Carter is a Republican. Gary is a Democrat.

They met in 1984, during the epic U.S. Senate battle between Jesse Helms and Jim Hunt. Carter worked for Helms and Gary, for Hunt.

Years later, they became friends. They even worked together on some nonpolitical clients.

They enjoy talking about politics. So they started this blog in 2005.

They’re still talking. And they invite you to join the conversation.

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Carter Wrenn

Gary Pearce 2024

Gary Pearce

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Skating Across Ice

By Carter Wrenn September 24, 2013

A few days ago I wrote how Secretary Aldona Wos, who’d landed in the briar patch, would be wise to step up and start telling her side of the story.   Last Friday she did.   Now, listening to Dr. Wos is interesting. One moment she’s skating effortlessly across a sheet of rhetorical ice using…

Wos in Charge

By Gary Pearce September 23, 2013

Governor McCrory has to hope that Aldona Wos and the high-paid operatives around her pull off a miracle at DHHS. Because he clearly can’t fire her.   Wos is the most powerful person in Raleigh today. Back in January, it looked like Budget Czar Art Pope was. Then, during the legislature, it was Senator Phil…

My Man Dan

By Gary Pearce September 20, 2013

I’m always looking for something nice to say about a Republican. But Dan Forest? Sorry, I’ve got to do it.   Monday, I posted a blog (Let Teachers Teach) saying we should pay teachers $100,000 a year. Then, on Wednesday, Lieutenant Governor Forest called for North Carolina to pay the nation’s highest teaching salaries.  Asked…

A Story to Tell

By Carter Wrenn September 19, 2013

No matter how many hours she works each day or how hard she tries Aldona Wos can’t seem to catch a break.   Almost as soon as she took her job (as Secretary of Health and Human Services) she got flattened by two budget overruns. Then she got run over by two more multi-million dollar…

Hardball

By Gary Pearce September 19, 2013

Governor McCrory has learned one thing about his new job: He’s not in Charlotte anymore, Toto. And he doesn’t like it.   At a news conference, the Governor vented thinly veiled frustration at how politics is played in Raleigh. WRAL reported:   “Asked if he was concerned about the scrutiny DHHS has faced, McCrory said…

A Good Reason Nobody Knows?

By Carter Wrenn September 18, 2013

It must be the Governor’s nightmare – opening the newspaper and seeing the acronym ‘DHHS.’   The other morning one headline roared DHHS (the Department of Health and Human Services) had hired another former campaign worker (not from his campaign this time but from the Republican Party) and another headline roared it had fired a…

DHHS Is the New DOT

By Gary Pearce September 18, 2013

A great investigative reporter once said, “DOT is God’s gift to investigative reporters.” Make way for DHHS.   Doesn’t anybody there realize how much political damage they are doing to Governor McCrory? Doesn’t anybody around the Governor? Or McCrory himself?   He based his campaign for Governor on ending Raleigh’s “culture of corruption and cronyism”…

Trapping an Elusive Varmint

By Carter Wrenn September 17, 2013

A while back a candidate running for office for the first time sat down in my office and said, What should I do? and I said: Take a poll.   For a moment he didn’t say a word then he smiled and said he already knew what voters in his district thought – which is…

On TV Ads, Pelion and Ossa

By Gary Pearce September 17, 2013

Carter made a great point in his blog about the McCrory TV ad. And he made a wonderful classical allusion that greatly elevated the intellectual level of this blog.   First, the allusion, “piling Pelion on Ossa.” It’s from Greek mythology. I had to look it up. Here’s the Wikipedia link.   As for the…

Independents Turn Against GOP

By Gary Pearce March 17, 2026

North Carolina voters don’t like either the Democratic or Republican parties. But Independent voters – who…

Getting the News

By Gary Pearce March 13, 2026

How do you get your news? Our statewide poll asked North Carolina voters what their primary…

MAGA-gator

By Gary Pearce March 12, 2026

Thom Tillis and Phil Berger fed the MAGA alligator. Then it ate them. Thomas Mills wrote…