National Republicans
Contemplating Your Navel
Back in 1976 when Ronald Reagan was running in the North Carolina Primary, Arthur Finkelstein (Reagan’s pollster) hammered into my head the importance of time in campaigns, saying a hundred times, Campaigns have three resources: People, money and time. You can hire more people and raise more money but you can’t make one second more…
Read MoreMitt’s Three Blessings
Mitt Romney has three things going for him: math, money and stupid opponents. Math has become Mitt’s main message: “I’m going to win because the delegate math is on my side.” He’s definitely a numbers guy. He’s also a money guy. He doesn’t beat his opponents so much as he drowns them in…
Read MoreNegative Attacks
Every day we move closer to the primary in May more punches and elbows are thrown by politicians. Now, in politics there are three kinds of negative attacks. There’s ‘The Blunder’ – this attack is so outrageous (and untrue) it backfires and destroys the attacker. People take one look at it and say,…
Read MoreThe Fault Line
Since before the Iowa Caucus the pundits have been saying what Republican voters care about most is electing the strongest candidate to beat Obama, or electing the candidate who’d fight hardest to cut spending. Almost everyone’s been opining ‘The election’s about who can beat Obama’ or ‘The election’s about spending,’ but it turns out that’s…
Read MoreWhat Will Be the 2008 Game Changer?
You can be certain of one thing about the 2012 election: The thing that will decide it hasn’t happened yet. At this point in 2008, nobody had heard of Sarah Palin. And nobody expected the economy to nearly collapse in six months. The possibilities are endless: war with Iran? Another disaster in Afghanistan?…
Read MoreWhat’s He Been Smoking?
Paul Coble’s gone and done it again. Just a few months ago Paul Coble was asking Joe Knott to support him for Congress. Now, treading water, Paul’s hit the panic button and called Joe Knott a wild-eyed liberal – because Joe’s supporting George Holding and not Paul. Next, out of a clear blue…
Read MoreCoble Heaves a Mudball
Yesterday, Paul Coble reared up on his hind legs and brayed like a mule and hurled a mudball straight at George Holding – which is a sure sign Coble’s campaign is in trouble. The rhubarb began Saturday at the debate – Coble rolled through a homily to himself then Bill Randall asked, What about…
Read MoreBurn the Heretics!
After all these years, I find out that Carter Wrenn is a liberal. He had me fooled â working for Jesse Helms, where he ran ads calling Jim Hunt a âMondale liberal.â Even after we became friends and worked together on some non-political projects, he maintained the façade of a crusty conservative. Now…
Read MoreObama’s Gallantry, Romney’s Timidity
Near the end of the 1960 campaign, at the urging of civil rights aide Harris Wofford, John Kennedy called Coretta Scott King to offer his sympathy after Martin Luther King was jailed. Robert Kennedy exploded at Wofford: “You just lost us the election.” As it turned out, the call won JFK thousands of African-America…
Read MoreThanks, Rush
America’s biggest problem is the economy. So, of course, national politics plunges into culture wars – or, more like, sex wars. I guess it’s because Republicans in Congress and Rick Santorum just can’t resist the lure of legislating morality. And maybe it’s because people know more about sex than about the economy. …
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