Posts by Gary Pearce
The King Has Left the Building
Upside Down
Who said foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds? Republicans in North Carolina certainly appear untethered by consistency when it comes to the relationship between government and the private sector. Nationally, Republicans are in a frenzy about the Obama administration’s policy toward business. Socialism, they thunder. The very idea of the federal government…
Read MoreReading the Sunday Paper
Tom Fetzer is a smart guy. Iâm thinking of endorsing him for state Republican Chair. Thatâs because he would be good, and I donât want a good GOP chair. I figure my endorsement would be the kiss of death. Tom has a gimmick in his campaign: help put The News & Observer out of business.…
Read MoreBowles Rolls
How confident is Erskine Bowles of his standing in the legislature? Confident enough to tell the Appropriations Committee that Governor Perdue’s UNC budget is “ludicrous.” Bowles’ bluntness raised eyebrows around Raleigh. The Governor said she was “miffed,” but then assured us that she and Erskine talked and that love is in bloom again. Bowles knows…
Read MoreDefending FDR
Right-wingers are so mad at President Obama for trying to fix the economy they’re renewing a war they lost 75 years ago – against FDR and the New Deal. The Fox mantra has been that the New Deal didn’t end the Depression, but only made it worse; that only World War II ended the Depression.…
Read MorePass to Play
State Senator Charlie Albertson has a bill guaranteed to get people talking. It’s simple. Just one page. It prohibits any participation in athletic competition by “schools in which a majority of the students are below the 50th percentile on end-of-course and end-of-grade tests for two or more consecutive years.” In other words, if schools don’t…
Read MoreWhere Were Axelrod and Gibbs?
The blabbering classes are taking up pitchforks and torches over the AIG bonuses. The AIGate question now becomes: What did the President/Secretary of Treasury/Fed/Congress know and when did they know it? My question: Why didn’t David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs see this coming? Team Obama would not be the first winners to go to the…
Read MoreBev’s Budget
I give Governor Perdue and her staff an A+ on message management. They pulled off a neat three-step strategy: Spend weeks warning people how awful the budget cuts are going to be. Then devote her State of the State speech – and the next week’s media events – to saying education would get more money.…
Read MoreObama’s Stock
I could never predict what will happen to the stock market. But I can predict that President Obama’s numbers will go down – soon. It’s inevitable. And it’s no reason for Democrats to panic. They just need to prepare themselves. Here’s why he is headed for a drop – maybe a precipitous one – in…
Read MoreThe New Populists
Since the November election, I’ve been telling business people that the election marked a new cycle in politics: from pro-business government to pro-government – and potentially anti-business – government. That cycle has dominated American history since the Civil War. Government was pro-business in the 19th Century, leading to great fortunes and the Industrial Age. Then,…
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