Money to Burn

Amid the turmoil and hard times, when 47% of the Americans depend on government for support, it came as a surprise to open the newspaper and read Raleigh is spending $60 million on a train station.   Medicare is, with mathematical certainty, heading to bankruptcy. Social Security is not far behind. And the government in…

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The Story Line…

There is a lot of sound and fury in the press – the latest storyline on the Presidential race reads: ‘Romney Stumbles,’ ‘Romney Sinks,’ ‘Romney Running Out of Time.’ Former Bush campaign aide Mark McKinnon wrote Romney ‘has dug his hole so deeply now, I don’t know if he can pull himself out.’   In…

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Loose Lips

The downside of drawing safe districts is that you get unsafe candidates. Like Republican House candidate Debra Conrad, who told a group in Winston-Salem: “Unfortunately, the more money you raise and give to the speaker, the better committee assignment you get.”   Her comments were reported in YES! Weekly by Jordan Green. They came Tuesday…

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Radical Extremists in the Suburbs

If Mitt Romney feels like he’s up to his hips in alligators – he ought to consider the alligators that have chomped down on poor Tony Tata.   Two years ago, the newly elected Republican School Board made short shift of the old School Superintendent and hired Tata. Then the Democrats won the next election…

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Taking Out Tata

Even strong Democrats believe the Wake school board flunked this test. The board majority may have done the right thing, but they sure did it the wrong way. And Democrats may pay the price.   It was a mistake to fire Tony Tata without first setting out a bill of particulars. You can’t fire a…

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Rocking for Rouzer

It’s a fad: Paul Ryan put his mother on TV, then David Rouzer put his grandmother on TV, then Tom Murray (who’s running for State House) put his mother in a TV ad. So which will folks say, ‘No one knows him better than his mother’ – or – ‘Does that mean he couldn’t get…

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On Her Wavelength

Imagine Mitt Romney, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton sitting in a room together, listening to a pollster describing the mythical undecided voter, saying: She’s forty-six years old. She grew up on a farm or in a working class neighborhood. She’s a working mother now with two children, living in the suburbs. She’s pro-choice. And she’s…

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Mitt Gets Real

The worst wounds in politics are self-inflicted. After a week, it’s clear that Mitt Romney inflicted a doozy on himself when he got carried away about the “47 percent” at that high-flying Florida fundraiser.   Voters today are sophisticated consumers of political messages. They know political ads lie. They know that every word a candidate…

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Our Scientific Poll Shows…

It’s been a long hard fought political war – for years the folks over at the Civitas Institute have been racing the liberals at Public Policy Polling (who seem to be able to churn out a poll every five minutes) to see who could bombard the newspapers with the most propaganda disguised as polling.  …

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Out of the Battle

I’m just back from several days in Northern California: spectacular rocky coastlines, innumerable wineries, gut-wrenching mountain roads, falling-apart expressways, low humidity, bohemian lifestyles – and no presidential election.   That’s an exaggeration. They have an election, too. But no suspense. California’s 55 electoral votes are already counted toward Obama’s goal of 270. He and Mitt…

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