The word that keeps popping up when people describe the atmosphere at the legislature is “mean.” “Everybody you pass in the halls is either somebody who screwed you or somebody you hate,” said one aide to a Republican leader. “It’s all about revenge, Republicans getting even for all those years out of power,” said…
Read MoreCarter and I will be guests on WUNC radio’s “State of Things” at noon Friday. We’re told the topics are “Jim Holshouser’s legacy and the changing Republican Party/state politics.” Of course, we’ll talk about whatever crosses our minds.
Read MoreThom Tillis said he was running for Senate and as soon as he got the words out of his mouth Greg Brannon, the Libertarian doctor who’s also running, let fly with a broadside calling Tillis “yet another in a long line of career politicians eager to take the next step on the ladder of political…
Read MoreEarlier this year there was a lot of moaning and gnashing of teeth about the terrible Sequester spending cuts – listening to the politicians up in Washington you’d have thought the government was teetering on its last legs, on the brink of financial Armageddon, staring doom in the face. President Obama even said the…
Read MoreLooking at the Great Republican Rollback, Democrats are tempted to attack on every front: taxes, Medicaid, teacher pay, jetty ban, Jordan Lake, Child Fatality Task Force, Rural Center, Racial Justice, voter ID, jobless benefits, campaign financing, etc., etc. Focus, people. In politics, to say 10 things – or even two things – is…
Read MoreThe newspaper set out to land a Democratic shark. And landed a Republican whale instead. The roots of the News and Observer story run back 26 years – to when Jim Martin was Governor. Back then the Democrats in the legislature decided, instead of letting Martin pass out what’s euphemistically called ‘Economic Development Grants,’…
Read MoreThey don’t make Republicans like Jim Holshouser anymore. Big pay raises for teachers? Statewide kindergartens? Coastal Management Act? Rural health centers? Expansion of the state park system? More African-Americans and women in government? Help for black business enterprises? They’d throw him out of the party today. Actually, they did in 1976. As Rob…
Read MoreThe Democrats have gotten plenty fired up about the ‘Moral Monday’ protests down at the state legislature – even an old war horse like Gary, catching a whiff of grapeshot in the air, rode to the sound of the guns, defending the protestors from a broadside by Governor McCrory. But, in another way, all…
Read MoreIt took the critics no time to pounce on the news that John Edwards is opening a new law firm. A Republican friend e-mailed: “Is it a coincidence that Edwards reactivated his license, set up a speaking engagement, and leaked the idea of a new firm all within weeks of Mark Sanford’s return to…
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Once upon a time, there was a great and powerful newspaper: The News & Observer. Everybody…
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Curmudgeonly Cajun James Carville says Democrats just need to “roll over and play dead” and wait…
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