The Last Eight Days

Back in June, Gary wrote about an odd phenomenon: How, in the Presidential election, the candidate who dominated – who received the most press – dropped in the polls. It was as if voters thought, I dislike them both but the one I dislike most is the one I see most. Watching the Sunday morning…

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Just Fade Away?

Down in an office building in San Antonio there’re over a hundred Internet gnomes working day and night to elect Donald Trump; until now they’ve been flying below the radar screen but the other day they opened their doors and invited Bloomberg News inside and the result was a story that sent a tremor rolling…

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I hate yard signs

Most any political pro worth his or her salt will agree: Nothing in a campaign consumes more time, energy and discussion – to less avail – than yard signs. Candidates obsess about them. So do their families. And their strongest supporters. But no voter in the history of our democracy has ever seen a sign…

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Sic transit gloria mundi

That’s Latin for “Thus passes the glory of the world” – or, “Worldly things are fleeting.” But they’re not fleeting on roads and highways around the Triangle. There are just too many damn cars on the road. So Wake County is voting on a 10-year Wake Transit Plan that will: Triple bus service Start a…

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Adventures on CSPAN

You meet the most interesting people on CSPAN call-in shows. I did a 45-minute turn on Monday’s Washington Journal. We had callers from California, West Virginia, Oklahoma and exotic locales like Cary, Chapel Hill and Monroe. Now, I’m used to media interviews. The questions are usually about ads, polls, strategy and predictions. Not here. The…

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Hillary’s finest hour(s)

Donald Trump’s worst brought out Hillary Clinton’s best. The finest moments in her entire political life came in the last debate when, clad in white like an avenging angel, she slew the Donald dragon for his sexism, stood up unapologetically for all women and schooled us men about the right and wrong way to behave…

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Clutter

There’re two things about political ads a normal ‘Joe’ sitting at home watching TV could tell you that a lot of campaigns haven’t figured out – here’s an example: Americans for Prosperity just launched a new tv ad attacking Roy Cooper and like a lot of political ads it begins with a shadowy black and…

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JFK and me

Teresa Leonard’s Past Times feature in the N&O today took me back to a night in 1960 when, as an 11-year-old, I shook John F. Kennedy’s hand. The N&O reported on September 18, 1960: “A swarm of wet, cheering citizens almost mobbed Jack Kennedy in their enthusiasm as he entered Raleigh Saturday. “It happened at…

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Talking About Politics on CSPAN

Monday morning, I have the honor of being on CSPAN’s Washington Journal call-in show from 9:15-10. Please call in and ask me something easy. The host, Pedro Echevarria, wrote: “While we focus on the top-of-the-ticket race between Clinton and Trump, we also would want to focus on NC’s Senate race and topics such as voting…

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Rigged Elections

Donald Trump’s hammered away saying the election’s ‘rigged’ and 24 million people are registered improperly including 1.8 million dead people;— the first time I ever laid eyes on a list of registered voters back in 1976 it was filled with dead people and people who didn’t live at the address where they’d registered to vote.…

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