My blog about the capital press corps – and how its coverage of the Alcoa story might have been influenced by UNC-TV’s Eszter Vajda – brought this response from Scott Mooneyham of The Insider/Capitol Press Association. I think it’s worth reprinting in full. Background: I had quoted a blog by Laura Leslie about how…
Read MoreA Republican lobbyist friend has some advice for GOP legislators if they win the House and Senate this year: demand a recount. “They’ll inherit the worst budget mess in history,” she says. Two years spent wrestling with that mess – and making the cuts that would be required to read their lips: no…
Read MoreLet’s pass on talking about politics today and talk about something I know nothing about: Economics. My friend Richard, who’s a banker, just sent me a book called The Forgotten Man about the Depression. Now, normally, I’d run from a book about economics but Ms. Amity Shlaes has written a fascinating story about New…
Read MoreHave I missed it? Or has somebody done – and released – a poll of Wake County voters on the school debate? Most people I run into take it as a matter of faith that the board’s new direction reflects a minority opinion in the county. True, it was the election for just…
Read MoreThere are two kinds of political leaders: uniters and dividers. Barack Obama is a uniter; Sarah Palin, a divider. Jim Hunt was a uniter; Jesse Helms, a divider. Ronald Reagan was a uniter; George W. Bush, a divider. Dividers can succeed in politics. But they don’t leave lasting legacies of accomplishment. The…
Read MoreThere’s an old joke that the most dangerous place to be in an election year is between a politician and a TV camera. This year, the most dangerous place may be in any group regulated by Secretary of State Elaine Marshall. Her Senate campaign got big headlines today by promising to investigate sports…
Read MoreLaura Leslie of North Carolina Public Radio-WUNC is a great reporter and one of my favorite bloggers. She recently had a post about the capital media that is worth attention. Since 2004, she wrote, the legislative press corps’ ranks have dropped from 20-something to, at the end of this year’s session, eight. That brought…
Read MoreForty years ago, I took part in an antiwar protest at the State Capitol after KentState. Yesterday, my 17-year-old daughter took part in the Wake schools protest at the Capitol. So I’ve been amused by Carter’s blogs about teenagers being “used” by adults angry at the new school board’s assignment policy. My experience…
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