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…
Read MoreMonday 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…
Read MoreDonald 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.…
Read MoreAs this sad, dispiriting campaign winds down, one man looks like he’s having fun: President Obama. You see it when he speaks at rallies, when he chides Trump for “whining” and when he pokes fun at himself in interviews. So here are the imagined ruminations of the President during one of those late nights at…
Read MoreDonald Trump soundly defeated Donald Trump last night. For a while at the start, Republicans had reason to hope he would arrest the free fall. Then Trump slipped out of his handlers’ leash. Or the drugs wore off. And again we saw the real Donald Trump. The headline, of course, is that he is the…
Read MoreThe ‘Last Great Debate’ starts in a few hours. In a nutshell a political debate like this one boils down to a simple fact: It’s a confrontation between two people – who’re facing each other across a stage – who each want to prove he or she will be a better President or Governor or…
Read MoreAs Donald Trump continues to escape Earth orbit, Hillary Clinton’s election appears increasingly likely. Yet…why do we still fear that Trump will turn into an asteroid, slam into us on Election Day and pulverize life as we know it? Let’s look at two exhibits. In a perceptive analysis, Dan Balz of the Washington Post wrote…
Read MoreWhat should Clinton and Trump do tonight? Tim Funk of the Charlotte Observer put that question to several North Carolina talking heads, including Carter and me. Read “Here’s what NC experts say Clinton, Trump need to do in last-chance debate.”
Read MoreNot that long ago, Carter and I didn’t know what a podcast was. Now we’re on one. We talked for about an hour last week with Jeff Tiberii of WUNC Radio. You can listen here. Jeff asked us about most everything in this year’s elections – from President to the legislature. He tried to keep…
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