North Carolina – Republicans
Tillis an IBM ‘Partner’?
A sharp-eyed TAPster thinks that Thom Tillis is stretching the truth (again) on his biography. The TAPster notes that Tillis says in his new “Kitchen” ad: “I’ve been a paperboy, a short order cook, a warehouse clerk and eventually a partner at IBM.” “Freeze it!” as Dick Vitale would say. The TAPster protests:…
Read MoreHagan, Dole and the 90s
WRAL’s Mark Binker says the claim that Senator Kay Hagan votes with President Obama 95 percent of the time is “something of karmic payback for Hagan, who benefited from a similar claim leveled against then-Sen. Elizabeth Dole in 2008.” There is a little-noted back story to the Dole ad: It wasn’t really about voting…
Read MoreThe Next Big Issue?
When the pollster asked voters, Who should pay for the coal ash cleanup, Duke Energy or consumers? the answer came back loud and clear: Voters had no doubt. Almost to a man they said Duke Energy. Now that didn’t mean that was the right – or fair – answer. But it did mean…
Read MoreSenate Ads Are Working
As much as I respect Rob Christensen and the political experts he talked with in today’s column, I disagree with their conclusion that the money spent in the U.S. Senate race has had “little effect.” In fact, I think the ads by Senator Hagan – and on her behalf – have painted Thom Tillis…
Read MoreThree Strikes
Republicans strode up to the plate in Raleigh with big bats and high hopes, then whiffed on three straight pitches. Strike one was teacher pay. Their top goal was to stop the bleeding on education. But their so-called pay raise was so full of holes, questions and confusion that nobody is satisfied, teachers are…
Read MoreTea Party Hits the Skids
The battered and bedraggled Tea Partiers have been taking it on the chin – they’ve gotten pounded, losing races in Tennessee, Kansas, Texas, Kentucky, South Carolina and Mississippi so, now, the press is humming their funeral dirge while Washington Republicans are chortling the Tea Party’s headed for the elephant graveyard of political movements. So…
Read MoreDay Two, But Still Part One
Governor McCrory’s blast at The N&O got him another day of the “blaring, top-of-the-fold” headlines he blasted. But this is just the beginning of the Coal Ash Saga. We soon will have a U.S. Attorney’s investigation and a fight over who pays: McCrory’s former boss, Duke Energy, or his current boss, the People of North…
Read MoreInfectious?
Well, looking back, it was bound to happen. First, John Boehner decided to sue Obama for not enforcing the Obamacare laws and most of the House Republicans went along on the theory even if they didn’t like Obamacare the laws are the laws and the President can’t just change one whenever it suits him.…
Read MoreMcCrory’s Coal Ash Sword
Long after Watergate brought him down (40 years ago this month), Richard Nixon told David Frost: “I gave them a sword, and they stuck it in and they twisted it with relish.” Now, Governor McCrory’s actions on coal ash don’t begin to approach Nixon’s on Watergate. But he has given his enemies a sword…
Read MoreThe Best Lobbyists on earth
The other day Gary wrote, “For Democrats this election year, this legislature is the gift that keeps on giving. Maybe they’ll stay in session all the way to November” – considering by Speaker Thom Tillis’ announcement the legislature is about to return to town and pass the stuck ‘coal ash’ bill, Gary may get more…
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