Archive for 2007
Meeker Majority Outrunning Their Mandate?
Election victories always carry the seeds of defeat. Because winners too often can’t help but overreach. Look at George Bush after 2004, Newt Gingrich after 1994, Bill Clinton after 1992. Go all the way back to FDR trying to pack the Supreme Court after his historic landslide in 1934. Mayor Charles Meeker’s new City Council…
Read MoreDebating Debate Strategy
When campaigns prep for debates, they have to decide which audience is most important: the inside media/politico audience or the voters. Hillary Clinton faced that choice this week. Thursday’s debate was crucial for her. She was bleeding, and the sharks (or piranhas) were circling. She chose to play to the media. Her team figured she…
Read MoreEasley Strafes Dole
A long-time friend of Governor Mike Easley once told me that – whatever else you say about him – Easley is a master of messaging. Senator Dole learned that this week. Easley dropped a well-timed bomb on Dole. He hit her on the Navy’s planned Outlying Landing Field with this quote: “It is time for…
Read MoreFred Smith’s Home-School Pander
Fred Smith’s clumsy play for the home-school crowd may be good Republican primary politics. But it’s Exhibit A for why Democrats will hold onto the Governor’s Office in 2008. In the three gubernatorial elections Republicans have won, their candidates ran as public-school champions: Jim Holshouser in 1972 and Jim Martin in 1984 and 1988. Since…
Read MoreBill Graham’s Fuzzy History
Bill Graham, the trial lawyer running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, has a loose grasp of North Carolina political history. Of course, why would a good trial lawyer let the facts keep him from scaring the GOP jury with the Hillary Clinton bogeywoman? Graham wrote in recent fundraising letter: “Mark my words. Hillary Clinton is…
Read MoreMukasey Dodges
Democrats asked the Attorney-General-hopeful-to-be Michael Mukasey a simple question: Do you think water-boarding is legal? That’s relevant. Timely. And important in the war on terrorism. And Mukasey wouldn’t give a straight answer. He wants to be in charge of enforcing America’s laws. But if you want to know his view on an issue more controversial…
Read MoreDeath of Home Tax?
You can call it the Land Transfer Tax. You can call it the Home Tax. Or you can just call it a dead duck. When an idea gets overwhelmingly rejected in 16 counties, as the home-sale tax did last Tuesday, its time clearly has not come. And won’t anytime soon. Realtors and Homebuilders spent $800,000…
Read MoreThe Monster is Back
After the federal Department of Transportation killed Mayor Meeker’s Triangle Transit Authority’s plan to spend a billion dollars to build lite-rail (because too few people would ride it) taxpayers heaved a sigh of relief. But the TTA didn’t fade quietly into the sunset. The monster is back. Leaders of a new Special Transit Advisory Commission…
Read MoreRiding the Log
The liberal-anti-growth-activists at WakeUpWake had an interesting election day. And a wake up call. WakeUpWake’s been vociferously urging voters to 1) elect candidates who oppose growth and 2) support ‘transfer taxes’ (taxing property sales) to pay for growth. Voters, apparently, saw the contradiction. They voted for slates of no-growth candidates – then they figured they…
Read MoreDemocratic Winds Blow South
This week’s elections in Virginia and Kentucky should be encouraging for North Carolina Democrats. Kentucky threw out a Republican incumbent and elected a Democratic governor. Of course, that can be blamed on the incumbent’s scandals. But also, Virginia elected a Democratic Senate for the first time in 12 years. A year after electing a Democratic…
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