Archives

Categories

No Contrition in Sight Anywhere

By Carter Wrenn October 24, 2012

The election in North Carolina has moved from old fashioned elbow-throwing into a more interesting topic – sex.   When she lived in Pennsylvania Debra Goldman was a volunteer firefighter – then she moved to Raleigh, ran for School Board, won in the Republican sweep in 2009 and now she’s running for State Auditor.  …

Read More

GOP Follies and Fantasies

By Gary Pearce October 24, 2012

Democrats who worry about GOP control of state government can take heart: It won’t last long, judging from the Goldman-Malone mess.   It turns out that Republican Party leaders knew the whole tawdry and titillating tale, but still cleared the field for the School Board Soap Opera stars to run for higher office.   What…

Read More

Third Graders

By Carter Wrenn October 23, 2012

It made all the newspapers: Last week Mitt Romney announced he’s pulling staffers out of North Carolina, where he now has a lead, to send them to Ohio where the race is closer. It was perfectly rational. Romney has a little breathing room in North Carolina so he’s moving few people to another state he…

Read More

An Example of the Unexpected

By Carter Wrenn October 23, 2012

The other day Gary and I spoke at a luncheon and when Gary finished speaking he opened the floor for questions and, right off, a fellow stood up and asked, ‘So who’s going to win the election?’   It’s the question everyone’s asking and Gary gave him a great answer. He explained how in politics…

Read More

McCrory’s Scandal Response

By Gary Pearce October 23, 2012

If Pat McCrory is elected governor, he better get better at handling scandals. And he better hope that Debra Goldman and Chris Malone don’t get elected.   McCrory’s statement yesterday started right. His spokesman said he would reserve judgment on the “convoluted situation.” He should have stopped there.   But the spokesman went a bridge…

Read More

School Board Not Boring

By Gary Pearce October 22, 2012

All this time we thought firing the Wake schools superintendent was a juicy story. Who knew?   As the N&O’s Keung Hui wrote on his blog yesterday: “It’s not every day that one elected official accuses another of potentially committing a felony and then both tell police about their relationship.”   Especially when both are…

Read More

Ignore National Polls

By Gary Pearce October 19, 2012

National polls on the presidential race get a lot of media play, but they really tell us nothing about the race. This week, in fact, Obama adviser David Plouffe said the campaign doesn’t do any national polls.   Why should they? The national popular vote doesn’t matter. Electoral votes matter. You can get 51 percent…

Read More

McCrory Tax Plan ‘DOA’?

By Gary Pearce October 18, 2012

Front-running Pat McCrory may be doing the smart thing politically, but may also be planting land mines for a Governor McCrory.   Mark Binker of WRAL bore in with a story about Tuesday night’s debate that said: “McCrory didn’t describe how he would offset the tax cuts he proposes.”   Binker reported this exchange:  …

Read More

Obama Won, But…

By Gary Pearce October 17, 2012

Mitt Romney let an inexplicable obsession with Benghazi get him slapped down by Candy Crowley and slam-dunked by President Obama, but last night’s debate also showed why Democrats should still worry.   Let’s get this straight first: Ignore anybody who tells you these debates don’t matter. They matter big-time.   This was America’s first reality-show…

Read More

Categories

Archives

Recent Articles

Education Governor

By Gary Pearce March 13, 2025

With a better General Assembly, Josh Stein could join Jim Hunt and Terry Sanford on North…

Read More

The N&O Story

By Gary Pearce March 12, 2025

Once upon a time, there was a great and powerful newspaper: The News & Observer. Everybody…

Read More

How Democrats Win Again

By Gary Pearce March 10, 2025

The shouting, sign-waving and cane-wielding by congressional Democrats at the State of the Union isn’t a…

Read More