Posts by Gary Pearce
Spill=One Term for McCrory?
Without Duke Energy, Pat McCrory wouldn’t be Governor. Now, with Duke’s coal-ash spill, he may very well be a one-term Governor. Get some popcorn and get a comfortable chair, because this movie is going to run for a long time. At least through the 2016 election. And it will dominate the rest of McCrory’s…
Read MoreSlow Down!
A TAPster reports seeing a State Capitol Police car equipped with a radar gun – miles away from any state government building. Inquiring minds want to know: Why does the State Capitol Police need a radar gun in one of their cruisers? What possible explanation can there be? Are school children running too fast…
Read MoreIt’s the Schools, Stupid
Governor McCrory may have coal ash on his hands, but I bet most voters have education on their minds. So, does focusing on the Dan River disaster distract Democrats from a stronger issue? The spill is a tempting target. There’s the McCrory-Duke tie. You can tell the Governor is sensitive about it. When he…
Read MoreHomeless
Will Randy Voller leave the Democratic Party homeless? What a tribute to his leadership. WRAL reports: “An Executive Council member…said embattled party Chairman Randy Voller told members the party is ‘broke,’ with only $60,000 in the bank. According to the attendee, Voller told party members he may have to let some staffers go, and…
Read MoreMountain Man Martin Nesbitt
This tribute was penned by Gene Upchurch, a veteran executive and lobbyist for CP&L and Progress Energy: “For those of us who have toiled in the Raleigh political gig the last 30 years, Martin Nesbitt has always been there. Love him or hate him, agree or disagree, he was there, usually bigger than life.…
Read MoreThank You, Robert Holding
He helped answer two questions that I get a lot: Why are you helping Clay Aiken? And, of course: What’s he like? When Holding said he was considering running against Renee Ellmers in the Republican primary (he didn’t, in the end), he said she “has gone Washington.” He added, “Do not underestimate Clay Aiken.…
Read MoreThinking Head
When every politician in Washington sounds like a robot reciting a predictable party line, Rand Paul sounds like a man who actually thinks. Sometimes he sounds sounds nutty and sometimes he makes sense, but he’s worth watching – and listening to. Paul first caught my attention when he filibustered against drones, denounced the NSA…
Read MoreNumbers
Three eye-catching and eye-popping numbers jumped out of the paper lately – numbers that truly tell a story. 990. That’s how many dollars an hour the latest expert is being paid to give us the latest “final” report on the UNC academic/athletics scandal. What would it cost UNC to just ask The News &…
Read MoreSpillover
Business and industry got exactly what they wanted when Governor McCrory and DENR Secretary John Skvarla took office. Then they got exactly what they didn’t need when Duke’s coal ash spilled into the Dan River. Suddenly, “customer friendly” sounds like “polluter friendly.” The U.S. Attorney raises the threat of criminal indictments. And The New…
Read MoreVollermort
The internal politics of the North Carolina Democratic Party are a mystery to me, so I’m lost when people ask, essentially, “WTF is Randy Voller up to?” So I refer you to an insightful piece by an observer I trust: Bob Geary with Indy Week. Geary begins: “After a stormy year as state Democratic…
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