Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Several reporters have called to explore “what’s at stake” in tonight’s U.S. Senate debate and “what Hagan and Tillis have to do.” Well, the answer is a lot simpler than we make it sometimes in politics. The media will bravely try to focus on substance and whether either candidate “said something new.” (The…
Read MoreA 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 MoreWRAL’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 MoreBefore a hurricane brushed the coast, Governor McCrory warned us not to put on our “stupid hats.” Then Hillary Clinton criticized President Obama’s foreign policy for not being more visionary than “don’t do stupid stuff.” Well, call me stupid, but I’m so confused by the world today that “don’t do stupid stuff” sounds pretty…
Read MoreWhen 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 MoreIt’s refreshing to see real brains working on the other side of the political aisle, rather than just mouths mouthing talking points. (In fact, it’s refreshing to see that on your own side.) So this “Tsunami Watch” memo by my Republican pollster friend John McLaughlin and his brother Jim caught my eye. The subhead…
Read MoreTen years ago this month, Barack Obama first streaked across the political skies with a rousing Democratic Convention speech in which he famously proclaimed there wasn’t a red America and a blue America, only one United States of America. Today President Obama presides over an America bitterly divided between red and blue. He doesn’t…
Read MoreYou had to be here in the 1950s to appreciate how much Raleigh and Wake County have changed on the way to one million people. And, to this old-timer, it’s a much better place today. We were poor, provincial, rural and racist to the core. Today we’re affluent, global in outlook, urban and suburban,…
Read MoreAs 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…
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