North Carolina – Republicans
Clutter
There’re two things about political ads a normal ‘Joe’ sitting at home watching TV could tell you that a lot of campaigns haven’t figured out – here’s an example: Americans for Prosperity just launched a new tv ad attacking Roy Cooper and like a lot of political ads it begins with a shadowy black and…
Read MorePity Pat
He’s had death threats. He and his wife are being shunned socially. He was verbally assaulted by a 21-year-old drunk student, and she was arrested. Corporate executives and university presidents have abandoned him. The voters don’t understand HB2. Its supporters are being “purged.” “It gets to me, I just hide it until I go home…
Read MoreNo high ground for McCrory
Pat McCrory’s reelection problems go much deeper and much farther back than HB2. Any lift he gets from putting on his hurricane hat isn’t likely to lift him out of the floodwaters. That’s the assessment Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling gave at a Common Cause NC fundraiser Sunday evening. Jensen offered a view of…
Read MoreNo answer at 911
A TAP contributor writes, “Here’s an example of what slips through the cracks when a governor is distracted by his world collapsing around him: “McCrory and his team did nothing when 400 people lost their jobs in the abrupt closing of Johnston Ambulance Service. Anybody who’s been around a hospital or nursing home in eastern…
Read MorePat’s Cat 5 Storm
Regardless of what Hurricane Matthew does, Pat McCrory is struggling against high headwinds and a vicious riptide. That forecast track is clear in WRAL’s SurveyUSA poll (which has nothing to do with Greg Fishel). It’s not just that Roy Cooper leads McCrory 48-44. It’s that all the winds are blowing Cooper’s way. Half (51 percent)…
Read MoreCome again?
What’s up with Pat McCrory’s ad strategy? Under the Dome reported that he has a new ad “boasting of North Carolina’s economic gains.” In it, McCrory says: “When I entered office North Carolina had record unemployment, high taxes and huge budget shortfalls; it had been that way for years. Now, we have one of the…
Read MorePhil Berger and the Professors
It’s hard to find a more bull-headed fellow walking the earth than a UNC professor dead-set on upholding the virtues of political correctness: He’s 100% for diversity and 100% against discrimination right up to the moment someone disagrees with him. The other day the UNC Faculty Council gave the legislature and Senator Phil Berger down…
Read MoreAll That Mattered
A Washington Post reporter asked whether Republican legislators passed election laws to require voter I.D.s and limit early voting to keep African Americans from voting. Back in 2010, before Republicans redrew the State House and Senate districts, there were 98 Democrats in the State Legislature. After redistricting, there were 60. Before redistricting, 33 African-Americans…
Read MoreThe Great HB2 Train Wreck
“Is HB2 the worst self-inflicted wound in the history of North Carolina politics?” That’s what a young whippersnapper asked at breakfast the other day. (When you’re my age, you get a lot of questions about history.) I couldn’t think of a worse one. Terry Sanford’s food tax? It hurt him politically, but Sanford didn’t push…
Read MoreRiots and Campaigns
Yesterday two reporters asked me if the riots in Charlotte were going to have a ‘political impact.’ On the radio, while driving to work, I’d heard about the riots but hadn’t read any news reports and didn’t know the answer—then last night at home I turned on the television and the second night of riots…
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