Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
In the middle of Donald Trump’s campaign against Hillary Clinton, a Playboy model sold the rights to her story about her affair with Trump to the National Enquirer for $150,000 – and when Trump learned what happened he sat down with his lawyer, Michael Cohen, to discuss buying those rights from the Enquirer so the…
A reader offers this suggestion: If I were a Democratic pundit I would, henceforth, refer to our President as “Putin’s Poodle.” In the first place, it’s true. He respects and trusts Dictator Putin more than he respects and trusts American intelligence services. In the second place, Trump can sure dish it out. You remember —…
In his terse, clipped way, Bert Bennett once summed up perfectly why we’re Democrats and why he helped elect Terry Sanford and Jim Hunt: “Sanford and Hunt had the right attitude: human dignity, based on ethics and work and not color or background or money.” Rob Christensen’s N&O profile today caught the essence of Bert,…
Back when Jim Hunt was Governor (the good old days) he routinely had job approval ratings in the mid to high 60s. He was one of the most popular governors in America, until Carter & Co. spent two years and $20 million knocking him down in 1984. Even then, Hunt bounced back into the 60s…
Elections are usually about issues. But sometimes character overwhelms issues. Like with Trump. The Gallup Poll asked: “Thinking about Donald Trump as a person, do you have a positive or negative opinion of him?” Only 36 percent of voters – just over one in three – said positive; 55 percent said negative. Among Independents, only…
The ABC News reporter asked Steve Bannon if Trump ever lied and Bannon said ‘never’ then the reporter asked, Never? and Bannon quipped, “Except when he called me Sloppy Steve.” Politicians telling tall-tales is an old story but, like insults and boasting, in days past lying was a taboo – Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, Conservatives all…
Sometimes Carter and I get asked to speak about the 1984 Hunt-Helms Senate race. Some of the people we see weren’t born then. For them, it’s like going to the Dinosaur Museum – and the dinosaurs come out and talk. Because we lost, I’m often asked what was the biggest lesson I learned. That’s easy,…
The same way people once frowned on insults and name calling, there was a time in our country when people frowned on bragging. Ronald Reagan never bragged about winning the Cold War and Obama didn’t boast about how many times he’d been on the cover of Time magazine. But those days are past. A reporter…
You knew there was something just a little too good about Fred Rogers, didn’t you? Now all is revealed, thanks to a new documentary. Brace yourself: Mister Rogers was a lifelong Republican. That’s about it. Otherwise, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” shows him to have been just as kind, wise and decent in real life…
A new nationwide poll shows that, if they could run against each other in 2028, Barack…
Senator Phil Berger was out of touch with voters in his district – and suffered the…
A reassuring lesson from our trip to Germany and Czechia is that dictators, despots and tyrants…