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Gary Pearce posted on May 15, 2013 09:55
You can easily flick aside a Republican witch hunt on Benghazi. After all, they’ve been at it since Mitt Romney popped off the first day.
You can manage a controversy about the IRS targeting Tea Party groups – so long as, unlike Nixon, the White House wasn’t involved.
But your Justice Department subpoenaed AP reporters’ phone records? Now you’ve got a real problem.
Now you’ve made reporters and editors mad. Now they’ll plunge into an orgy of Nixon comparisons and “second-term jinx” stories. Now they’ll cover all the congressional investigations and hearings into all of the above.
This too, you can manage. But you may have to chop off some heads. And you must keep calm and carry on.
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Gary Pearce posted on May 14, 2013 08:58
Americans have a fine tradition of demonstrating, protesting, sitting-in and getting arrested when their government does something they don’t like. And we always have a great debate about whether the tactics help or hurt.
Do they? Look at what we’ve seen over the years: suffragettes, civil rights, anti-Vietnam, gay rights. And the Tea Party, whose protests took a different form but were the same loud and visible outpouring of discontent.
In the end, their causes all won – or at least their protests presaged later success at the ballot box or in public policy.
So don’t dismiss the Moral Mondays that seem to be gathering steam in Raleigh.
No, they won’t affect the Republican majority. The protests may, instead, just spur the legislature on to even more draconian actions.
And, no, demonstrating and getting arrested may not suit everyone’s personal preferences. (“I just don’t look good in an orange jumpsuit,” said one sympathizer. Not every young person needs or wants an arrest on their record, no matter how well-intended.)
But the tactics get attention. Like front-page, evening news attention. They get people wondering what the fuss is about. They bring a tighter focus on what the legislature is doing.
Most of all, they tell us where the passion is in today’s politics. And passion often is a prelude to progress.
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Gary Pearce posted on May 13, 2013 09:28
When the Raleigh City Council abruptly and mysteriously fired City Manager Russell Allen, you knew there had to be some major urban policy matter involved. Yep: parking places.
Now, politicians will put up with a lot. You can attack them, smear them, call them names, criticize their ideas and vote against them. That’s all part of the game. But you’ve got a war on your hands if you mess with two things: their offices and their parking places.
According to the N&O story by Colin Campbell, frustrations had built up for months among some “councilors,” as they call themselves. (When I was a cub reporter back in the dark ages, we called them “councilmen” and “councilwomen.” I guess “councilors” sounds somewhat British, lofty even.)
The “councilors,” like all politicians, thought they could do the professionals’ jobs best – and the manager’s job best of all.
The final straw apparently came when Allen didn’t respond quickly and forcefully enough to Councilor Randall Stagner’s complaint about people parking in the Councilors’ Reserved Parking Spaces.
Clearly, this was an outrage. Allen should have dropped everything. He should have personally addressed the matter. Failing to do so, he was invited to find a parking place in another city.
We trust that the new manager will get the message. How can Raleigh hope to be a truly world-class city if citizens feel free to park in City Councilors’ parking spaces?
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Gary Pearce posted on May 10, 2013 14:33
As a wise Raleigh vet observed over breakfast, the plan won’t pass. Too many special interests gored, too many lobbyists working and too much campaign money in play.
So don’t worry about how you’ll do under the plan. (Generally, if you don’t need a tax cut, you’d get one. If you and your family could desperately use some relief, you’d pay more taxes.)
Mainly, the proposal gives Berger a chance to tell Republican primary voters, “I proposed the biggest tax cut in North Carolina history.” And maybe: “Thom Tillis stopped it.”
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Gary Pearce posted on May 09, 2013 14:48
A group of Democrats was decrying the blizzard of bad bills they see from the legislature: cutting education, attacking renewable energy, making it harder for teens to get health care, loosening gun restraints, on and on. They were talking about what could be done to slow down the storm or persuade Governor McCrory to exercise some judgment.
Then one gray-haired veteran threw up his hands in mock horror: “Don’t stop ‘em.” They looked at him like he was crazy. He said, “Seriously. Let them go wild. Don’t do anything to slow them down. In fact, do everything you can to make them go even farther.”
By now they were sure he was crazy. But he was thinking ahead, to next year’s elections:
“The worse it gets, the more good people will be inspired to run. The more good people will work for them and contribute to them. The more the voters will look a new direction. And the better we’ll do next year.”
He’s crazy like a fox.
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Gary Pearce posted on May 08, 2013 13:51
This week’s headlines tell a tale of the priorities and problems of North Carolina’s top three Republicans.
Governor McCrory, like all new governors, is focused on getting his cronies into state jobs and frustrated that he can’t fire current state employees fast enough. (A TAPster noted that McCrory’s off-with-their-heads story came out on State Employee Appreciation Day. Nice timing, Guv!) Unfortunately for him, state employees are skilled at exacting their revenge on Governors.
McCrory’s big story this week – his drill-baby-drill visit to Texas – was overshadowed by Senator Berger’s tax reform package. That’s not the first time Berger has upstaged the Governor; the last time was on education reform. Coincidence? (No, there are no coincidences in politics.)
Predictably, the House and the Governor will be happy to let Berger walk out onto the tax limb, and eager to saw it off. Already, Berger had to back off his ambitious plan to abolish income taxes.
Tillis, for his part, was warning his Republican flock about overreaching just as they were overreaching on guns. One young TAPster noted: “Great. More guns at bars, college campuses and sporting events – the places where I spend 90 percent of my time.”
It took the Big Three less than four months to start stepping on each other’s toes. They obviously learned from the Democrats.
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Gary Pearce posted on May 07, 2013 16:37
The trouble with South Carolina, Robert E. Lee supposedly said, is that it’s too small to be an independent nation and too large to be an insane asylum. Which helps explain why Mark Sanford may win his congressional race tonight.
The other explanation is our politics today. We are so deeply and bitterly divided into our respective tribes that no amount of bizarre behavior will keep us from voting for our tribe’s candidate.
And we Democrats shouldn’t throw stones. We stuck by President Clinton after his less-than-exemplary behavior in the White House. (Good thing we did.)
Of course, Clinton didn’t approach Sanford’s level of sheer nuttiness (See: “Hiking the Appalachian Trail” and “Argentine Soul Mate”.) But, hey, we’re talking South Carolina here.
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Gary Pearce posted on May 07, 2013 09:48
Anyone who has been at a game and witnessed the raw anger that can erupt gets the point.
How would you like to be the ref who makes an unpopular call against the home team, wondering whether one of the 50,000 crazed fans screaming at you is packing?
Good call, House.
This is another issue where it would be nice to know where Governor McCrory stands. He does have the veto power, remember.
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Gary Pearce posted on May 06, 2013 14:21
His old boss at Duke Energy opposes the bill. So do some legislative Republicans. But McCrory, the jobs and energy governor, is silent.
In other words, this free-enterprise Republican wants to decide which jobs he likes and which he doesn’t. At a time when many North Carolinians want any job.
What jobs does McCrory want?
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Carter Wrenn posted on May 06, 2013 10:14
Who’d have thought it was possible – the Internet sweepstakes poker parlor folks have offered ‘to put $500 million’ in the state treasury – if the legislators will just see the light and let them stay in business.
Whoever heard of anybody volunteering to pay half a billion dollars in taxes? You have to wonder how much people in North Carolina are spending while sitting in Internet sweepstakes parlors? A billion? $2 billion? $5 billion?
The story started last year when legislators voted to close down the sweepstakes parlors and put ‘em out of business;---of course the sweepstakes parlor operators didn’t much like that so they sued and took their lawsuit all the way to the State Supreme Court. At the same time, in case their lawsuit didn’t work out, the parlor operators got a couple of friendly legislators to sponsor a new bill to let them stay open – and that’s when they dangled that $500 million carrot in front of legislators.
And that’s not the only carrot: The newspaper reported sweepstakes operators also contributed $520,000 to politicians. And, a sweepstakes parlor operator told the News and Observer how, since last year, they’ve been spending $40,000 a week to pay lawyers and lobbyists.
That’s eye opening too. The politicians received $520,000 in contributions – while the lawyers and lobbyists were paid $2 million. Four times as much. What does that say about the ‘market value’ of politicians as compared to lobbyists?
The whole thing’s such a tangle it’s bound to land some of our well-meaning, church going Baptist legislators in a quandary: Righteousness must be whispering it’s wisest to shut the sweepstakes parlors down but temptation must be whispering $500 million is a lot of money to say No to.
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Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
The Charlotte Observer says: “Carter Wrenn and Gary Pearce don’t see eye-to-eye on many issues. But they both love North Carolina and know its politics inside and out.”
Carter is a Republican.
Gary is a Democrat.
They met in 1984, during the epic U.S. Senate battle between Jesse Helms and Jim Hunt. Carter worked for Helms and Gary, for Hunt.
Years later, they became friends. They even worked together on some nonpolitical clients.
They enjoy talking about politics. So they started this blog in 2005.
They’re still talking. And they invite you to join the conversation.
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