Issues
Blame the Republicans
The White House needs to go on offense on the Gulf oil spill. Democrats, all too often, are weenies when it comes to political combat. They want to be fair, see all sides and over-intellectualize. It’s time for a go-for-the-gut message: Blame the Republicans. Here’s how it goes: This all started…
Read MoreX Factors
X factors are the spice of politics – and the bane of political operatives. X factors are the unexpected events that disrupt the best-laid plans of campaign consultants and political consultants, who are the world’s greatest control freaks. The classic X factor was the economic collapse that decided the 2008 presidential election by…
Read MoreBroke
Oil still gushes into the Gulf of Mexico, courtesy of BP – “Broken Pipe.” So many dollars, debt and deficits gush out of Washington that the country looks broke. Even Al and Tipper broke up. This is a scary scenario for President and Obama and the Democrats (except for the Gore split). Nothing…
Read MoreCorrection
An alert reader caught this in my blog yesterday about Mark Critz, the Democrat who won the special congressional election in Pennsylvania: “I don’t think Critz voted for health care bill (he wasn’t in Congress then). He did say he would not have voted for it.” The reader is correct, and I thank…
Read MoreWhoops!
Last Friday Bill Randall published his ‘Charter of Principles’ on Facebook. Then, so more people would read it, he published it again a few hours later. And with reason. It is an impressive statement. Eloquent. Profound. Articulate. The problem is Randall did not write it. He plagiarized it. Fifty years ago, back in…
Read MoreAn Open Letter to Bill Randall – Part 3
Bill, Here is the third question. At the debate you were asked, What would you cut to hold down government spending? Bernie Reeves answered that he would do what all small businessmen have learned to do when money is tight: Cut salaries – which promptly cost him the votes of any government employees in…
Read MoreA Bright Line
That didn’t take long. For all the Tea Party’s denials of racism, it took Tea Party poster boy Rand Paul about one news cycle to trip over race. The federal government, he says, has no business telling a business it can’t discriminate on the basis of race. Of course, he added, he…
Read MoreAn Open Letter to Bill Randall – Part 2
Dear Bill, Here is the second question about the debate. You were asked, Are you pro-life? Now most Republicans are pro-life – though they disagree on the best way to end abortion; some favor passing a Constitutional Amendment to make abortion illegal outright; others favor passing a Constitutional Amendment to let each state…
Read MoreUnintended Consequences
I admire Roddy Jones, John Prestage and the 800 business and civic leaders they say have “responded to an invitation from former U.S. Sen. Robert Morgan and Democracy North Carolina to form Campaign Donors for Campaign Reform.” In their op-ed “Urgent need for clean elections” in today’s N&O, they say that today’s “campaign financing…
Read MoreDueling with a Reporter
While Democratic Senate Leader Martin Nesbit was dancing a two-step with reporter Mark Johnson, Governor Perdue was having her own duel with the News and Observer’s Andrew Curliss – and she wasn’t doing as well as Nesbit. Curliss set about grilling the Governor on what she’s doing – and not doing – to clean…
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