Posts by Gary Pearce
Tarred Heels
UNC-Chapel Hill just can’t get out of the academic fraud tar pit. The harder the school struggles, the stickier it gets. First UNC got a new chancellor. Then a new vice chancellor for communications and public affairs, whose charge is clearly to get the school past this mess. They said all the right things,…
Read MorePrimary Meddling?
Democrats are no doubt playing in the GOP Senate primary, but some of the parallels being drawn may be exaggerated. Rob Christensen compared Democrats’ strategy against Thom Tillis to what Democrats did in Missouri in 2012 to help re-elect Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri. There, Republicans nominated a Tea Party nut who promptly…
Read MoreTeacher Exodus
When hundreds of teachers leave in the middle of the school year – in one of the nation’s best places to live and one of its best school systems – we have a crisis. But Republicans are in denial, and Democrats have a winning issue for this fall. About one out of every 15…
Read MoreTeachers and Taxes
While Governor McCrory and his patrons at the John Locke Foundation were bragging about tax cuts on Tax Day, Republicans in the Legislative Building were digging an even deeper teacher-pay hole for themselves and McCrory. The N&O’s page one headline said: “Broad teacher raises unlikely.” McCrory proclaimed, “we’re leaving a little extra money in…
Read MoreTillis, the GOP and God
Thom Tillis is a lot like Mitt Romney, and he learned one big thing from Romney’s 2012 campaign: Don’t get on the same stage and same page with the nuts in his party. So Tillis may be making the right strategic decision by ducking the WRAL debate. It’s better to look chicken than to…
Read MoreSon of Speaker Ban
“Will no one rid me of this troublesome professor?” (Paraphrasing King Henry II on Thomas Becket.) Fifty years ago, the legislature brought shame on North Carolina, dishonor on themselves and harm to UNC when the honorables passed the Speaker Ban Law to protect college students from a feared invasion of pro-Communist speakers. Eventually, wiser…
Read MoreIs Good Money Bad Too?
This is a story about how even “good” money – that is, money spent for candidates and causes I like – can be bad. It’s a story about how outside donors and independent campaigns, not candidates and office-holders, are setting the political agenda. You can walk, and run, but money talks. Most every…
Read MoreTillis Out of the Closet?
How would Republican primary voters feel about a prominent supporter of gay marriage holding a fundraiser for Thom Tillis in New York City? That would be Paul Singer, a hedge-fund CEO whom the Washington Post calls “the money man behind pro-gay marriage Republicans.” The Post reported that, “Last week, Singer and other donors…
Read MoreRethinking Koch
Maybe the attack-Koch strategy is a good idea after all. I had questions, but I’m coming around. Every story needs a villain. That lesson is as old as the Bible. (See: the Serpent, Garden of Eden.) Just as Republicans here want to make William Barber of the NAACP the face of the Democratic…
Read MoreObamaCare: A New Ball Game?
Just as ObamaCare divides the nation politically, it divides Democrats strategically. Does it spell disaster in November, or can we score points with it? The President took the ball to the basket this week. His message: 7-plus million Americans signed up. Millions of Americans can now get health care. Republicans are just obstructionists and…
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