Issues
Hold Town Meetings
Memo to Congressman Brad Miller and all congressional Democrats: Stop ducking town meetings on health-care reform. Open the doors wide. Invite everybody – opponents included. And let them rant and rave if that’s what they are determined to do. Nothing could do more to help the health care-reform campaign. The more the…
Read MoreAmerica in The Golden Age
This may be the single craziest thing the United States Government has ever done. The President and the Congress – Democrats and Republicans alike – decided it was a good idea to go out and buy a billion dollars worth of ‘clunkers’ then the response was so phenomenal it took them by surprise. Apparently they…
Read MoreObama Up! Perdue Down!
Why is the President’s popularity holding up – while Governor Perdue’s has collapsed? Back in the old days Jim Hunt and Jesse Helms cut a broad swath through our neck of the woods; they were political heavy-weights and it’s beginning to look like Barack Obama’s cut from the same bolt of cloth. President Obama,…
Read MoreBubba’s Back!
Wasn’t it great to see the Big Dog back again? There was Bill Clinton – out of the doghouse and back in the limelight he so loves. Grinning. Biting his lip. Hugging Al Gore! Bubba looked great. White hair shining. Aides (the small, dark-skinned guy was John “Skippy” Podesta, ex-Clinton COS and Obama…
Read MoreTerrorists in Johnston?
Carter blogged last week that he was shocked that there were terrorists in Johnston County. Hell, Carter, Johnston County has a long history of terrorists. They were called the Ku Klux Klan. Well into the 50s – maybe later – there was an infamous billboard outside Smithfield: “Welcome to Klan Country.” But…
Read MoreWhy Doctor O May Win
Barack Obama brought his health-care reform campaign to Raleigh just as polls suggest support is slipping for reform. As always, Washington and the media are poised for a rerun of history. They see the story in terms of the death of Clinton Care in 1994. But the story could turn out different this…
Read MoreAn Education for Bev
Last week I blogged that Governor Perdue was doing a better job than her poll numbers suggest. But I’m starting to think she’s snake-bit. Her signature action, her big bold idea of appointing a state education CEO, got thrown out by a judge. Now Bill Harrison has graciously retreated from the battlefield. Predictably,…
Read MoreTax Gamble
The N&O’s banner headline today had to give Democrats heartburn: “The new plan: more taxes for all.” Democrats in the legislature have no choice. For all the Republican fulminating about waste, piers and crabpots, the only alternative to higher taxes is deep cuts in education and human services. Democrats just can’t do that. …
Read MoreRechanneling 1994
Back when Casey Stengel was managing the woeful New York Mets in their first year, he looked down the bench one day and moaned: “Can’t anybody here play this game?” You might ask the same question in Washington today. About both the Democrats and the Republicans. Both parties are still hung up on…
Read MorePerdue So Far
Cullen Browder at WRAL asked me to rate Governor Perdue’s first six months in office. I think she’s doing pretty well. Give her a B. An A if she would take a stronger role in resolving the budget. She took over the ship of state in a hurricane: a bad economy and the…
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