Archive for 2010
How the Government Really Works: A Train Wreck IV
The Rest Home lobby must have one of the most powerful – or lucky – lobbies in North Carolina. A few years ago, Congress passed a bill to give states the flexibility to care for elderly Medicaid patients in their homes instead of in Rest Homes and almost every state jumped at the opportunity…
Read MoreShameless Self-Promotion
Rick Martinez, news director with WPTF radio (680AM), taped an interview with me this week about my biography of Governor Jim Hunt. It airs on Carolina Newsmaker Sunday at 7 am (which he said is one of their highest-rated shows. Go figure). I confess I had some reservations before the interview. I had never…
Read MoreGood News
Things are looking up for us news hawks. These days, I have to read my favorite daily newspaper very s-l-o-w-l-y to make it last through breakfast. But as soon as I turn on my computer, I have two new websites to go to for more political fodder: M2M Politics (“Covering North Carolina Politics…
Read MoreWho’s the ‘Fruit Loop’?
What’s with this Republican obsession with gays? There’s state Rep. Larry Brown, who emailed legislators about “queers” and “fruit loops.” There’s Carl Paladino, the GOP candidate for governor in New York, who makes Brown look charitable. And there were all the gay slurs in the last race for North Carolina Republican Party chair. …
Read MoreDesert Crosses, Crusaders’ Flags and Nose Piercing
Back in 1934 for reasons no one has explained the Veterans of Foreign Wars decided to build a sole wooden cross – as a memorial to soldiers who died in World War I – in the Mohave Desert, where hardly a soul would see it. The cross stood peacefully atop Sunrise Rock for six…
Read More‘Throw ’em Out’
An astute observer poses this question about Elaine Marshall’s new ad: “How do Democrats like David Price and Bob Etheridge feel about her saying it’s time to throw out the Washington politicians?” Well, for Democrats this year, it’s obviously every man – and woman – for themselves. Marshall’s ad is simple and inexpensive,…
Read MoreHow Government Really Works: A Train Wreck III
After Lanier Cansler figured out how to end run the Medicaid appeals process (so he could cut patients’ home care pretty much however he wanted) he was ready to take the next step. He’d already given CCME Corporation (his former client from his lobbying days) a $25 million no bid contract, so all he…
Read MoreTruth in Polling
Ferrel Guillory – along with his colleagues and students in the Program on Public Life at UNC’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication – has published a useful guide to political polls. Get it at their website here. This is timely, given the plethora of polls today, the extensive media coverage they get and…
Read MoreThe Forgotten Issue
Back when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, we figured fightin’ was going to be the key to winning the war, so we told General McArthur to charge and keep charging and not to worry about the amount of havoc he wrecked until the Japanese were whipped. In the same vein in 1944 and ’45…
Read MoreBad Sign
Whenever a politician or party talks about “mobilizing the base” in the final weeks of a campaign, you know they’re in trouble. That’s exactly where President Obama and the Democrats are, as this story from the New York Times noted: “With four weeks until Congressional elections that will shape the remainder of his…
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