National Democrats
The Ground Beneath Trump’s Feet
Winds change and without warning politics changes: In 1980 Reagan and Carter were running neck and neck ten days before the election – winds changed, Reagan won 44 states. Sitting in my office ten years later during Jesse Helms’ Senate campaign our pollster pointed to one question in his poll: 80% of the voters disagreed…
Read MoreDodging Won’t Work
No one saw it coming: Running for governor, neck and neck with Josh Stein, Mark Robinson just got upended. Robinson’s family business – Balanced Nutrition – is paid by the state to provide meals for needy children in day care centers. Robinson’s wife, who runs the company, makes $160,000 in salary. Robinson, his son, daughter,…
Read MoreCheering Insults: The Price
There was ice in the room the first time I met Gary Pearce – we stared at each other across a polished table in a conference room negotiating the Helms-Hunt debates. That campaign was brutal like a prize fight but, at the same time, sitting around that table people on both sides were polite to…
Read MoreCoop for Veep
Home-state pride aside, there are four good reasons Vice President Kamala Harris should pick Governor Roy Cooper. First, together they can carry North Carolina, and Trump can’t win without North Carolina. In 2020, Trump beat Joe Biden by only 1.3% here, and Cooper won reelection by 4.5%. If Cooper – by far the most popular…
Read MoreEverything Has Changed
With one tweet last Sunday afternoon, President Biden transformed the 2024 race – from a same-old, same-old election to a stark choice between past and future, hate and hope, grievance and progress. Suddenly, only one party is trying to elect an 80-year-old President who mixes up names, mangles his thoughts and looks to be in…
Read MoreNY Times: Climbing Out on a Limb, Twice.
Climbing out on a limb the New York Times led the charge to get Biden out of the race. The day after Biden got out the Times published a chart ranking ten Democrat candidates from the most likely to least likely to beat Trump. At the top of the list was Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro…at…
Read MoreHistory: Two Stories
Joe Biden got out of the race. Kamala Harris got in, a legion of Democrats endorsed her, and she raised $50 million in 24 hours. But Harris faces an enigma. Since 1960 Vice Presidents have run for President seven times. Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale and Al Gore all lost. Nixon lost in 1960 but won…
Read MorePower Party
With President Biden’s age off the agenda, maybe now the media will focus on the Republican Party’s agenda for America. Ronald Reagan’s party of limited government, individual freedom, decentralized power and resistance to totalitarian rule in the world is dead, gone and – after last weeks’ Republican National Convention – buried. The new world order…
Read MoreWhich Will Do the Least Harm?
Did the Good Lord save Trump, touch his soul? Trump says God saved him. And his son says he’s a changed man. So did Trump have a moment in Butler, Pennsylvania like St. Paul on the road to Damascus? For three days in a row Trump sat quietly in the Republican National Convention, smiling –…
Read MoreNo Quit
Years of political battles taught me this: You ain’t beat ‘til you quit. There’s too much quit in the Democratic Party right now. Yes, President Biden’s poll numbers are perilous, and pressures on him to quit are enormous. Still, I’m not convinced that Vice President Kamala Harris would be a stronger candidate, even if she…
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