18,000 Teachers
May 5, 2011 - by
For two years Governor Perdue’s been face to face battling an enemy (let’s name her enemy ‘Problems’ – meaning she’s been fighting with faceless abstractions like deficits, unemployment and recessions rather than flesh and blood people) and she’s been losing at every turn.
But now she’s face to face with a new enemy: Republicans. And things are looking a lot better. Republicans are a lot easier to whip than ‘Problems.’
The two particular Republicans Perdue has been face to face with are House Speaker Thom Tillis and Senate Leader Phil Berger and she’s more than holding her own.
Speaker Tillis may be rolling his budget through the State House, flattening Democratic Leader Joe Hackney like Sherman marching through Georgia but Tillis’ real problem isn’t out-voting Hackney it’s out-politikin’ Perdue.
Because somehow after two years of chirruping the Governor’s found a voice and the first thing she did was use it to define the budget debate by saying, Here’s your choice: I’ll extend the ‘temporary’ sales tax so we don’t have to cut education $900 million – Thom Tillis and Phil Berger won’t.
And unfortunately for Tillis and Berger the Governor’s convinced voters she’s dead right.
Just as odd, after two years of being so unpopular that half the Democrats have been saying she’s a poor Governor, Perdue’s found a road to political resurrection. Every time she’s vetoed a Tillis-Berger bill part of her Democratic base has come whooping home (wearing partisan war paint) and if she just keeps on vetoing, before long, she’ll gain another twenty points on her job approval ratings with Democrats and, voila, her base will be intact and any North Carolina Democrat running for Governor with an intact base is a threat to win reelection.
Sadly, on the other hand, for Republican legislators the budget debate has gotten so one-sided all they can do is stick to their guns and take their licking. Instead of a fight over wasteful spending Perdue’s tied Tillis in such knots it sounds like he thinks some of his own cuts are a shame.
For instance as soon as Tillis took the microphone at his press conference Monday the press opened fire saying, You are cutting 18,000 teacher’s jobs – explain how that makes sense. Tillis didn’t fire right back saying ‘Here’s how’ – instead he grumbled, We are not cutting 18,000 teachers – we’re only cutting 7,000 – which sounded a lot like saying ‘we’ve only done 7,000 bad things.’
When Perdue’s debating the Speaker of the House about the budget and he says, We didn’t do as much harm as she says – it’s a pretty clear sign who’s winning the debate.
18,000 Teachers
May 5, 2011/
For two years Governor Perdue’s been face to face battling an enemy (let’s name her enemy ‘Problems’ – meaning she’s been fighting with faceless abstractions like deficits, unemployment and recessions rather than flesh and blood people) and she’s been losing at every turn.
But now she’s face to face with a new enemy: Republicans. And things are looking a lot better. Republicans are a lot easier to whip than ‘Problems.’
The two particular Republicans Perdue has been face to face with are House Speaker Thom Tillis and Senate Leader Phil Berger and she’s more than holding her own.
Speaker Tillis may be rolling his budget through the State House, flattening Democratic Leader Joe Hackney like Sherman marching through Georgia but Tillis’ real problem isn’t out-voting Hackney it’s out-politikin’ Perdue.
Because somehow after two years of chirruping the Governor’s found a voice and the first thing she did was use it to define the budget debate by saying, Here’s your choice: I’ll extend the ‘temporary’ sales tax so we don’t have to cut education $900 million – Thom Tillis and Phil Berger won’t.
And unfortunately for Tillis and Berger the Governor’s convinced voters she’s dead right.
Just as odd, after two years of being so unpopular that half the Democrats have been saying she’s a poor Governor, Perdue’s found a road to political resurrection. Every time she’s vetoed a Tillis-Berger bill part of her Democratic base has come whooping home (wearing partisan war paint) and if she just keeps on vetoing, before long, she’ll gain another twenty points on her job approval ratings with Democrats and, voila, her base will be intact and any North Carolina Democrat running for Governor with an intact base is a threat to win reelection.
Sadly, on the other hand, for Republican legislators the budget debate has gotten so one-sided all they can do is stick to their guns and take their licking. Instead of a fight over wasteful spending Perdue’s tied Tillis in such knots it sounds like he thinks some of his own cuts are a shame.
For instance as soon as Tillis took the microphone at his press conference Monday the press opened fire saying, You are cutting 18,000 teacher’s jobs – explain how that makes sense. Tillis didn’t fire right back saying ‘Here’s how’ – instead he grumbled, We are not cutting 18,000 teachers – we’re only cutting 7,000 – which sounded a lot like saying ‘we’ve only done 7,000 bad things.’
When Perdue’s debating the Speaker of the House about the budget and he says, We didn’t do as much harm as she says – it’s a pretty clear sign who’s winning the debate.