North Carolina – Republicans
Republicans do believe in government spending!
Sometimes politicians just have to rise above principle. Like Republican legislative leaders who have come to love spending taxpayers’ money – for goodies that help them politically. The Republican civic religion is that government is the problem and no problem can be solved by throwing tax dollars at it. Unless it’s a baseball stadium or…
Read MoreMust Love Dogs
Long ago the bib-overall wearing editor of a small weekly newspaper in Raleigh published a story claiming Jim Hunt was gay. There wasn’t a word of truth in it. He’d made it up and splashed it across the front page, hoping to elect Jesse Helms. For one stunned moment, there was a collective gasp. Then…
Read MoreFollow the Money
It’s hard for a Washington politician to explain away a $300 million snafu but it’s even harder for a Raleigh Bull Moose without the opportunity to learn dissimulation first-hand by watching the masters in Congress. From the first day Phil Berger rapped the gavel his hand-picked Medicaid Czar, Senator Ralph Hise the Mountain Statistician, made…
Read MoreControlling the Money
It was modern politics at its noisiest with shouting and arm waving and bark-peeling emails flying through the ether but even by modern standards the State Republican Party blasting the Republican Leaders of the State House and Senate Leader was odd. Last spring just about every Republican Leader from Pat McCrory to Phil Berger endorsed…
Read MoreMad Republicans
Republicans are fighting mad. At each other. The Republican presidential contest is an insult-comic festival. The US House Republican caucus is cannibalizing itself. Republican members of Congress from North Carolina are knifing each other in the back. And front. Republican legislators are fighting with the Republican Board of Governors over the next UNC President. Governor…
Read MoreClay Feet
Governor McCrory isn’t one of those politicians who lusts after power; he’s more like a genial movie star or an actor who walks onto the stage, speaks his lines, listens to the applause then moves on to the next act. The Bull Mooses in the State Senate do lust for power. They bulldoze the Governor.…
Read MoreRoss rolls out
Thirty hours after Roy Cooper’s announcement and just as the Democratic presidential debate was ending, Deborah Ross announced for US Senate. If she and Cooper do as well the rest of the way as they did their first day, Democrats will be celebrating in 13 months. Her announcement video was strong. It introduced her, “rooted” her…
Read MoreThe $300 Million Hole
There’s not a soul in the state who can match a Senate Bull Moose when it comes to bragging he’s a true conservative – that he’s more conservative than the Governor or any politician around. But then the Bull Mosses slipped. From the day the Senate came to town Phil Berger’s Medicaid Czar, Senator Ralph…
Read MoreA Shaky Proposition
Just before the legislature left town the blog that promotes Senator Phil Berger reported hundreds of dead people were collecting Medicaid and that fraud’s gotten so bad even the Obama Administration wants a crackdown – but the warning came too late: The Honorables were headed for the exits and Phil Berger’s Medicaid Czar – Senator…
Read MoreRoy rolls in
Some political pros believe that nothing in a campaign consumes more time and energy and produces less value than the announcement. But Roy Cooper showed Monday how a well-designed and well-executed announcement can launch a campaign on the right trajectory. Not least of all, Cooper got several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of free TV time…
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