Posts by Gary Pearce
Democratic Winds Blow South
This week’s elections in Virginia and Kentucky should be encouraging for North Carolina Democrats. Kentucky threw out a Republican incumbent and elected a Democratic governor. Of course, that can be blamed on the incumbent’s scandals. But also, Virginia elected a Democratic Senate for the first time in 12 years. A year after electing a Democratic…
Read MoreElection 2008 Predictions
A year from now, we’ll be analyzing who won and why. So here’s my crystal ball: President America has its first woman President. And Hillary’s running mate, Evan Bayh, is poised to become in 2016 the first President in 24 years not named Bush or Clinton. Giuliani’s choice of Fred Thompson for VP turned disastrous,…
Read MoreBattle Lines Are Being Drawn
Both the pro-growth forces and the slow-growth forces are celebrating in North Carolina after Tuesday’s elections. The pro-growthers – say, Tim Kent of the N.C. Association of Realtors – are celebrating that the “property-transfer tax” (the “home tax”) got slaughtered in all 16 counties where it was on the ballot. The slow-growthers (they’d call it…
Read MoreCongress Takes a Stand
This tells you everything you need to know about Congress. The House couldn’t override President Bush’s veto of the children’s health-insurance bill. But it’s about to override another Bush veto – of a bill that clearly is nearer and dearer to the hearts of Congressmen than children’s health insurance. That would be water projects. It…
Read MoreMister Hot and Mister Cool
John Edwards and Barack Obama double-teamed Hillary Clinton at last week’s Democratic debate. Hillary’s resulting stumble could turn the Democratic coronation into a contest. Edwards, as he has throughout the campaign, was Mister Hot. He focused on Hillary the courtroom aggressiveness that he kept hidden in 2004. He was perfectly comfortable going after her. Obama…
Read MorePerdue Digs Deeper
When you’re in a hole, the first rule is: Stop digging. But Beverly Perdue’s campaign is digging a deeper hole every week. I sound like a broken record about this. But her campaign looks broken. The News & Observer found that her fundraising report failed to provide the occupations and employers for more than 300…
Read Morethe 100-County Tour
Every campaign, some fool candidate promises to campaign in all 100 counties. Every time, I say: You’re crazy. This year, GOP gubernatorial candidate Fred Smith and Democratic Senate hopeful Jim Neal are drinking the 100-county Kool Aid. I’d like to put a lie detector on them after they go to, say, 60 counties. Ask them…
Read MoreDown Hill(ary)
This could go down as the week the Democratic presidential race turned against Hillary Clinton. She was everybody’s favorite target in the Democratic debate. She was panned for her performance. She confused everybody with her position on licenses for illegal immigrants. And she looks bad keeping the lock on her White House records. As I…
Read MoreWho’s With Pelosi?
Who’s With Pelosi? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be in Raleigh today, speaking at Meredith College. The question is: Who will be with her? That is, which Democratic politicians will be there to have their picture taken with the San Francisco Democrat – and who will duck it? Specifically, will either Lt. Governor Beverly Perdue…
Read MoreJohn Drescher Stakes His Ground
The appointment of John Drescher as Executive Editor of The N&O means the paper will be led by a newsman who knows North Carolina politics and government. Drescher wrote a great book about the 1960 Terry Sanford-Beverly Lake race for Governor. He is the son-in-law of Phil Carlton, one of Jim Hunt’s oldest friends. Drescher’s…
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