North Carolina – Republicans
One Sin
Over in Orange County the Democratic Commissioners would like to raise sales taxes, so there’s a referendum on the ballot on Election Day, which, normally, would lead to a fight between Democrats and Republicans – but that’s not how it works in Chapel Hill. Instead, the tax raisers have spared themselves a lot of strain…
Read MoreVoter ID Deal?
A lobbyist friend suspects that the legislature will try to override the Governor’s veto of the voter ID bill this week. Then we may learn whether some Democrats agreed to vote for the override in exchange for the gay-marriage amendment being on the ballot in May, instead of November. Stay tuned.
Read MoreThe New North Carolina
There’s a direct line betweenRob Christensen’s Page 1 story today about why President Obama loves North Carolina and John Frank’s story yesterday about John and Ann Campbell’s role in the Wake school board race. Long, long ago, before some of you were born, North Carolina had three industries: textiles, furniture and tobacco. In the…
Read MoreDems Have $$, Too
Now Republicans are whining about elections being for sale. A couple of weeks ago, Democrats were whining about Art Pope “buying” North Carolina. I suggested they stop whining and start winning by finding their own deep pockets. It looks like the deep pockets found them. John Frank reports in the N&O that…
Read MoreFrom China With Love
Governor Perdue reached across the Pacific to Washington last week to make a point that signals her 2012 strategy: Republicans are hurting education. While she was in China, her office sent a letter to Senators Hagan and Burr endorsing “The Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act.” She wrote that the bill,…
Read MoreThe Vanishing Cuts
If Bev Perdue had a few more Cabinet Secretaries like Lanier Cansler she’d never have to cut spending a penny – no matter what Republican legislators said. Last summer the Republicans told Cansler to cut the state’s $12.9 billion Medicaid budget by $350 million. The other day a team of legislators came back to…
Read MoreA Democratic Pope?
A Republican TAPster sends along this N&O blog with the observation: “Looks like the Democrats might have found their version of an Art Pope.” Keung Hui, in a blog headed, “Dean Debnam’s group gives Common Sense Matters another $25,000,” wrote: “It looks like we should expect another flurry of mailers from Common Sense…
Read MoreBail Bonding
Some ne’er-do-well over in Johnston County got himself arrested, thrown into jail, hired a bail bondsman, then skipped town leaving the bondsman holding the bag. Which left the bondsman with 20 days to file a motion to get his money back – if he could show the bail jumper had died unexpectedly or been locked…
Read MoreSilent and Deadly
Direct mail is the Ninja assassin of politics. “An icepick to the forehead,” it was called by Dave Gold, who did our direct mail when Jim Hunt beat Jim Gardner in 1992. That year, we targeted 100,000 swing voters statewide. And bombarded them with a series of mailings about Gardner’s checkered business record. By…
Read MorePopish Politics
There is delicious irony in the juxtaposition of the New Yorker story about Art (“I am not an heir”) Pope and Tuesday’s election. The New Yorker critique of Pope is that he spent a lot of his money to support tough, negative, independent campaign attacks on Democrats – which helped Republicans win control of…
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