Posts by Carter Wrenn
Partisanship
North Carolina’s most famous Democrat, Jim Hunt, ran for statewide office six times and each time gave the liberal Democrat running for President a wide berth – and so did Mike Easley when he ran in 2000 (Al Gore) and 2004 (John Kerry). And no one thought much of it. But now two Democratic…
Read MoreHow Politics Works
It probably seemed like a good idea at the time: A group of people building a swimming complex in Cary hired an architect, Kenn Gardner, who was also a County Commissioner, who as Commissioner had been advocating for a government subsidy for their complex. But, in the end, it didn’t work out well at…
Read More2, 7 or 12?
In the old days there were only around a dozen political pollsters in the whole country and men like Lance Tarrance and Arthur Finkelstein spent years bent over poll books looking for trends and subtle enigmas and if you were in politics – like Tom Ellis and Jesse Helms and me – what they learned…
Read MoreThe Master of the Deal
In 2010 Governor Perdue steered Democrats to defeat, in 2011 the Republicans in the Legislature pounded her, and in 2012 she announced she was not running for reelection. Speaker Thom Tillis has had his own problems: Two of his aides had affairs with lobbyists, Tillis declared nothing untoward (beyond adultery) was going on, then…
Read MoreHow Washington Sets Policy
How Washington went about setting health care policy is for more erudite minds than mine but here goes: Tom, Dick and Harry rolled into the ER in ambulances and each was having a heart attack – Tom’s so poor he couldn’t afford to buy health insurance, Dick could almost afford it but not quite,…
Read MoreOwning it All
It happens on Wall Street: A tycoon calls an eager young executive into his office and hands him a job to do (like selling Facebook stock) and says, This is your responsibility – you ‘own’ it. Three years into the ‘Great Recession’ no politician in his right mind wants to ‘own the economy.’ It…
Read MoreHow Government Works
When Dr. Craigon Gray headed Medicaid in North Carolina he didn’t care much for home health care – he would tell anyone who’d listen how home health care was riddled with fraud. Now a lot of folks suspected Dr. Gray’s animus towards home care (and his preference for sending elderly people to nursing homes)…
Read More36 Years Too Late
Venerated Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, who is seventy-eight years old, just faced his first primary in three decades – a Tea Party opponent ran against him who said Washington could do with one less politician who’d spent years voting for more debt and more spending. Senator Hatch weathered the storm but, then, after the…
Read MoreSimple Politics
When you boil out all the hollering and gnashing of teeth the Presidential campaign’s pretty simple. Romney says, Obama’s sunk the economy. He doesn’t deserve re-election. Then Obama says, Look at Romney’s record as Governor of Massachusetts. No matter how bad I’ve done – he’d do worse. Then Obama adds, And look at what Romney…
Read MorePicking Winners and Losers?
One of the problems no one’s ever been able to solve as far as politics goes is how to stop one group of folks from using the government to get their hands on another group of folks’ money. For instance, back when President Obama gave green-energy-company-gone-bankrupt-Solyndra government subsidies, Republicans cried foul and said what…
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