National Republicans
Trumpenstein
Good ol’ Harry Reid gave the Republican Party hell last week for creating its Trump Frankenstein monster. Reid just didn’t go far enough. In a Washington speech, “Give ‘em hell” Harry said GOP leaders who now denounce Trump are to blame for Trump: “The Republican establishment acts bewildered. But they should not be bewildered. As much…
Read MoreObama’s pickoff play
President Obama’s Supreme Court move was brilliant. He put Senate Republicans in a box the very day they faced up to the prospect of a Trump electoral disaster in November. The Republicans can either confirm Merrick Garland, a mild and moderate choice by most accounts, or they can take their chances on the next President’s…
Read MoreA hateful election
Barack Obama’s 2008 election was about hope. This one will be about hate. Two savvy political veterans, a Republican and a Democrat, agreed this week on one thing: a Trump-Clinton race will bring us historic levels of negativity, bitterness and, yes, hate. The Democrat added, “Hate is a greater motivator than love. It could be…
Read MoreBernie, Donald and Our Depression
Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are wildly different, but weirdly alike. Sanders was a wild-haired radical who became a white-haired “Democratic socialist” and is roiling the Democratic establishment. Trump was a weird-haired excess symbol who became a reality TV star and is running roughshod over the Republican establishment. Both are buoyed by blue-collar voters who feel screwed…
Read MoreTrump TV
We’re told Donald Trump’s appeal is “strength.” But twice this week unforgiving cameras showed what really lies beneath: weakness or even, shall we say, impotence. In Fayetteville, a white Trump supporter punched a black protestor. The attacker said, “The next time we see him, we might have to kill him.” Protest must be punished. Dissenters…
Read MoreA blogger’s confession
My name is Gary, and I’m addicted to blogging about Donald Trump. Lord knows, I’ve tried to stop. Every week, I tell myself: Stop writing about Trump. Ignore him. Blog about redistricting or the Democratic primaries or Cooper-McCrory or why Thomas Mills lost his mind and is running for Congress. But I can’t stop. It’s…
Read MoreGOP convention: a big deal?
Conventional wisdom seems to be that only a “brokered convention” can stop Donald Trump. Presumably, the party elders and wise men (no females allowed) would brush aside the results of these pesky primaries and caucuses and select one of their own as the candidate. A Romney, Ryan or McConnell. Really? Would delegates chosen in primaries…
Read MoreLocation, location, location
Where candidates go can tell you as much as what they say. Take the Clinton, Cruz and Trump campaigns in North Carolina this week. President Bill Clinton was in Raleigh Monday, at the City Market downtown. That’s the epicenter of the North Carolina Democratic Party today. It’s the gathering place for lawyers, new-economy entrepreneurs, urban…
Read MoreA Reckoning
I’m not sure why Donald Trump’s supporters loathe Washington Politicians;—Peggy Noonan says what’s going on is a struggle between people with power (Washington politicians and millionaires) and people without power: That sitting in penthouses and townhomes the powerful have been doing just fine through recessions and hard times while the people without power have been…
Read MoreAging Powers
A couple of years before the Berlin Wall fell a writer, gazing into his crystal ball, predicted communism was done for because ‘even the people who believed in it didn’t believe in it anymore’ – then, by way of explanation, he added that a dead ideology lives on awhile in a semi-comatose state but, after…
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