Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Governor McCrory certainly isn’t the only politician “obsessed with his image.” But he shows it more than any politician I’ve ever seen. Read Taylor Batten’s remarkable and revealing account of his hour-and-40-minute interview with the Governor. Batten, editor of the Charlotte Observer’s editorial page (which endorsed McCrory for governor) wrote: “This is a man…
So long as politicians exercise – and abuse – power, we need the press and professors around to question power. But it looks like Republicans in Raleigh want to shut down questions and shut up critics. This after Governor McCrory promised to run an open, transparent administration. First, McCrory’s highly paid PR flacks…
Thanks to Senator Bob Rucho for serving up a heaping holiday helping of hilarity: “JFK could have been the founder and leader of the Tea Party.” Let’s let JFK answer himself. In the 1960 campaign, he said: “I have yet to hear of one single original piece of new, progressive legislation of benefit to…
It wasn’t exactly subtle the other morning when the newspaper ran two stories side by side: One about a single mother who works all day and then works three additional jobs nights and weekends to make ends meet – and a second story about the Director of the Raleigh Housing Authority. It turns out every year…
It’s the best holiday of all. It’s food, family, friends and football. It’s an all-too-brief pause before the mindless consumerism, stressed-out shopping and forced cheer of Christmas. Only Americans could come up with Thanksgiving. Like July 4th, it’s all ours and All-American. July 4th is food, family, friends and the beach. But it’s for…
As if I didn’t get enough JFK last week, I’m reading a new book about how Kennedy, in his last months, was growing into and getting better at the roles of President, politician and persuader-in-chief. If only President Obama could summon some of that mojo now on Obamacare. The book (“JFK’s Last Hundred…
There he goes again: “We didn’t shorten early voting, we compacted the calendar.” Now, that’s positively Orwellian. And it’s the latest in a long string of eye-catching – and embarrassing – statements by Governor McCrory. Two weeks ago, John Frank wrote in the N&O: “At least a dozen times in his first 10 months…
Farmers are saying they’ve tried and tried but there’s no way on earth they can hire enough workers to pick the apples and cucumbers and sweet potatoes germinating in the fields so Congress had better get in gear and pass immigration reform jack-rabbit-quick to legalize undocumented immigrants (which is the farmers’ polite way of saying…
The train wreck hit so unexpectedly and with such force that, after standing his ground through the opening chaos, the President retreated which turned out to be like pouring gas on the fire – the partisan bickering soared. And Obama’s poll numbers tanked. And now listening to the wise men in Washington that was all…
The political sniping began even as chaos still reigned at the White House Correspondents Dinner. My…
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…