North Carolina – Republicans
The Swing Voter
This blog is also posted on The Charlotte Observer’s DNC blog site. In case you missed it there’re two new polls this week but nothing’s changed. Republicans are still voting rocklike for Romney, Democrats are still rocklike for Obama, and if you want a portrait of a swing voter she’s a mother with young…
Read MorePicking – and Picking On – Charlotte
This blog is also posted on The Charlotte Observer’s DNC blog site. Over the past few weeks, a stream of state and national reporters asked essentially the same question: “Was it a mistake for Democrats to come to Charlotte?” Let’s set aside the existential question of whether it’s ever a mistake to come…
Read MoreCloset Centrists
They may be the Republican nominees, but Mitt Romney and Pat McCrory seem out of tune with the party in Tampa. That party loves the hard-edged, right-wing rhetoric of Paul Ryan and – before his bellyflop Tuesday night – Chris Christie. The conventioneers celebrate Romney, but their hearts don’t seem to be in it.…
Read MoreThe Breaking Point
The other day Gary wrote “Why They Lie” about the election in 1984 when Jim Hunt and Jesse Helms were duking it out and how elbow throwing was acceptable in that campaign but outright lying was taboo – that was one line both Helms and Hunt feared to cross. Because they’d pay a price. …
Read MoreToo Good to be True?
It doesn’t take a great deal to turn a fellow’s head – a blonde whispering in his ear, unexpected praise from a stranger, a new sports car. Humility’s hard to come by and harder still to hold onto which, I guess, is one reason the Good Lord made the world such a difficult place to…
Read MoreJim Hunt and the Dropout Rate
I had to laugh when Republicans claimed credit for North Carolina’s high-school graduation rate topping 80 percent. And I have to stake a claim for Jim Hunt’s role. Over the last six years, the state’s graduation rate has gone up nearly 12 percentage points –from at 68.3 percent in 2006 to 80.2 percent. …
Read MoreLegislators and Lobbyists
A veteran legislative hand and former lobbyist offers this perspective on how Raleigh has changed: “If you want to really understand today’s political world, understand how the politicians view the role of lobbyists. “Democrats see lobbyists as a source of information to help them make a decision. “Republicans see lobbyists as a…
Read MoreAn Odd Fact
Whenever the question of how to improve education in North Carolina comes up the Democrats are a paragon of consistency: The solution, they say, is to spend more money. Now, right or wrong, the Democrats are dead serious and whenever Republicans (who have a different idea about solutions to problems) don’t spend more on…
Read MorePopcorn Politics Part Deux
**Gary is taking a break from blogging and he asked a few Tapsters to post a few blogs. Here is another one a Tapster sent in: The biggest day of the 2012 political calendar is August 10. No, that’s not the start of the much-ballyhooed and underfunded Democratic National Convention, nor is it…
Read MorePopcorn Politics
**Gary is taking a break from blogging and he asked a few Tapsters to post a few blogs. Here is one a Tapster sent in: The rankings of the allegedly most influential lobbyists were released last week by the NC Center for Public Policy Research. This biennial joke was greeted by the usual…
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