Another Victim

I told myself I wouldn’t post another word about John Edwards.   But then I spent an hour on the phone with a disillusioned former staffer from Edwards’ presidential campaign.   This young man now finds himself unemployable. “Former John Edwards staffer” doesn’t look so good on a resume.   He began to have doubts…

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A Young Man in a Political Maze

When Ruffin Poole was twenty-five years old and fresh out of law school he went to work for Mike Easley; he’s thirty-seven now and indicted for 51 counts of everything from extortion to racketeering and could go to prison for 85 years.   What went wrong – for a small town boy from Kinston? For…

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Mirror, Mirror…

No one was much surprised when John Edwards fessed up and said he was the father of Rielle Hunter’s daughter – but nothing involving John Edwards ever seems to run along the straight and narrow path and sure enough there was an odd line in Edwards’ confession that twisted contrition into a knot.   Here’s…

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Handcuffed

I don’t know Ruffin Poole well, but he never struck me as a fellow who posed a physical danger to the populace.   So why did the feds force him to make a well-photographed “perp walk” in cuffs?   I put that question to a Democratic lawyer friend of mine who has done considerable work…

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Bev’s Buzzwords

“The jobs governor.”   “Setting government straight.”   “Career and college – ready, set, go.”   “Safe communities.”   You may as well get familiar with all these phrases. You’ll be hearing them from Governor Perdue – presumably for a good while.   Team Perdue has carved out those words as her roadmap to political…

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A Formidable Opponent

President Obama showed anew Wednesday night why he got elected – and why he remains the dominant political talent in America today.   His speech was masterful. His tone was perfect. And he smilingly skewered a range of targets – Republicans, Democrats, Supreme Court, big banks, you name it.   But his positioning was even…

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The Artful Dodger

I don’t recall hardly ever seeing eye to eye with State Representative Mickey Michaux but the other day he hit the nail on the head.   Governor Perdue’s favorite Cabinet Secretary Lanier ‘The Artful Dodger’ Cansler traipsed over to the legislature for a meeting and after a fair amount of hemming and hawing admitted he…

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Prime Time Player?

Once you get past the dishing about Sarah Palin, John Edwards, et al in the book Game Change, you learn a few things.   Like about President Obama.   That he’s like a basketball player who wants the ball when the game is on line.   That he has supreme confidence he can rise to…

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That’s His Story…

Coming out of a meeting over in the state legislature Senate Kingpin Marc Basnight ran head on into a gaggle of reporters and right off someone asked if it wasn’t a bit underhanded for Basnight to appropriate $25 million for a new fishing pier at Nags Head and then have his own construction company build…

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Brad, Bernie and the Banks

Congressman Brad Miller is never the happiest of warriors. But this year could raise his angst to new levels.   Miller worries in the Greensboro News & Record that – thanks to the Supreme Court’s corporate-campaign ruling – he might be the target of bank-sponsored attacks.   “I’ve made a real nuisance of myself to…

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