Not long after President Obama pressed the go-button Kay Hagan chimed in, “The President and our military leadership have now developed a plan to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels and defeat ISIS with a sustained campaign of airstrikes.” Moderate Syrian rebels? Do you reckon such a creature really exists? Basing a military…
Read MoreMore telling than Kay Hagan’s overall lead in the polls may be her overwhelming lead with women. According to a Rasmussen Poll last week, Hagan leads Thom Tillis by six points, 45-39. But then it gets confusing. The poll said Hagan leads among women by 21 points, while Tillis leads among men by nine…
Read MoreBack in 1939 (when a varmint was on the loose) there was hardly a mother, father or wife around who felt enough fear or saw any good reason to send their sons or husbands to Europe to fight what looked like a modern version of the bubonic plague – which left Franklin Roosevelt facing a…
Read MoreA shadowy terrorist group with Dark Ages savagery and Digital Age media savvy beheads two journalists and posts a video. So – 13 years to the day after 9/11 – we’re off to war! Talking TV heads spin us into a frenzy. Democratic and Republican politicians race to the cameras to out-hawk each other.…
Read MoreWhen it comes to teacher pay, Republicans must feel like they’re pushing a truck up a hill with a rope. Thom Tillis claims the legislature passed a 7 percent pay raise. Then Governor McCrory sends teachers a letter telling them it’s a 5.5 percent average pay raise. Then teachers like Michelle Pettey in Wake…
Read MoreA TAPster unimpressed by the Hagan-Tillis debate says, “If you want to see a real debate, watch Jim Hunt debate Jesse Helms in 1984. That was like Ali and Frazier.” Ah, take me back to those thrilling days 30 years ago. Here’s a link so you can watch two heavyweight champs. (This is the…
Read MoreCandidates and their advisers spend a lot of time during debate prep thinking about how to address their opponent, so it was no happenstance that Tillis called Hagan “Kay” and she called him “Speaker Tillis.” Tillis didn’t want to give her the benefit of incumbency, so he took the risk of looking sexist and…
Read MoreThe Senate race is all about sex. It is Supportive Mommy against Stern Daddy. And the debate may make me amend my rule about how the most comfortable, confident and commanding person in the room always wins: Except when it’s a man against a woman and his “commanding” slips over into “condescending.” Thom…
Read MoreSeveral reporters have called to explore “what’s at stake” in tonight’s U.S. Senate debate and “what Hagan and Tillis have to do.” Well, the answer is a lot simpler than we make it sometimes in politics. The media will bravely try to focus on substance and whether either candidate “said something new.” (The…
Read More
