General
Ad Wars. Tuition?
What Hillary Clinton called the “fun part” has started in the Governor’s race. Richard Moore and Bev Perdue are going at each other full-bore on TV. Over college tuition, of all things. Who guessed that would be the burning issue this year? Why? Because tuition sums up a host of middle-class economic anxieties. And it’s…
Read MoreElectability Doesn’t Elect
A campaign that plays the electability card is by definition a campaign that is losing. Voters never elect a candidate because they think he or she is more electable in the fall than their opponent. There is a logical disconnect: The candidate who is losing usually argues electability. Voters don’t see how the loser can…
Read MoreDebbie Sunshine?
Perhaps someone can shine the light of open-government on this question. Debbie Crane, former PIO at Health and Human Services, is being praised as a paragon of open government. She spoke at the Sunshine Week program at Elon University. Yet Crane says she told ex-Secretary Carmen Hooker Odom NOT to talk to The News &…
Read MoreSo?
That is what Vice President Cheney said when asked about the American people’s opposition to the Iraq War. Funny, that’s exactly what I think about anything Cheney says or believes. So? The Democrats’ strategy has to be to ask the American people if they want four more years of Bush-Cheney-McCain. Click Here to discuss and…
Read MoreObama Wins. It’s Over.
Make it official: Barack Obama has won the Democratic presidential nomination. He won it with his speech on race last week. He swept away any chance the superdelegates will overrule the results of the primaries and caucuses. By disarming his critics over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright – even Clinton had to praise his speech –…
Read MoreEdwards Redux?
Is John Edwards contemplating another race? The state party announced that Edwards and James Carville will be keynote speakers at the Young Democrats annual meeting March 29. Immediately touching off speculation that Edwards may be thinking of another run for President (assuming Democrats lose this year) – or challenging Senator Richard Burr in 2010. That,…
Read MoreTwo Democratic Parties
Just like John Edwards’s “two Americas,” today we have two Democratic parties: the Obama party and the Clinton party. If you want to know where this kind of split leads, read about Kennedy v Carter in 1980, Ford v Reagan in 1976 and McCarthy v Humphrey in 1968. This is a formula for defeat in…
Read MoreSwinging Polls
Richard Moore’s campaign has taken heart from the new Public Policy Polling survey that shows him trailing Bev Perdue only 44-34. Skepticism is in order given the wild swing from PPP’s last poll, which had Moore behind by 27 points. PPP attributed the change to Moore’s new ad. But one ad, not long on the…
Read MoreA Mystery that Defies Common Sense
Depending on who you talk to, Democratic leaders in the state Legislature either bent – or broke – the rules to pass the lottery. I’m no authority on Parliamentary Procedure, but the issue seems to be whether the lottery bill was a revenue bill that should have been voted on twice on two separate days,…
Read MoreUnique Thinking
City Councilman Rodger Koopman has a unique way of analyzing Raleigh’s problems with laser-like precision. For instance, yesterday, at the City Council meeting, he announced to support the troops in Iraq…Raleigh should ban garbage disposals. He said: “If you support the troops, be willing to suck it up just a little bit.” Now, there’s a…
Read More