Issues
Is That All There Is?
This is a great bill, he said. There’s a great plan… the plan gets better and better and better, and it has gotten really, really, really good. It was like listening to a high-school boy urging a girl to go to the prom with him: This will be great. Really great. It just gets better…
Read MoreBannon’s fall = Democrats’ opening
It’s good that Steve Bannon has been eclipsed in the court of the Sun King. By all accounts, he’s a hate-spewing, fear-mongering, immigrant-bashing, Muslim-banning, dark force. But Bannon did have one important insight into today’s politics. And Democrats should take heed of it. Bannon has a clear focus on the anger that millions of Americans…
Read MoreRx: the Democrats
Second of two parts More than 25 years ago, a little-known college president was running what looked like a hopeless U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania. He was Harris Wofford, a Democrat. He was running against Richard Thornburgh, a former Governor and United States Attorney General. Wofford’s own polls showed him 40 points behind. Thornburgh had…
Read MoreRx: the Republicans
First of two parts Since Obamacare passed in 2009, Republicans have attacked it. For eight years, they called it a “job killer” and a “disaster” that created “death panels.” Through four election campaigns – 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016 – they promised to repeal it. And replace it with something better, cheaper and, as Comrade…
Read MoreHillbilly Elegy
Gary told me, Read Hillbilly Elegy – it’ll make you see things you’ve been staring at for years in a different light. The story – a memoir – starts when a pregnant thirteen-year-old girl marries a sixteen-year-old boy and moves from Kentucky’s Appalachian Mountains to Middleton, Ohio in the late 1940’s. He went to work…
Read MoreA Welter of Echoes
Each roar lasts a second. But the echoes last days. Mexico wins. We lose. China wins. We lose. Wall Street wins. We lose. Washington Politicians win. We lose. Each had mantra-like precision. Each echoed across twitter, cable news, and newspaper headlines. Once, when Obamacare repeal failed, two mantras collided head-on. The President tweeted: The Democrats…
Read MoreSports and HB2
Roy Williams won another NCAA title. And Roy Cooper may have won us more NCAAs. Which highlights the big part that sports played in the HB2 repeal. Give the NCAA and ACC credit for an assist. Point to them. They stood up and spoke out against HB2 from the start. For that they got grief…
Read MoreHB2 courage
Governor Cooper and Democratic legislators showed something last week that is so rare in America today we hardly know it when we see it. Political courage. Political courage is when you do what you believe is right. Even if it disappoints your strongest supporters. Even if it could cost you an election. Name another politician…
Read MoreTricks
In Donald Trump’s world whatever he says cannot be wrong. He’s infallible. Because as Trump says, I know how life works. And, if you ask, Trump will give you proof of his infallibility: He’ll explain how he predicted the outcome of the Brexit vote in advance and how he predicted – a hundred times –…
Read MoreUnraveling
Day in and day out for years I sat in meetings watching and listening to men who lived and breathed politics and, almost to a man every one looked on telling a lie (or, more precisely, being caught telling a lie) as a risk they dreaded. A lie was like a cancer. It could grow…
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