An Idea Whose Time Will Not Come

You’ve got to admire John Kane’s chutzpah. But not his political judgment. Kane, the developer of Raleigh’s North Hills, wants $75 million in public money so he can build parking decks for his North Hills East project. What is he thinking? It’s not going to happen. Especially not in an election year. Mayor Meeker immediately…

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Hillary’s Makeover

It’s a baby-boomer politician’s worst nightmare: The New York Times gets holds of personal letters you wrote to a close friend back when you were a self-absorbed college student trying on different personas and personalities. It happened to Hillary Clinton Sunday. This came right after the national media dissected the political and fashion significance of…

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Playing the Outside Game

North Carolina’s Realtors spent $700,000 on a media campaign against the “home tax.” The campaign failed. Why? The Realtors had a good idea: Mobilize public opinion to change legislative votes. But they didn’t go far enough. Carter is the master of this strategy. He did it for Farmers for Fairness (hog farmers) in the ‘90s.…

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Big Business a Big Target

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama got the most attention after this week’s Democratic debate. But John Edwards had the most pointed message. And it’s why he remains a big threat to the Big Two. The first two questions he got, almost the first words out of Edwards’ mouth were “big insurance companies, big pharmaceutical companies…

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The Bush Who Cried Wolf

President Bush now claims that intelligence shows we’re fighting Osama’s Al-Qaeda in Iraq. It’s his latest justification for the war: We either fight them in Iraq or in Illinois. But who believes him? Bush and his cronies cooked the intelligence to get us into Iraq in the first place. Does he think we’ll believe him…

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A Job with a Great Future?

The News & Observer says: “Perhaps the most competitive contest in North Carolina next year will be the one for state treasurer.” I’ve counted six Democrats and three Republicans being mentioned for the race. It’s no mystery why. Richard Moore has shown that the Treasurer’s Office has the keys to a treasure chest full of…

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The YouTube Debate

I was skeptical about the CNN-YouTube Democratic presidential debate. The buildup struck me as too cute, too self-promotional, too self-congratulatory. In short, too Anderson Cooper. But I liked the debate. For one simple reason: The questions were great. And the credit goes to YouTube. Most debates that feature “real people asking real questions” flop. Real…

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The World Turned Upside Down

I’m out of the country two weeks and the political world turns upside down. I had long assumed that my Democratic Party had the market cornered on sex scandals. From Wilbur Mills to Gary Hart to Bill Clinton. And that Republicans had the monopoly on money scandals. Warren Harding, Richard Nixon and Jack Abramoff. I…

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Taking a Break

This blog will tilt rightward for the next two weeks, because we’re taking a family vacation to Italy, and I won’t be blogging. I’ve never been to Italy. So I consider this an experiment to see how I like a country that features universal health care, two-hour midday breaks and an average of 41 vacation…

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Fundraising Revolution

Campaign finance reform is happening. Not because of new laws, but because of the Internet. That’s the real story behind Barack Obama’s phenomenal fundraising totals in the second quarter. A lot of the money came in online. He built a base of hundreds of thousands of small contributors – nearly all of whom can give…

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