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RTP On the Road

By Gary Pearce November 14, 2012

Pardon me for plugging an old friend, but you should check out what’s happening at the Research Triangle Park under new President & CEO Bob Geolas.   Last week, the Park rolled out its new master plan. It envisions more urban-type centers to complement the consummate campus setting. New companies, new talent and new minds…

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Boehner Offers a Compromise

By Carter Wrenn November 13, 2012

The day after the election House Republican Leader John Boehner faced a tough question: Would he compromise with Obama or not? It was a Hobson’s Choice. Either way he was walking into a political minefield.   In the end Speaker Boehner threw what looked like a compromise on the table – in effect, saying to…

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Dalton’s Etheridge Problem

By Gary Pearce November 13, 2012

A TAPster asks a good question:   “Why does nobody, or certainly almost nobody, mention Bob Etheridge by name when describing the factors that lead to Walter Dalton’s defeat? While Etheridge certainly wasn’t the sole source of Dalton’s problems, Etheridge certainly sucked every last dollar out of Dalton’s bank account thru early summer, leaving Dalton…

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The Biased Media?

By Carter Wrenn November 13, 2012

Over on The Atlantic magazine’s website the liberal reporters were having a happy day after the election but not, as you’d expect, by celebrating Obama’s victory – instead, they were having a fine time ribbing conservative pundits from Ann Coulter to Karl Rove because they had said the polls that showed Obama leading Mitt Romney…

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Revenge of the Nerds

By Gary Pearce November 13, 2012

This election’s winners include not only data nerds like Nate Silver, but also the Obama campaign’s numbers-crunchers. Wasn’t data analysis supposed to be Romney’s strength at Bain and the Olympics?   The Obama staff – parodied as a bunch of soft-headed, socialist community organizers – were precise and efficient in their targeting and resource allocation.…

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Why Republicans Lost Nationally?

By Carter Wrenn November 12, 2012

Last Tuesday, nationally, was a pretty fine day for Democrats: President Obama not only won, Democrats gained Senate seats, House seats, four states voted for gay marriage and two states voted for legalizing medical marijuana.   Since the morning after the election the TV and newspaper pundits have been gesticulating furiously over who’s to blame…

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Red State Blues

By Gary Pearce November 12, 2012

Why was North Carolina a bright spot in an otherwise dark day for Republicans nationally?   Were my Republican consultant friends – Carter, Luther Snyder, Tom Fetzer, Paul Shumaker and Jack Hawke – that much smarter than their colleagues across the country?   Or was it just a weird confluence of circumstances: a governor’s race…

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Clarifying Mysteries

By Carter Wrenn November 9, 2012

Back in the enlightened 1970’s when I was in college the powers-that-be at UNC gave me a hard choice: They told me I could take either a foreign language or math, but I had to learn one or the other. It was a choice between two poisons. I took foreign language and promptly failed French,…

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Bad Start, Pat

By Gary Pearce November 9, 2012

Yesterday I wrote nice things about Governor-elect McCrory. But his entrance onto the Raleigh stage this week wasn’t a good one.   Look at it this way: McCrory has a strong brand in North Carolina right now. He just won big. He gets the benefit of the winner’s glow. He should milk that political capital.…

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