Raleigh
A Lobbyist’s Rant
I received the angry missive below from a lobbyist – who wishes to remain nameless, for obvious reasons – in response to reports that Republican State Rep. Justin Burr used campaign funds to buy suits and jackets from Brooks Brothers in Raleigh. “Lobbyists are a timid bunch. “They never squawk when they’re treated…
Read MoreConglomerates and Push Polls
Thom who’s twenty-eight and, after managing three campaigns for State legislature, has decided he’s ready to be a political consultant stopped in mid-sentence and pointed to the back of Albert’s newspaper, ‘Geez, look at that.’ The waitress poured coffee. Albert, who’s a pollster, turned over the paper and stared at a full…
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 MoreResponding to Carter
Now Carter’s gone to meddling. So I feel compelled to depart from my preference to avoid writing about clients. His October 24 blog, “The Vanishing Cuts,” takes aim at DHHS Secretary Lanier Cansler – again. His collateral targets include people who run and live in adult-care homes (my clients). Here’s the other side…
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 MoreFair Warning
The other morning after she finished reading the obituaries my wife turned to the front page of the newspaper and frowned then declared, That is ridiculous. Buried in the sports page I muttered, What’s ridiculous? John Edwards says he can’t be prosecuted because the government didn’t give him ‘fair warning’ he was violating…
Read MoreOccupy Me?
The Occupy Wall Street/Washington/Raleigh/etc. protests are a classic example of a political movement that the general public may agree with, at least on some level, but not find agreeable. In politics, as in physics, every action generates a reaction. The Tea Party movement powered Republicans to victory in 2010, but may drag them to…
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 MoreDivisiveness Loses
A TAPster sees a factor in Tuesday’s elections apart from the party angle: “There’s an important lesson tucked in the outcome of Raleigh’s school board election Tuesday when voters kicked out the divisive school board chairman. “It’s not a lesson about Democrats vs. Republicans, even though the N&O and its political pundit Rob…
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