After all these years, I find out that Carter Wrenn is a liberal. He had me fooled â working for Jesse Helms, where he ran ads calling Jim Hunt a âMondale liberal.â Even after we became friends and worked together on some non-political projects, he maintained the façade of a crusty conservative. Now…
Read MoreThe News and Observer headline read, Thom Tillis pushed bill for donors. And the first line claimed Tillis had “muscled through” a bill so his donors could charge folks (who’re near the bottom of the 99%) 36% interest on loans. But here’s an odd fact: Not one Democratic legislator had a critical word…
Read MoreNear the end of the 1960 campaign, at the urging of civil rights aide Harris Wofford, John Kennedy called Coretta Scott King to offer his sympathy after Martin Luther King was jailed. Robert Kennedy exploded at Wofford: “You just lost us the election.” As it turned out, the call won JFK thousands of African-America…
Read MoreAmerica’s biggest problem is the economy. So, of course, national politics plunges into culture wars – or, more like, sex wars. I guess it’s because Republicans in Congress and Rick Santorum just can’t resist the lure of legislating morality. And maybe it’s because people know more about sex than about the economy. …
Read MoreLast week when I was standing in the back of the bookstore my cousin Winifred, who’s past eighty and pure steel magnolia, walked through the doorway and made a beeline straight to me and snapped, Were you at that convention? Last week at the Republican convention the Chairman, Susan Bryant, called Bev Perdue was…
Read MoreMaybe you think the legislature ought to cut taxes and spending a lot more. Or maybe you don’t like legislators requiring vaginal ultrasounds for women. Tough – for about 2 in 5 voters. John Frank of the N&O reported: “Nearly a quarter of the state legislature won re-election Wednesday without a single…
Read MoreAn eagle-eyed reader caught a typo on my blog “The Democratic Field” on the governor’s race. The first paragraph should have read: “Dan Blue’s decision NOT to run didn’t surprise many Democrats. They had seen him do this dance before.” I had left out “not.” As an old copy editor, I’m embarrassed. Not.…
Read MoreMy cousin Spencer sat down, opened the newspaper, stared at the headline and landed in a world where old white WASP’s (like him) are dinosaurs. Being a historian by avocation Spencer set about studying the collapse of WASPdom; at first he figured immigration (not modern immigration but old-fashioned immigration back in the 1820’s and…
Read MoreIn almost every any conversation about the Democratic governor’s race, somebody says something like: “Walter Dalton is a nice guy, but …. “ What follows “but…” is generally a variation of, well … “dull.” Not “dull” as in “not bright.” But “dull” as in “not exciting.” You’d think his name is Walter Dullton. …
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