Issues
Roy’s bully pulpit
Republicans may have supermajorities in the legislature, but Governor Cooper will have a superpower: the biggest microphone in the state. Or, in today’s world, the biggest smartphone. Forty years ago, Stephanie Bass and I were setting up Governor-elect Jim Hunt’s first press office. And we had a theory. We had come out of the capital…
Read MoreKlansmen for Trump, Again
A troop of determined anti-Klan demonstrators, who’d probably read the News and Observer’s story – based on an Internet website – about a ‘Klansmen for Trump’ rally in Pelham, showed up at 9am to protest. The same day – last Saturday – anti-Klan protestors gathered in Moore Square in Raleigh and across the state. There…
Read MoreTrump explained
Millions of words have been expended the last month analyzing, over-analyzing and struggling to understand why the American people – or, at least, the Electoral College system – would make Donald Trump President. Democrats are frenziedly trying to figure out what happened and, as usual, find somebody or something to blame. As in: “Hillary was…
Read MoreGovernor Roy Cooper
After 16 years of mediocrity, North Carolina will get to see excellence again in the Executive Mansion. I know something about excellent Governors. I worked for Jim Hunt for four terms. Cooper reminds me of Governor Hunt. Not so much the young, ambitious Hunt I and II of 1976-1984. But the seasoned, focused and farsighted…
Read MoreCaesar’s Wife and Smelly
An ally of the Governor’s – The Civitas Institute – sued to stop the State Board of Elections counting 90,000 ballots cast by people who’d registered and voted on the same day; normally the State Justice Department would have defended the Board but, since those voters cast ballots in Attorney General Roy Cooper’s race against…
Read MoreAlas, Poor Pat
As his hopes and his days dwindle down to a precious few, you almost feel sorry for Pat McCrory. Almost. It has to be hard being the first North Carolina Governor to lose a reelection race. He couldn’t do what Jim Hunt, Jim Martin, Jim Hunt again and Mike Easley did. Bev Perdue was a…
Read MorePat and Roy
Pat laid his offer on the table Saturday: Recount Durham’s votes and I’ll drop my request for recounts in other counties, he told the State Board of Elections. It sounded reasonable. And fair. But like a lot of knotty problems there’s more than one way to look at it. The chance of a Durham recount…
Read MoreConnecting the Dots: Broken Journalism
After a year of waking up every morning to listen to name-calling and howling on TV I figured, Enough politics – after the election what everyone needed was a break to calm down. About a week later I read an article about the demise of journalism during the election, thought, Amen – then a couple…
Read MoreRock Bottom but Not Boring
Women were coming out of the woodwork for weeks pointing fingers at Donald Trump and Trump’s been saying if you really want to vote against a man who grabs and kisses women you ought to vote against Hillary because of Bill. We’ve had more sex on our hands than needed but finally it died down.…
Read MoreJust Fade Away?
Down in an office building in San Antonio there’re over a hundred Internet gnomes working day and night to elect Donald Trump; until now they’ve been flying below the radar screen but the other day they opened their doors and invited Bloomberg News inside and the result was a story that sent a tremor rolling…
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