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Carter Wrenn posted on April 30, 2013 10:10
Up in Washington, Senate Leader Harry Reid and House Leader John Boehner and a handful of politicians have been sequestered in secret meetings, trying to agree on a solution to one of Washington’s most burning problems: How to exempt Congressmen and their staffs from ObamaCare.
Then, to their surprise, word of the meetings leaked – landing on the front page of Politico – and in the next breath, facing an awkward question and needing a quick explanation, the politicians stumbled, sheepishly telling the press they were worried about putting their staffers under ObamaCare because it would lead to a ‘brain drain’ on Capitol Hill – and, of course, one wit immediately wrote the newspaper, How could that be? There hasn’t been a glimmer of a brain on Capitol Hill for years.
Next Politico treed Democratic House Leader, Steny Hoyer, asking where he stood on exempting Congress from ObamaCare – like a man weaving through a minefield Hoyer put out a carefully scripted statement saying he was studying “all the policies in the Affordable Care Act, to ensure they’re being implemented in a way that’s workable for everyone, including members and staff.”
After cornering the Democrat next Politico descended on John Boehner and Boehner’s spokesman, with equal care, announced, “If the Speaker has the opportunity to save anyone from ObamaCare, he will.”
What those two bits of carefully parsed political-ese meant – when translated into plain English – was simple enough: Both Hoyer and Boehner had said Yes.
So in all the great breadth and sweep of America, from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters, one sacred patch of ground may be untouched by ObamaCare – Capitol Hill.
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Gary Pearce posted on April 29, 2013 14:36
Within just a few days last week, the Perdue campaign-fund serial wrapped up, Sweepstakesgate ramped up and Governor McCrory cleaned house at the Board of Elections.
Grab a big bag of popcorn and settle in. This will take a while.
Democrats will pursue this like bloodhounds. They’ll pressure the board, its staff, the media, the DA and watchdog groups to chase it just as hard as they did the Perdue matter.
Republicans will doubtless squawk that it’s overkill. But there is karma (and payback) in politics. And the new elections board can’t look like it’s applying a double standard.
He said indignantly that he “would have walked out of the room” if anyone had tied a campaign contribution to a big corporate tax break. No need to walk, Senator. Nobody in the room needed to say anything. They all understood.
As someone said recently, the problem is that what looks slimy to the public passes as savvy in Raleigh.
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Gary Pearce posted on April 28, 2013 15:00
If you need comfort or inspiration, take an hour to watch the moving memorial service for Jamie Kirk Hahn. If you’re pressed for time, watch Nation Hahn’s remarkable eulogy (at 34:00) and Anthony Quillar’s powerful rendition of the Lord’s Prayer (1:04).
Looking at the oversized portrait in the sanctuary, you’re overwhelmed by the impact that beautiful, lively, smiling girl had on people. (Yes, I said “girl.” When you’re a parent, you can’t help but see a little girl.)
I commend the video to you regardless of your politics. Republicans, you may grit your teeth once or twice; just substitute your own beliefs. For all of us who care about politics and public service, it’s a testament to the difference one person can make – and why we’re in it.
Democrats, take heart from it. That church was filled with many, many young people just as dedicated and just as idealistic as Jamie. There are thousands more across the state. They are an army waiting to be mobilized, and they have an arsenal of mobile weapons with which to mobilize.
Nation gave us this advice from Jamie:
1. Be kind to others. Lift other people up.
2. Be a helper. That is true power.
3. Work at it. Because it’s hard work. Stick to it.
Jamie brought a lot of people together. She’s still doing it. And she’ll be doing it for a long time.
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Carter Wrenn posted on April 26, 2013 09:29
A legislator looked at a bill, winched, looked at another legislator and said, ‘Well, if I don’t vote for it I guess I’ll land in a primary.’
‘You think,’ the second legislator said, ‘that Republicans in your district are for people carrying guns in bars?’ The bill allowed people carry guns in bars, restaurants and on college campuses (as long as the gun is in a locked box).
‘Looking at the emails I’m getting,’ the first legislator said, ‘I’d say they do.’
‘How many emails are you talking about?’
‘Over a hundred.’
‘And how many Republican voters are in your district?’
‘About 20,000.’
‘So, because you got a hundred emails, you think you’re hearing the voice of 20,000 Republicans saying they support people carrying pistols in bars?’
The first legislator bristled. ‘You think that’s wrong?’
‘I think if you want to know what voters think you should take a poll.’
The first legislator, his mind made up, scratched his head. ‘You ever try that?’
‘Yep.’
‘What did it show?’
‘It said Republican voters have more common sense than legislators give them credit for.’
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Gary Pearce posted on April 24, 2013 11:51
Absolute good met absolute evil in a quiet Raleigh home Monday evening. Early Wednesday morning, Jamie Hahn lost her fight to live.
Her husband Nation and her family are devastated. But, as always happens at times like this, the best in people comes out. All day Tuesday, friends streamed into WakeMed to do what they could, say what they could and simply be with her family and with each other.
Mid-afternoon, their friends decided there should be a prayer vigil. Less than four hours later, hundreds of people jammed into Pullen Memorial Baptist Church. We lit candles for her. Nation spoke. We hugged, and we wept.
Together, Jamie and Nation had a unique quality that people responded to. They liked people. Their home was a familiar gathering place. People had fun.
Jamie liked politics, and she was good at it. She exemplified all that is good in politics. Nation is familiar to readers of this blog. He has been a guest blogger and will again, I trust.
This is one of those times when what unites us as people is so much bigger than what divides us in politics.
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Gary Pearce posted on April 22, 2013 10:18
Once again jubilant Americans take to the streets to celebrate the end of a terrorist. Crowds cheer police officers and military personnel. Fans at ball games chant “USA, USA!”
Last time it was a diabolical international terror mastermind hiding in an expansive compound right under the noses of the Pakistani military. This time it was a pot-smoking teenager hiding in a boat right under the noses of a suburban family.
Once again, there’s a Russian connection. Last time it was the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. This time it was Putin’s brutal crackdown on Chechnya. This time we even got a tipoff from the Russians. Once again, it disappeared into the federal security bureaucracy.
Last time we learned out how to make it harder for a terrorist to blow up a plane – and harder for all of us to get on a plane. This time we learn – what? If you see something, say something? See what? Dark-skinned young men carrying backpacks in college towns?
Because we’re a fair-minded people, Americans strive not to stereotype Muslims as terrorists. But we struggle to understand how a religion seems to spawn so many young men who want to blow us up.
The question is: How many more times will we see this movie?
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Gary Pearce posted on April 19, 2013 10:55
Dwane Powell’s return to the N&O captured in one cartoon – a depiction of the Republican elephant gone wild – what thousands of words fail to describe.
(Congratulations, incidentally, to Powell on being selected for the N.C. Journalism Hall of Fame.)
Even a Republican TAPster wrote: “This cartoon just about sums it up. The speed limit sign of infinity cracks me up.”
He added, “They (GOP legislative leaders) think that if they don’t go for everything all at once, then they will be betraying their base and get attacked for it.”
Haste. And arrogance. As epitomized by Senator Tommy Tucker from Union County, who told a North Carolina newspaper publisher “I am the senator. You are the citizen. You need to be quiet.”
Chris Fitzsimon’s blog at NC Policy Watch captured that incident best: “Tucker’s berating of a citizen he is supposed to be representing wasn’t all that surprising. That’s the way the General Assembly, especially the Senate, is run these days.
“The folks in charge not only want to make sure you know they are in charge, they want your obedience, not your questions or doubts and certainly not your disagreements. It’s clear they not only have an ideological agenda to pursue, they have scores to settle from their years in the minority.”
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Gary Pearce posted on April 18, 2013 14:36
The Republicans’ education agenda finally comes into focus: It’s about creating a market for private enterprise. They want to privatize Medicaid and privatize the Department of Commerce, so why not privatize schools?
It’s the only thing that makes sense. You might be wondering: How do they propose to make public schools better when they demonize and demoralize teachers, take teacher assistants out of the classroom and increase class sizes? (And, at the same time, demand that schools teach the Bible, cursive writing and, for all we know, creationism.)
The answer has to be that they don’t want to make public schools better. They want to make them worse. They want to say: “The schools are broken, they are failing. So we have to give tax money to private schools.”
Then families that can afford it will move their children to private schools. Which leaves public schools with the kids from poor and broken families. Which drives down the schools’ performances even farther. Which…well, you get it.
And who will fill this need? Entrepreneurs like big Republican contributor Bob Luddy, who owns and operates private schools. You see, it’s all about the private sector, not public schools.
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Carter Wrenn posted on April 17, 2013 11:44
Last week Gary thoughtfully wrote a squib (below) urging people to visit young Thomas Mills’ new website PoliticsNC – so I did. And got a surprise. Young Mr. Mills was – genially – taking me to task for writing how the Democrats passing voter laws (over the years) to elect Democrats, had led to Republicans (once they had power) doing the same thing to elect Republicans, which, taken altogether, was a pretty good example of how one sin begets another – the political version of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth with no remorse anywhere.
Mr. Mills didn’t mind me criticizing my own party but he didn’t particularly like me criticizing his party – the way he sees it, Republicans have done all the sinning while Democrats have done none at all. He made his case this way: Republicans are trying to pass laws that discourage people from voting while the Democrats, back in the days when they had power, had pursued a loftier goal: They’d passed laws to encourage more people to vote. Which sounds fine. Except that argument collapses in the face of one fact: Right in the middle of their lofty crusade to get more people to the polls, Democrats passed a law to make it more difficult for people to cast absentee ballots – because Republicans were more likely to vote that way than Democrats.
There’re other examples of Democrats changing laws to elect Democrats – like in the 1980 election: Locked in a tight race for US Senate, Democrats decided if a voter marked the block next to Republican John East’s name in the race for U.S. Senate, but, then, also marked the Straight Democratic ticket block on the same ballot, they wouldn’t throw the ballot out as spoiled – they’d count it as a vote for Democratic Senate candidate Robert Morgan.
Toward the end of his blog, Mr. Mills wrote, “Carter should know politics is about perception and the perception here is...” – well, the perception here is Republicans are “old, bigoted white guys.”
I don’t know of an idea that has done more harm in politics than the thought, Perception is what matters...it’s like saying, If I lie, cheat and steal, it doesn’t matter so long as people think I’m a walking breathing paragon of moral rectitude.
There's also an easy way to prove it’s a fiction to say ‘perception’ has the power to save a politician from the older truth that bad deeds breed consequences – just look at what’s happening in front of our eyes (over voter laws): Democrats sowed the wind and now they’re reaping the whirlwind and, in time, Republicans may reap an indigestible harvest as well.
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Carter Wrenn posted on April 16, 2013 10:32
For years Jesse Helms wrote every speech he made, typing each on an old reporter’s typewriter, then one year when he was unusually harried he decided it was time to hire a speechwriter – so we hired ‘John.’
John was an unusually gifted writer but for all his virtues he had a peculiar view of politics (and the world in general). John saw politics as one tiny pinnacle of pure white light populated with saints, surrounded by a pitch-black engulfing darkness filled with goblins and liberals who had to be exterminated and, since the saints were badly outnumbered, the way John saw it there was no room for the luxury mercy.
Of course the fearfulness of his vision meant he was angry a great part of the time and naturally, over time, his anger turned him mean.
For six months John diligently labored writing passionate and articulate speeches for Jesse then one day in December, as we walked to my car to go to lunch, John handed Jesse a speech and launched into a tirade about Christmas – he said Christmas was a greed-ridden desecration of the story of the Christ child, an abomination reeking of materialism, then tore into Santa Claus, saying Santa Claus was a hobgoblin invented by greedy shopkeepers to con little children – then he stepped in front of Jesse, turned to face him, and said, Somebody needs to stand up and tell those children the truth about Santa Claus – and pointed to that speech.
Not with the white-hot passion (born of fear or betrayal or meanness) of a common murderer but with the cold-calculated passion of a Grand Inquisitor ticking off the names of heretics John had proposed the murder of St. Nicholas.
Jesse stopped dead in his tracks, rocked back on his heels, looked back at John, and grinned, Well, if you don’t mind, I believe I’d as soon pass on running for the Senate by telling children there’s no Santa Claus.
Back in those days you could usually find a fellow like John in almost every town of any size but given the limits of geography and communications in those days it was nearly impossible for John to find (or share fellowship with) his natural political soul mates. He was sadly isolated and fought his political battles alone.
John passed on a decade ago but today his lineal descendents (not in blood but in politics) are happier because they’re no longer alone – modern day Johns build websites then with the click of a button other ‘Johns’ can find them and they form a tribe as bellicose as Huns.
The other day, without meaning to, a soft-spoken lady from Charlotte who’s one of the four Republican leaders in the House – Representative Ruth Samuelson – sent one of those Hun-tribes into a white-hot fury.
Back to 2007 a previous state legislature passed a bill to encourage companies to produce ‘renewable energy’ – like solar power – in North Carolina; hardly a word has been said about the bill for six years, until last week when State Representative Mike Hager stood up in a House Committee and announced that utility companies using solar power was adding millions of dollars to electric bills and he was going to put a stop to it by repealing that six-year-old bill.
Those two words – renewable energy – reverberated across the Internet with the power of a magnet and hit a tribe of Johns right squarely between the eyes. Because the one person they knew who favored renewable energy was Barack Obama. And that’s all they needed to know. No sooner had Mike Hager sounded the war tocsin than a full-throated battle cry filled the air and charges flew about the evil of government subsidies and the worse evil of government interfering with the free market – which in a way didn’t add up because utility companies are monopolies and there is no free market for selling electricity.
Then just when it looked like Representative Hager’s bill was sure to sail through that committee Ruth Samuelson stood up and politely said that it might be a good idea for legislators to stop and do a little research before voting.
About an hour after that one Hun-like tribe put a picture of Samuelson and a picture of another Republican legislator on its website alongside a picture of Obama then added a headline over the pictures roaring: They voted with Obama!
The way that tribe saw it Ruth Samuelson had gone over to the Dark Side or, worse, become a liberal – which didn’t add up either because how on earth could an Obama-liberal be one of the four Republican Leaders in the State House?
So I looked up that 2007 bill and an odd fact popped up right away: George Bush was President when that bill passed. Then a second fact leaped off the page: The most rock-ribbed conservative in the legislature, Phil Berger, had voted for that bill. As had Thom Tillis, Tom Apodaca, Skip Stam, Robert Pittenger and just about every other Republican in the General Assembly.
Whether that Hun-like tribe’s attack on Ruth Samuelson was cold-blooded calculation or hot-blooded rage there’s no getting around one more fact: It was an act of pure meanness – like when John told Jesse, You ought to tell little children there is no Santa Claus.
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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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