North Carolina – Republicans

The jinx was on Pat McCrory last week. When his campaign emailed out a press release and misspelled the word governor (spelling it governer) a little contrition would have solved the problem. But McCrory’s Campaign Manager, Victoria Smith, compounded the error with a second mistake, saying the misspelling was sabotage – they’d been ‘hacked.’ Then,…

Fred Smith didn’t waste any time welcoming Charlotte Mayer Pat McCrory to the governor’s race. His response to McCrory’s announcement: He called McCrory a “tax and spend liberal” who “probably ought to be in the other party.” There’s a point to Smith’s bluntness. Pat McCrory is largely known outside Charlotte. Smith means to correct that.…

Money talks in politics and there is more money – a lot more – in Charlotte than anywhere else in North Carolina. So the emergence of two new candidates from Charlotte may be Republicans’ best hope of nominating candidates who can match the Democrats’ – until now – huge financial edge in the campaigns for…

Here was the churlish response of state Rep. Paul Stam, a Wake County Republican, to news that N.C. State University wants to name its new library for former Governor Jim Hunt: “Normally to get your name on a government building, you have to be dead. But I’m not on a crusade about this.” Good thing…

Fred Smith’s clumsy play for the home-school crowd may be good Republican primary politics. But it’s Exhibit A for why Democrats will hold onto the Governor’s Office in 2008. In the three gubernatorial elections Republicans have won, their candidates ran as public-school champions: Jim Holshouser in 1972 and Jim Martin in 1984 and 1988. Since…

The Democrats usually don’t experience much stress when it comes to recruiting candidates. They’ve got two behemoths running for Governor. They’ve got candidates running against Congressmen Robin Hays and Walter Jones. And they’ve even got a candidate running for Congress in the Tenth District – where a Democrat hasn’t been elected in forty years. But…

Some Democrats worry that no big name is challenging Senator Dole. Don’t despair. The field has narrowed to Kay Hagan and Grier Martin. Both would be good candidates, and both are looking hard at the race. First, they’re looking at is money. Dole says she’ll raise $20 million for her reelection. That’s just bluster. Still,…