National Republicans
Will NC Decide GOP Race?
I hope North Carolina Republicans get to do this year what North Carolina Democrats did in 2008: decide their party’s presidential race. Obama clinched the nomination when he won North Carolina’s primary, according to none less than the late Tim Russert of NBC. So I’m pulling for Rick Santorum to win tonight –…
Read More‘Real’ Christians
“Republicans being against sex is not good. Sex is popular.” – Republican strategist Alex Castellanos A long, hard-fought presidential nominating race doesn’t hurt Republicans by leaving them divided. They’ll unite against President Obama. No, it hurts with voters in the middle. First there’s this obsession about whether President Obama is “real” Christian. Franklin…
Read MoreSantorum’s Contraception Obsession
Rick Santorum, who wants to take America back to 1900, takes me back to 1984. That was the year of the Hunt-Helms race. In the dying days, we were behind in the polls – and desperate. With the help of (believe it or not) Dick Morris, we came up with a bomb to blow…
Read MoreGone Too Far
Campaigning up in Ohio last weekend Rick Santorum allowed that President Obama’s politics springs from his ‘world view’ which in turn springs from “some phony theology, not a theology based on the Bible.” Obama’s campaign immediately shot back in a white heat that Santorum had just questioned the President’s Christianity. And Santorum answered…
Read MoreGOP Mini-Me’s
The GOP 13th Congressional District race looks like a mini-version of the Republican presidential race. George Holding is playing the part of Mitt Romney: establishment conservative focusing on cutting spending and deficits (and ignoring the reality that Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush gave us the biggest deficits ever). Paul Coble…
Read MoreCross Your Fingers
Can Democrats get so lucky? Will the Republicans really nominate Rick Santorum? I had high hopes for Newt Gingrich. But, once again, he has proven to be the Hindenburg of American politics: a huge vessel of hot air doomed to go down in flames. Clearly, Mitt Romney would be the toughest Republican in…
Read MoreMitt as Pretzel
Mitt Romney has to be the most phony-baloney politician in American history. If there was an Olympics for Flip-Flop, he’d hold the Gold. If he did yoga, he’d be a pretzel. He is the Mickey Mantle of Political Switch-Hitting, the Oscar Robertson of Obfuscation, the unchallenged champion of the George Orwell Trophy for Double-Talk. …
Read MoreThe Dark Side
Economic numbers are brightening a bit, so President Obama’s ratings are a bit brighter. But the most striking thing about the election climate nine months out is the darkness on the Republican side. Listen to them – and to what their words and their expressions say about their mood, their attitude and their vision…
Read MoreMedia Blitz
Bill Faison got a rude welcome to statewide politics. The N&O story about his ex-wife’s divorce allegations – published the day Faison filed – was like blitzing a rookie quarterback on his first play of the season. The divorce apparently dogged Faison’s race against David Parker for state party chair – and cost him…
Read MoreA Dickens Novel
Last Monday Mitt Romney was on top of the world. Everything was coming up roses – then on Tuesday night Rick Santorum swept Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota. This may be too simple an explanation of what happened but if you take Newt Gingrich’s votes in Minnesota and Colorado and give them to Santorum, Santorum…
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