Posts by Gary Pearce
Is Bipartisanship Dead?
At breakfast, a friend who has worked with the legislature for many years wondered if there is any hope for bipartisanship. “There are so many leadership-development groups in North Carolina,” he said. “Could they all come together and develop a new cohort of leaders and legislators who can work across party lines?” Given how toxic,…
Read MoreFolwell’s Foolishness
When State Treasurer Dale Folwell announced in March that he’s running for Governor, he said, “Voters like candidates who attack problems, not people.” That didn’t last long. He must have figured out that, in Trump’s Republican Party, the whole point of politics is to attack people. And – shades of Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and…
Read MoreBiden Magic
Remember a few weeks ago when America was careening toward a debt-ceiling cliff, a fiscal crisis that would plunge us into economic catastrophe, stock-market collapse and 401k apocalypse? Then, suddenly – poof! presto! abracadabra! – it was gone. We avoided the cliff. We dodged disaster. Our pensions and portfolios are safe. The economy rolls on,…
Read MoreFall In
Like President Biden, I fell this weekend. And I’m only 74. He tripped on an ill-placed sandbag. I slipped on a slick boardwalk in Manteo. He fell more gracefully than I did. My feet went out from under me, and I ended up flat on my back. No damage done, except for some soreness and…
Read MoreFreedom Versus Control
Ron DeSantis may be more dangerous to America than Trump. On Memorial Day, when we honored the men and women who died protecting our freedom and liberty, DeSantis told Fox News that as President, “I will be able to destroy leftism in this country.” “Destroy” leftism? DeSantis’ extreme rhetoric reflects his record in Florida: banning…
Read MoreRevisiting Evil
Since our Danube cruise, my thoughts keep going back to three Holocaust memorials – and the line between good and evil in people. In Budapest, we saw the “Shoes on the Danube Bank,” (pictured) a memorial to 20,000 Jews who were rounded up and executed beside the river in 1944-45. They were ordered to take…
Read MoreSelling NC ‘24
North Carolina Democrats have a big selling job to do for 2024, and Anderson Clayton is selling hard. The state party chair was on ABC News’ GMA3 last week (link below) selling the idea that President Biden and other Democrats can win her state next year – and telling how to do it: “I really…
Read MoreShut up, Gene?
Some North Carolina Democrats agree with Republican legislators on one thing: Gene Nichol should shut up. Or at least tone it down and turn down the volume. Ted Vaden writes in The Assembly that Nichol is “back in the spotlight, hurling his supercharged invective in a new book that surveys the changes that have occurred…
Read MoreGOP Control Freaks
How did the party of freedom, individual responsibility and limited government become the party of censorship, Big Brother and government control? Republican legislators in North Carolina, like their colleagues in other states and like Republican governors Ron DeSantis in Florida and Greg Abbott in Texas, want to control many things in our lives. Control what…
Read MoreThe Danube isn’t Blue
Strauss’ waltz notwithstanding, the Danube River is brown. Its powerful current flows 1,770 miles from the Black Forest in Germany to the Black Sea in Romania, through 10 countries, past four national capitals and through 1,500 years of history. Gwyn and I took an eight-day cruise upriver from Budapest to Bratislava, Vienna, Krems, the Wachau…
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