General
One Rip-off, Two Villains
Here’s an unusual experiment in ethics: Is Citibank guilty or innocent of bilking investors by selling home mortgage bond packages? The answer, the bank says, is neither. It’s neither innocent nor guilty. In fact, it’s neutral on the issue. But, the bank adds, it will pay a $285 million fine to put the past behind…
Read MoreA Democratic Pope?
A Republican TAPster sends along this N&O blog with the observation: “Looks like the Democrats might have found their version of an Art Pope.” Keung Hui, in a blog headed, “Dean Debnam’s group gives Common Sense Matters another $25,000,” wrote: “It looks like we should expect another flurry of mailers from Common Sense…
Read MoreThe 2012 Stimulus
One industry in North Carolina is guaranteed to get a big boost next year: the political industry. President Obama’s two-day bus tour this week gave a glimpse of what’s to come. You’re going to see a lot of him the next 13 months – and a lot of the Republican candidate. And they’re all…
Read MoreSmiling Democrats
There’s fall in the air and, suddenly, there’s spring in the step of Democrats. Part of it was last week’s elections, especially the prospect of capturing the Wake school board. Part of it is the natural joy Democrats feel when Obama pillories Republicans and big, bad bankers. Part of it is seeing Herman Cain…
Read MoreOccupy Me?
The Occupy Wall Street/Washington/Raleigh/etc. protests are a classic example of a political movement that the general public may agree with, at least on some level, but not find agreeable. In politics, as in physics, every action generates a reaction. The Tea Party movement powered Republicans to victory in 2010, but may drag them to…
Read MoreSilent and Deadly
Direct mail is the Ninja assassin of politics. “An icepick to the forehead,” it was called by Dave Gold, who did our direct mail when Jim Hunt beat Jim Gardner in 1992. That year, we targeted 100,000 swing voters statewide. And bombarded them with a series of mailings about Gardner’s checkered business record. By…
Read MorePopish Politics
There is delicious irony in the juxtaposition of the New Yorker story about Art (“I am not an heir”) Pope and Tuesday’s election. The New Yorker critique of Pope is that he spent a lot of his money to support tough, negative, independent campaign attacks on Democrats – which helped Republicans win control of…
Read MoreDivisiveness Loses
A TAPster sees a factor in Tuesday’s elections apart from the party angle: “There’s an important lesson tucked in the outcome of Raleigh’s school board election Tuesday when voters kicked out the divisive school board chairman. “It’s not a lesson about Democrats vs. Republicans, even though the N&O and its political pundit Rob…
Read MoreWakeup Call
It was a rout. Democrats were fired up and ready to go. They were mad about more than the school board. They were mad about the 2010 elections, the Republican legislature, the Tea Party, even Art (“I am not an heir”) Pope. Incidentally, Tuesday’s results show that Pope’s power was exaggerated by the…
Read MoreAmbivalent Bev
Now we see why it took Governor Perdue so long to come out against the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. First, she was waiting to put it out Friday afternoon – in hopes nobody would notice. Not just any Friday afternoon, but the one right before the Columbus Day-fall break weekend. Second, it…
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