The Next Generation

  Gary is taking a break from blogging. Our guest Tapster today is Nation Hahn.  It has been clear for several years that the NC Democratic Party has failed to build a deep bench of future leaders. It has become ever more clear during the Chairman race in recent weeks as people have tried to…

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Among the Freshmen

  Gary is taking a break from blogging. Our guest Tapster today is Joe Stewart of JRS Strategy Group.   Part of my work as former Political Director at NC Chamber involved seeking out solid business-minded people to run for the General Assembly.   Someone I met in 2010 pursing this goal was Rick Catlin.…

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A Simple Prayer

  Gary is taking a break from blogging. Here’s one from another Tapster.   When the legislature makes its biennial return to town, our usual tendency is to ridicule the members’ narrow mindedness, laugh at their lack of political sophistication and hold our collective breath that they won’t destroy the state.   The gavel drops…

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A Train Wreck

The other day down at the News and Observer John Dresher wrote about the most enticing opening to an article I’ve seen in awhile. He wrote: “For their first date, Pat and Tiffany walk to a neighborhood diner for dinner. Pat orders Raisin Bran. Tiffany, perhaps already giving up on Pat, orders tea. They proceed…

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Wanted: Perfect Party Chair

  Our guest TAPster is Mark Ezzell, long time political observer and founder of Englewood Planning Group, a Raleigh-based public affairs firm:   I love a good Barack Obama speech as much as the next Democrat, but I always cringed when he used the banal sounding line “we are the ones we’ve been looking for’.…

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Talking About (Their) Generation

Gary is taking a break from blogging. Our guest today is Joe Stewart.   Currently reaching their 18th birthday at a rate of 13,000 a day, the 80 million-strong Generation Y (those born 1982 – 1995) will be the majority of the US workforce and a full third of the voting population by 2015. This…

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Big Thinking

When it comes to climbing up on a soap box and waving his arms and hollerin’ like a banshee there’s hardly anyone who can hold a candle to Newt Gingrich. But there’s a peculiar trait about people who talk a lot about their ‘bold ideas’— when you boil away their highfalutin rhetoric a lot of…

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Two Views of the World

Gary is taking a break from blogging. Our guest blogger today is Nation Hahn.   In recent weeks North Carolinians have heard two inaugural addresses. One, from Governor Pat McCrory spoke to “Unlimited Opportunity.” The other, from President Barack Obama, was a call for the “country’s reasonable majority” to act.   For North Carolina Democrats,…

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McCrory’s Mouthpiece

Gary is taking a break from blogging.  Today’s pinch-hitter one of our Tapsters.   The choice of a press secretary is a blip on the personnel radar of North Carolina’s new governor, but this choice provides insight into the kind of governor Pat McCrory may become.   McCrory’s choice for media mouthpiece has plenty of…

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Old-Fashioned Tolerance

The other day one of my more peculiar Jesuit friends emailed me an article written fifty years ago by Bishop Fulton Sheen who, contemplating the sharks and villains of his era, had lamented, ‘Our country is not so much overrun with the bigoted as it is with the broad-minded.’   After glancing at the opening…

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