An Ironic Kind of Justice

Trump brags, name-calls, but to his credit he’s candid – what you see is what you get. He’s a rascal but doesn’t dress it up with high sounding talk. Cal Cunningham’s a rascal too but candor’s not among his virtues: He painted a picture of himself as a small-town boy… to trust… who loves North…

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A Backfire…

I woke up this morning, turned on the TV, and there was an ad from Mitch McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund basically calling Cal Cunningham a no good low-life scumbag – it was immediately followed by an ad for Cal Cunningham with Cunningham in it talking sweet and grinning, saying he disagreed with Thom Tillis about…

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Last Respects

Thirty-five years ago, the morning George Crile – a producer at 60 Minutes who later wrote the book Charlie Wilson’s War – called I thought, An interview with 60 Minutes – what’s the difference between that and sticking your head in a lion’s mouth? I said: ‘I reckon you know the chances of Tom Ellis…

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What a Poll Missed

During Ronald Reagan’s 1976 primary Tom Ellis and I sat in a room listening to Arthur Finkelstein explain his first poll for Reagan in North Carolina – forty years later, sitting in my office across the table from Arthur, I listened to him explain his polls for George Holding. Sadly, a year later, Arthur passed…

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Dan versus Roy: Every Lost Second

Dan Forest is a good, decent man and he’s the most conservative candidate on the ballot for statewide office this fall but he’s running against an incumbent Governor who has a fine-tuned political machine with its eyes locked on beating Dan Forest. We’re a swing state and, before the coronavirus epidemic upended the world, Roy…

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The Election: How Vanity Bred a Mistake

At his rallies Donald Trump roars about the might of his base – in his eyes it’s the key to his defeating Joe Biden. So he tweets (to his base) how he has the highest approval rating among Republicans of any President, even Lincoln – but Trump’s calculation may boomerang: If every Republican Trumpster in…

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Democrats and Republicans find common ground

Apparently, we all agree on one thing: Washington is corrupt. That’s the central message from two challengers to Senator Thom Tillis, one a Democrat and one a Republican. In his announcement video this week, Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham says we must “reform the corrupt system in Washington.” He says, “the corruption in D.C. and politicians…

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Democrats should just forget this poll

Democrats have been circulating and celebrating an Emerson College poll that shows Trump losing North Carolina to Joe Biden by 12 points, to Bernie Sanders by eight points, to Pete Buttigieg by four and tied with Elizabeth Warren. The poll shows State Senator Erica Smith leading Senator Thom Tillis 46-39, and Governor Roy Cooper leading…

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Unhealthy Politics

Healthcare was a winning issue for Democrats in North Carolina and across the country in 2018. Republicans in Raleigh seem bound and determined to make it an even bigger winner for Democrats next year. Governor Roy Cooper is building on 2018 by making Medicaid expansion a big part of his budget showdown with the Republican-led…

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Cooper’s fight echoes Terry Sanford’s

Governor Roy Cooper has picked the same fight over North Carolina’s future that Terry Sanford picked more than 60 years ago. The issue is the same. Then, powerful people in Raleigh wanted the legislature to pass corporate tax cuts. Sanford said that was wrong. He said North Carolina needed to invest in education. This year,…

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