Posts by Carter Wrenn
A Minor Miracle
Well, this is a tub-thumping political shocker. I’ve been saying it would take a minor miracle for Kay Hagen to beat Elizabeth Dole and, low and behold, one may have happened – though I’m not believing it. Yet. A new poll shows Hagen leading Dole 48% to 47%. Normally, I’d just ignore that as another…
Read MoreMcCain Disses Bush
It’s hard to tell if John McCain’s running against Barack Obama or George Bush. First, McCain went down to New Orleans and blasted Bush for his fumbling after Hurricane Katrina; now McCain’s let Bush have it for disagreeing with Al Gore about global warming. It’s beginning to seem like every time Obama says electing McCain…
Read MoreHillary’s Fiction
The folks who troop to the polls to vote in Democratic primaries, like the folks who vote in Republican primaries, are not ticket-splitters. They’re not independents. They know where they stand and – barring some unnatural act – when they return to the polls in November they will vote (as they have done for as…
Read MoreTides
The media’s all but written Hillary’s obituary (for the third time) but this time it looks like they’ll make it stick. But before Hillary rides off over the horizon and disappears under a cloud of super-delegates she’s given Obama one more royal thumping in West Virginia by 67% to 26%. Now this seems like good…
Read MorePerspective
Tom Ellis, the Raleigh attorney-mastermind who figured out how Jesse Helms could defeat Jim Hunt had an unusual virtue. The way a lot of folks saw it Mr. Ellis ran Jesse’s campaigns like a dictator. But nothing was further from the truth – Tom Ellis was a ‘listener.’ He’d listen to anybody and everybody. Once…
Read MoreBev, Obama and Bar-be-que Dinners
Beverly Perdue may have overcome her addiction to ‘positive campaigning.’ This morning on the radio when asked if she’d continue her pledge not to run negative ads this fall she said she needed a little time to consider her strategy. If ‘negative ads’ were bad in April what changed in May? Back when Perdue renounced…
Read MoreBlaming Corporations
There’s hardly a problem in America today Barack Obama can’t blame on a corporation. They’re the whipping boys for everything from $4-a-gallon gasoline to soaring healthcare costs – Obama’s drawn a bulls eye on corporate lobbyists and voters are cheering him on. So it came as a shock – politically – to open the…
Read MoreSound Bites: Putting the Shoe on the Other Foot
One reader has taken me to task, accusing me of ‘defending’ Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Anonymous (which is fine) wrote about my post Sound Bites versus Reality: Carter, before you act as a knee jerk apologist for Wright and Obama, you may want to look at that church’s website, which bases its “theology” on a black…
Read MoreSound Bite Versus Reality
Since the Trojan Horse the divergence between appearance versus reality has been a motif in literature. The beast turns out to be a prince. The three witches tell Macbeth he’s safe until Birnham Wood moves to Dunsaine Hill. Which appears impossible. But happens. Today it could be Sound Bite versus Reality. And Reverend Jeremiah Wright…
Read MoreHunt Torpedoes Moore
When WRAL asked former Governor Jim Hunt about this year’s Democratic governor’s race it was like old times. Hunt opined about the virtues of positive campaigning: Candidates ought to say what they’d do. What they stand for. How they’d move North Carolina forward. (It was like a flashback to thirty years ago.) Then the governor…
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