General
A Minor Miracle
Well, this is a tub-thumping political shocker. I’ve been saying it would take a minor miracle for Kay Hagen to beat Elizabeth Dole and, low and behold, one may have happened – though I’m not believing it. Yet. A new poll shows Hagen leading Dole 48% to 47%. Normally, I’d just ignore that as another…
Read MoreMcCain Disses Bush
It’s hard to tell if John McCain’s running against Barack Obama or George Bush. First, McCain went down to New Orleans and blasted Bush for his fumbling after Hurricane Katrina; now McCain’s let Bush have it for disagreeing with Al Gore about global warming. It’s beginning to seem like every time Obama says electing McCain…
Read MoreHillary’s Fiction
The folks who troop to the polls to vote in Democratic primaries, like the folks who vote in Republican primaries, are not ticket-splitters. They’re not independents. They know where they stand and – barring some unnatural act – when they return to the polls in November they will vote (as they have done for as…
Read MoreTides
The media’s all but written Hillary’s obituary (for the third time) but this time it looks like they’ll make it stick. But before Hillary rides off over the horizon and disappears under a cloud of super-delegates she’s given Obama one more royal thumping in West Virginia by 67% to 26%. Now this seems like good…
Read MorePerspective
Tom Ellis, the Raleigh attorney-mastermind who figured out how Jesse Helms could defeat Jim Hunt had an unusual virtue. The way a lot of folks saw it Mr. Ellis ran Jesse’s campaigns like a dictator. But nothing was further from the truth – Tom Ellis was a ‘listener.’ He’d listen to anybody and everybody. Once…
Read MoreTax Hike Mike
It’s tempting to dismiss Governor Easley’s proposed “sin tax” increases: Spoken like a man who’s not up for reelection. But give the Governor credit here. He pushed for higher taxes his first term, and he survived the predictable Republican challenge that resulted. Besides, he needs a good word. He had a tough spring, with the…
Read MoreObama the Pol
Republicans are signaling their Obama bombs: the most liberal Senator, an elitist and an extremist. Also, follower of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and friend of Weathermen. Also, under the table, an anti-American Muslim. But the excellent, exhaustive profile of Obama the politician in The New York Times Sunday painted a far different picture. Obama is…
Read MoreShooting the Wounded
Bert Bennett, who was Governor Hunt’s political godfather, had a characteristically terse way of dismissing election post-mortems: “When you win, you did everything right. When you lose, you did everything wrong.” But there are always lessons to be learned after campaigns. Governor: Bev Perdue won for structural and strategic reasons. For more than 20 years,…
Read MoreTerry Sanford Would Be Proud
The first presidential primary I voted in was 1972. Terry Sanford, the champion of the New South, was running against George Wallace, back when Wallace was still a died-in-the-wool segregationist. Wallace humiliated Sanford in his home state, effectively ending Terry’s chances of being the moderate Southern elected President in the 1970s, instead of Jimmy Carter.…
Read MoreBev, Obama and Bar-be-que Dinners
Beverly Perdue may have overcome her addiction to ‘positive campaigning.’ This morning on the radio when asked if she’d continue her pledge not to run negative ads this fall she said she needed a little time to consider her strategy. If ‘negative ads’ were bad in April what changed in May? Back when Perdue renounced…
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