North Carolina – Democrats
Party Pooper
There’s good news and there’s bad news about the true state of the N.C. Democratic Party. The bad news is that the actual financial situation is worse than it looks. Much of the $42,700 that the party has on hand belongs to the House and Senate caucuses. That’s also the good news, because…
Read MoreSilence of the Rams
Is there something in the water in Chapel Hill that keeps University big shots from giving straight answers? The same lockjaw that keeps the UNC-CH athletic-academic scandal on the front pages has now spread to the Board of Governors. The board’s non-speak/double-speak non-explanation of why Tom Ross was forced out leaves only one logical…
Read MorePaul’s Conversion
Has Rep. Paul Tine found the promised land – or no man’s land? Tine, who was elected twice as a Democrat, says he can help his district by switching to unaffiliated and caucusing with House Republicans. But will it help him or hurt him in 2016? Voters clearly have no love for…
Read MorePass McCroryCare
Here’s an idea for Democratic legislators, one that could be good politics and good for North Carolina: Help Governor McCrory pass his plan for Medicaid expansion. After meeting with President Obama at the White House last week, McCrory said he argued for flexibility to develop a “North Carolina plan.” But, as Carter noted during…
Read MoreThey Walk the Line
John Boehner, Jeb Bush and Pat McCrory took their first steps this week along a Republican Party fault line that offers peril for each of them – and peril for Democrats if they succeed. Boehner had to fend off a conservative challenge to his reelection as Speaker. Two dozen right-wing Republicans abandoned him. Lucky…
Read More2015 Questions
No predictions or resolutions! Instead let’s ask the big questions for 2015 for the state’s big three political forces: Governor McCrory, Republican legislators and Democrats. For Governor McCrory, will 2015 be about policy and politics, or about personal ethics? As we tuned out for the holidays, he was eyeball-to-eyeball with the capital media, AP…
Read MoreOnline BS
An outfit called Verifeed says “social conversations” on Twitter helped Thom Tillis beat Kay Hagan. Put me down as a skeptic. You hear a lot of sweeping claims about how social media is transforming politics. The acolytes can drown you in numbers about “clicks” and “reads” and “open rates.” But is there hard evidence…
Read MoreA Grave Injustice
GQ just published a list of the 20 craziest politicians and two North Carolinians are on it: Mark Walker, the new Congressman from Greensboro who made the list for joking he’d be for bombing Mexico and that he worries Obama may not leave office at the end of his term, and Congresswoman Virginia Foxx.…
Read MoreWayne Goodwin’s Customer Service
Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin and Governor Pat McCrory appear to have different ideas of what “customer service” means. To McCrory and his administration, the “customers” are “corporations” and, too often, “polluters.” To Goodwin, the customers are “consumers” and, in this instance, “homeowners.” Goodwin last week denied the insurance industry’s request to raise homeowners’…
Read MoreCharles B. Aycock? Really?
Democrats in Washington are squabbling about torture, a $1.1 trillion budget bill and regulations on Wall Street and big banks. Democrats in North Carolina are squabbling about – I kid you not – Charles Brantley Aycock. Specifically, the squabble is in part over whether the wife of a descendant of North Carolina’s governor from…
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