Posts by Carter Wrenn
Joe Hackney One Ups Tony Rand
There’s an apocryphal story about the penultimate political Insider, Tony Rand, debating Jim Gardner during the Lt. Governor’s race in 1988;–in the middle of the debate Gardner was giving Rand (and the other Democratic insiders in Raleigh) the blazes for negotiating secret budget deals behind closed doors, saying, The whole state budget was written in…
Read MoreThe Meltdown
Governor Perdue’s is having the political equivalent of a meltdown;—yesterday a liberal pollster wrote that she is now more unpopular than any Governor he’s polled in the country. Her job approval is lower than Congress’s; in six months her popularity’s fallen further than President Bush’s did in seven years. The meltdown is so complete she’s…
Read MoreSenator Doug Berger’s World
Senator Doug Berger probably never dreamed anyone would run TV ads in his district telling his constituents how he voted to cut 20,000 elderly Medicaid patientsâ home care then, eight days later, turned around and voted to build a $25 million fishing pier at the beach — with a sixteen thousand square foot clubhouse and…
Read MoreCrab Pots
This afternoon an email flies in over the transom: The states broke and Governor Perdue’s been forced to call for a $1.6 billion tax increase. An hour later another email flies in over the transom: The Department and Health and Human Services has just had to make an emergency appropriation for ‘items needed by…
Read MoreA Red Corvette
As good as our Democratic politicians here in North Carolina are at providing us with scandals…the Academy Award this year is going to South Carolina’s Governor. Nobody’s seen anything like what’s going on ‘South of the Border’ since Sherman burnt Columbia. See if you can figure this out: The Governor went to…
Read MoreNew Video
The Home and Hospice Care Association folks are giving State Senator Doug Berger a run for his money. Yesterday they aired a TV ad in his district. Today they put a video on the Internet. (View Ad Below) In his State Senate Committee Berger cut home care for 20,000 patients on Medicaid. The reason he…
Read MoreIt’s Only Tuesday…
Well, even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then; a year ago Republicans couldnât buy a break and now gifts are falling out of the sky â of all things, Mrs. Easley is going to contest her dismissal from NCSU. Itâs amazing: After her âwooden Indianâ press conference it seemed a safe…
Read MoreDeep Throat
My guess is hardly anyone reading this blog remembers when the movie Deep Throat came out 37 years ago – but there was an article about it in the paper last Saturday. Some sleuth has figured out that back in 1972 (when I was nineteen) the FBI moved heaven and earth to keep the…
Read MoreBerger’s Blooper – Chapter III
Senator Doug Berger’s blooper is going on television. When Senator Berger passed a bill to cut the home care of 20,000 elderly Medicaid patients, he said he had a study that proved they weren’t eligible for care. Period. Well, it turns out, over a month ago the Department of Health and Human Resources told Senator…
Read MoreHaving Our Cake and Eating it Too
No one seems to drive a true-blue liberal up the wall like Dick Cheney;—just about all Cheney has to do is walk into a room and say, Hello. How are you? and folks like columnist Rick Horowitz go wild-eyed and lose control. The other day Horowitz lit into Cheney, first giving former President Bush…
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