Archive for 2011
Rx for Raleigh
Tom Fetzer must feel like the baseball scout who discovered Derek Jeter. Randall Williams looks like a consultant’s dream candidate for mayor of Raleigh. He’s an ob-gyn who’s done humanitarian work in Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti. He’s a fresh face and a fiscal conservative. He has no political baggage (or, judging from the N&O…
Read MoreGOP Apocalypse Again?
Clearly, the Republican adults in Washington don’t want to drive off the shut-down-government cliff again. They remember how well that worked for Newt Gingrich in 1995 – and led directly to President Clinton’s reelection in 1996. The leaders’ problem is they can’t control the Tea Party kids who keep grabbing the steering wheel, with…
Read MoreCarter and the Holding Co.
With George Holding’s name, money and prosecutorial profile – plus Carter’s brain – he has to be the odds-on favorite to win the Republican 13th District nomination. News of which makes AG Roy Cooper the happiest man in Raleigh today. But bad news for Senator Berger’s son and the other aspirants – including…
Read MoreMulling Over Moldova
Was there much mystification among the Moldovan (Moldavian? Moldovar?) muckedy-mucks who mustered last month to meet the American Secretary of State, only to find that instead of Hillary Clinton it was Elaine Marshall? A cynical, but funny, TAPster took aim at Secretary Marshall’s “laughable idiocy” for her visit to Moldova, where she met with…
Read MoreRedistricting and Ruin
You can draw a straight line connecting the big political stories in Raleigh and Washington this week: redistricting in Raleigh and the debt stalemate in Washington. Itâs a cliché â but itâs nonetheless true â that under todayâs redistricting system voters donât pick their politicians; politicians pick their voters. And, yes, both Democrats and…
Read MoreJurors for Sale
Two of my PR friends considered it unethical for Raleigh PR exec Rick French to shop around the offer of “Juror Number Six” in the Casey Anthony trial to talk to the media – for $50,000. Just to be contrary, I posed this contrary question: “What’s wrong with the jurors cashing in? Everybody else…
Read MoreOverriding Politics
This is going to be fun. North Carolina joins the states that have “veto override sessions.” It’s uncharted territory. Nobody here has much experience with this kind of thing. We’ll learn fast. And move fast if, as Speaker Tillis promised, the session lasts only four days. Last I saw, Governor Perdue had…
Read MoreTAPsters Explained
A kind reader emailed this week: “I enjoy your blog. What’s a TAPster?” A TAPster is my version of a Tipster. TAP is for “Talking About Politics.” Plus, I promised to buy a beer for anyone who sends me material that I post, which saves me the trouble of doing my own thinking and…
Read MoreDavid vs Goliath
Folks used to say, You can’t fight City Hall, but these days City Hall down in Stanly County is having a tough time battling a multi-national corporation. Back in the 1950’s the federal government granted Alcoa a ‘license’ that gave it control of part of the Yadkin River for the next 50 years. Alcoa…
Read MoreObama’s Summer
Things are looking dim for President Obama. His poll numbers are lagging along with the nation’s economic numbers. He’s locked in three Middle East wars and a war with Republicans in Washington. Now he’s got Democrats and the AARP mad because he’s willing to cut Social Security and Medicare to get a budget deal. …
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