Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
The ACLU Speaks Out on Foot Tapping and Hand Gestures
A few years ago, I made an issues ad criticizing then State Representative Richard Morgan. Of course, Richard didn’t like being criticized any more than anyone else – so he filed a complaint with the State Board of Elections claiming the group airing the ad was violating state elections law and to make a long…
The Real Issue for Perdue and Moore
If Richard Moore and Beverly Perdue stop sniping over resumes, degrees and ages, they will see the real target in the Governor’s race. And they can remind voters why North Carolina needs a Democratic governor next year. Republicans always say that North Carolina’s schools are failing. Their solution, always, is to starve the schools of…
Student Video Trips Up Edwards Campaign
John Edwards’s campaign staffers blew it when they blew up over a UNC journalism student’s video story. No more than few thousand people would have seen the original post on YouTube. After the campaign went nuclear, hundreds of thousands saw it. It’s a double whammy for Edwards. First a minor story gets more attention. Then…
Mercedes Drove Us to Incentives
The News & Observerâs recent examination of economic incentives said âattitudes have changedâ here since North Carolina lost Mercedes to Alabama in 1993. Actually, attitudes changed because we lost Mercedes. The story accurately noted that North Carolina didnât get the Mercedes plant because we didnât match Alabamaâs incentives. The N&O noted that my old boss,…
Bush’s Shadow
The Supreme Commander of the U.S. Army in Iraq – from June 2003 through June 2004 – said last week President Bush’s handing of the war has been “incompetent.” Not mistaken. Or flawed. Incompetent. The spinmeisters went to work overnight saying General Ricardo Sanchez’s has a case of sour grapes because he didn’t get a…
Electrifying ElectriCities
Carter and I started Talking About Politics when we become intrigued by how blogs create an alternative form of political communication. It’s happening on our own site right now – without either of us lifting a finger. Click here to read a post that somebody (we don’t know who) put on our site about ElectriCities…
Rough Sailing Ahead for Hillary
Hillary Clinton’s campaign is living on a diet of fingernails. The Main Stream Media (MSM) and the Democratic Establishment have proclaimed her the winner. But John Edwards asks the apt question: Did I miss something? Did Iowa already vote? Did we already pick a nominee? History says that no Democratic front-runner sails to the nomination…
Run, Kay, Run
Even before Jim Neal outed himself, Kay Hagan was looking at getting back in the U.S. Senate race. Now she’s getting more encouragement – from home and from Washington. Hagan, a state senator from Greensboro, had looked at running earlier. She pulled back because Senator Charles Schumer from New York, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial…
Good PR, Bad PR
I watch “60 Minutes” Sunday nights to see who shines and who fades in the close-up TV glare. The results are often surprising. Valerie Plame and Erik Prince, to take two examples. I was predisposed to like Plame, the outed CIA agent. After all, she’s taken a blowtorch to the Bush Administration. And she looks…