Posts by Gary Pearce
GOP Voter Fraud
A party that denies citizens their constitutional right to vote is a party that deserves to lose. That’s the Republican Party today. The party of Lincoln and TR has become the party of Block the Vote: Voter-suppression laws. Cutting back early voting. No same-day voter registration. Elections boards that twist the laws to suit…
Read MoreCooking Numbers at Civitas
Maybe Thom Tillis should give Civitas’ pollster math lessons. Thursday morning, Civitas put out this release: “Democrat Tom Bradshaw leads Republican John Alexander by 16 percentage points in the NC Senate District 15 race, according to a new Civitas Flash Poll….” The poll, conducted last Monday and Tuesday, showed Bradshaw ahead 52-36 percent. …
Read MoreMcCrory’s Road Map
Give Governor McCrory credit for proposing something big and bold, a $1 billion transportation bond issue. It sounds like a stimulus program, but that would be the kiss of death in the Republican legislature. He may find himself needing some Democratic allies. He and Secretary Tata will have to answer a lot of questions:…
Read MoreRob Takes Down John Hood
To Ronald Reagan, it was always “morning in America.” To John Hood, it has always been “midnight in North Carolina.” There’s nothing special about North Carolina, Hood argues. Our “exceptionalism” is a myth. Therein lies the difference between Reagan’s sunny conservatism of the 1980s and Hood’s dark depictions now. And the N&O’s Rob…
Read MoreMore FDR
My late father was a dyed-in-the-wool Franklin D. Roosevelt Democrat. He liked to tell this story about why. Jim had a lot of reasons to admire Roosevelt: His family was hit hard by the Depression, and FDR gave them and families like them help and hope. He passed Social Security to keep older people…
Read MoreFDR and Gary Hart
Ken Burns’ remarkable series on the Roosevelts makes it clear that Franklin D. Roosevelt never would have passed the Gary Hart adultery test. Would that have been good for America? As Burns’ series was ending, The New York Times published a story by Matt Bai on the scandal that ended Hart’s 1988 presidential…
Read MoreEyes on Scotland
Every budding journalist is taught to look for the “local angle” in any big story. WRAL takes the prize for this one: “Scotland County residents watching overseas vote for independence.” The lead sums it up: “As the world waits for the outcome of Thursday’s historic vote on Scotland’s independence, southeastern North Carolina’s Scotland County…
Read MoreDebating Debates
Carter and I were on News14’s Capital Tonight this week, talking with Tim Boyum about debates today and the Hunt-Helms debates 30 years ago. You can watch our segment here. Tim was struck by how free-flowing and wide-open the 1984 debates were. As we talked with him, we realized that we had happened onto…
Read MoreDeath Wishes
Like many people who have more years behind them than ahead of them, I regularly read the obituaries. First I look for people or families I know. Then I look for their ages. Then I look for the signs of how they died. Many times it says “after a long period of declining health,” “after…
Read MoreVoter Irony
The Old Wise Leader (OWL) chuckled over coffee about Republicans’ voter-suppression drive: “They should beware the Law of Unintended Consequences.” I enjoy talking with OWL. He reads a lot, and he thinks. Two things caught his eye: The story about Senator Berger’s voter-confusion ad and a mailing that a friend got. The mailer…
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