The Democrats want to give North Carolina’s Electoral College votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote nationwide. Instead of to the candidate who wins North Carolina. The Republicans of course are up in arms, making the Electoral College sound as sacrosanct as the College of Cardinals. Is the Democratic plan partisan? Yes. Does…
Read MoreNorth Carolinians need look no further than Wednesday’s action by a state House Committee to confirm that the representatives are clueless about public dissatisfaction with the legislature. – Winston-Salem Journal May 21, 2007 Last week the State Board of Elections said Representative Thomas Wright had failed to report $220,000 in campaign donations. And that he…
Read MoreWith the passing of Jerry Falwell and the rise of Rudy Giuliani, is the Republican Party moving to the center while the Democratic Party moves to the left? That’s my nightmare scenario. Because the party of the center usually wins: witness Republicans in the 70s and 80s and Democrats in the 90s. I’ve reassured myself…
Read MoreWhatever fig leaf of credibility John Edwards had left is in tatters. Consider this report from a California blog. Edwards charges $55,000 to speak to UC Davis students about poverty. Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards, who recently proposed an educational policy that urged “every financial barrier” be removed for American kids who want to go…
Read MoreIn the last week gas prices have risen seventeen cents. They’ve risen thirty-four cents in the past month. The last time that happened the oil industry said it was Hurricane Katrina. Which made sense. The Gulf of Mexico is full of oil rigs. So the solution was to grin and bear it. But why are…
Read MoreSpeaker Pelosi and her leadership team sure looked beaten when they went before the press to explain – and defend – their deal with President Bush and the Republicans on Iraq. It’s easy to see why: they had surrendered on the fight for troop-withdrawal deadlines. Pelosi said she might vote against it herself. Congressmen Obey…
Read MoreRuss Stephenson, the at-large Raleigh city councilman, told my mother he hopes I’ll say something nice about him in my blog. So here goes. I’ve had some criticism of Russ. I think he – and too much of the current council – is too downtown-focused. As a Democrat, I’m concerned that Russ and some of…
Read MoreThe stables badly need cleaning in the North Carolina House of Representatives. And Speaker Joe Hackney needs to step up to the job. So far, he hasn’t. It’s past time he did. In a way, the situation is unfair to Hackney. He spent decades building a reputation as a clean, hard-working legislator. He finally achieved…
Read MoreTwo more reasons why George Bush reminds me of Richard Nixon more and more every day: His aides pressured an ailing and hospitalized Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2004 to sign off on a domestic-eavesdropping plan that the Justice Department believed was illegal. (I never thought it was possible to make Ashcroft a hero, but…
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