Hagan, Dole and the 90s

WRAL’s Mark Binker says the claim that Senator Kay Hagan votes with President Obama 95 percent of the time is “something of karmic payback for Hagan, who benefited from a similar claim leveled against then-Sen. Elizabeth Dole in 2008.”   There is a little-noted back story to the Dole ad: It wasn’t really about voting…

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Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Before a hurricane brushed the coast, Governor McCrory warned us not to put on our “stupid hats.” Then Hillary Clinton criticized President Obama’s foreign policy for not being more visionary than “don’t do stupid stuff.”   Well, call me stupid, but I’m so confused by the world today that “don’t do stupid stuff” sounds pretty…

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The Next Big Issue?

When the pollster asked voters, Who should pay for the coal ash cleanup, Duke Energy or consumers? the answer came back loud and clear: Voters had no doubt. Almost to a man they said Duke Energy.   Now that didn’t mean that was the right – or fair – answer.   But it did mean…

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GOP Tsunami Watch

It’s refreshing to see real brains working on the other side of the political aisle, rather than just mouths mouthing talking points. (In fact, it’s refreshing to see that on your own side.)   So this “Tsunami Watch” memo by my Republican pollster friend John McLaughlin and his brother Jim caught my eye. The subhead…

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Obama’s Summer Bummer

Ten years ago this month, Barack Obama first streaked across the political skies with a rousing Democratic Convention speech in which he famously proclaimed there wasn’t a red America and a blue America, only one United States of America.   Today President Obama presides over an America bitterly divided between red and blue. He doesn’t…

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The First 1 Million

You had to be here in the 1950s to appreciate how much Raleigh and Wake County have changed on the way to one million people. And, to this old-timer, it’s a much better place today.   We were poor, provincial, rural and racist to the core. Today we’re affluent, global in outlook, urban and suburban,…

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Senate Ads Are Working

As much as I respect Rob Christensen and the political experts he talked with in today’s column, I disagree with their conclusion that the money spent in the U.S. Senate race has had “little effect.”   In fact, I think the ads by Senator Hagan – and on her behalf – have painted Thom Tillis…

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Thin Ice

According to the Census Bureau, back in the fall of 2011 without knowing it we crossed a kind of Rubicon.   Back then – during the last quarter of 2011 – 101,716,000 people had full time jobs while 108,592,000 people were receiving payments from welfare programs and, if that sounds like skating across thin ice,…

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The Peculiar Issue Isn’t…

About one minute after sitting down Sean launched off into a tirade saying the border children ought to all be shipped home – then he stopped and was asked, Suppose one of those children fled El Salvador (or wherever) because she’d been repeatedly gang-raped – would you send her home too?   He said, Absolutely.…

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Three Strikes

Republicans strode up to the plate in Raleigh with big bats and high hopes, then whiffed on three straight pitches.   Strike one was teacher pay. Their top goal was to stop the bleeding on education. But their so-called pay raise was so full of holes, questions and confusion that nobody is satisfied, teachers are…

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