charlotte – especially when you could go to New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta or, like the Republicans, Florida in hurricane season.
The reporters always raise the same problems: unions are unhappy, North Carolina is a tough state for Obama, Governor Perdue didn’t run again, Republicans are on the rise, the state Democratic Party is a mess, etc.
All true. But it’s still a good idea to come to Charlotte.
Holding a convention in Charlotte is a major political and historical statement for Democrats.
Years ago, when I was working for Governor Hunt, we didn’t think we would EVER want the national Democratic convention in North Carolina. We ran away from the national party as hard as we could.
More important, not so many years ago, no one in North Carolina imagined that said convention would re-nominate a President who is African-American.
For Democrats, a Charlotte convention plants a flag in what used to be safe Republican territory.
For North Carolinians, whatever your politics or party, it’s saying: “We’ve come a long way, baby.”
Even more, North Carolinians of all political persuasions should like what a Charlotte convention means in the long run: Our votes for President count.
America has a Presidential election that, every year, is decided in no more than a dozen states. The other 38 get ignored.
We got ignored too, until President Obama put us in play in 2008. That’s why the convention is here. That’s why candidates and surrogates parade through here continuously. That’s why you see so many competing and contradictory TV spots (which may not be such a blessing).
But it’s nice to matter. It’s good to have a voice. Let’s hope it stays that way.
And here’s some advice for those purist Democrats who object to Charlotte because North Carolina has a low level of unionization, or because the state banned gay marriages and civil unions, or whatever perception pains them: Get over it.
If Democrats can expand the presidential playing field by competing in North Carolina, that’s a good thing for this year – and years to come.
Welcome, indeed, to Charlotte.
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