General
Dan versus Roy: Every Lost Second
Dan Forest is a good, decent man and he’s the most conservative candidate on the ballot for statewide office this fall but he’s running against an incumbent Governor who has a fine-tuned political machine with its eyes locked on beating Dan Forest. We’re a swing state and, before the coronavirus epidemic upended the world, Roy…
Read MoreCoronavirus Journal, April 5
Coronavirus first reared its head in China in January but it wasn’t until two months later that HHS placed its first order to stockpile masks. A foible. Oklahoma ordered 16,000 face shields – FEMA sent 120,000. North Carolina ordered 500,000 coveralls – FEMA sent 306. HHS had over 16,000 ventilators in the stockpile – but…
Read MoreLight to See
You rarely hear a politician or a TV talk show host or health-care bureaucrat mention it but there’s one crucial fact we don’t know: The Infection Rate. We don’t know the total number of people in the United States who have already been infected by coronavirus. Why is that fact crucial? In Italy the government…
Read MoreA Hard Look and a Prayer
The morning the Japanese sunk our fleet at Pearl Harbor Americans took a hard look at Franklin Roosevelt with one question on their minds: Is he up to the job? After the Stock Market Crash in 1929 the same hard look undid for Hebert Hoover and, during the Iran Hostage Crisis, it sank Jimmy Carter.…
Read MoreTrump’s Big Bet
Trump sees one way he can win the election even if he loses Independents – by firing up his ‘base.’ By getting Trumpsters who didn’t vote in 2018 and 2016 to go to the polls. Trump – using tweets and name-calling and boasting – has put all his showmanship to work to do that. What…
Read MorePart II of Trump’s Plan
Back in 2016 Hillary got a shock during Early Voting – Blacks who’d voted for Obama stayed home and didn’t vote for her. I remember looking at the bleak (for Hillary) numbers: In 2012, when Obama ran, 22% of the voters in North Carolina were African-Americans. In 2016, only 18% of the voters were African-Americans.…
Read MoreSleepy Joe, Senile
Trump’s plan to overcome his unpopularity with Independents is straightforward: He’s going to make Biden more unpopular than he is. And being Trump he’s blunt about it – he tweeted: ‘Sleepy Joe doesn’t know where he is or what he’s doing – I don’t think he even knows what office he’s running for.’ At a…
Read MoreHow Trump’s Going to Conquer Ambivalence
Years ago a political savant told me, There’re three types of elections: One, the election where you like both candidates and vote for the one you like most. Two, the election where you like one candidate and dislike the other – that one’s easy, you vote for the candidate you like. Three, the election where…
Read MoreThe Election: How Vanity Bred a Mistake
At his rallies Donald Trump roars about the might of his base – in his eyes it’s the key to his defeating Joe Biden. So he tweets (to his base) how he has the highest approval rating among Republicans of any President, even Lincoln – but Trump’s calculation may boomerang: If every Republican Trumpster in…
Read MoreThe Election: Trump Makes a Miscalculation
You hear the words spoken every day, over and over, on CNN and Fox News: We’re more polarized than ever before. And on Facebook and Twitter President Trump – who sees igniting his ‘base’ as a key to defeating Biden – pours fuel on the fires of polarization. But there’s one wayward fact: Polarization isn’t…
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