Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Just three weeks after the election, Governor-elect McCrory is getting a taste of the story line he may be reading for a long time to come: Is he “Charlotte Moderate Pat” or “Tea Party Pat”? The first story comes from a national publication, Businessweek. The headline: “N.C.’s Gov.-Elect Shifts Hard-Right, From Transit to Tea…
Read MoreA sixty-eight year old Oxford educated UNC professor gets an offer (from where isn’t clear but it sounds like the Internet may have been involved) to fly to Bolivia to meet Miss Bikini World. He lands in Bolivia; a middle-aged man meets him at the airport and says that he needs to fly on…
Read MoreI’m always flattered to be quoted in Under the Dome, but this time I’m flummoxed. Dome took note of only three of the four rising Democratic stars I spotlighted last week (See “New Democratic Leaders” below). Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx was left out. Paranoid Charlotteans will not doubt take this as a sign that…
Read MoreThe party needs a new leadership pipeline for Governor. For decades, it was the Sanford-Hunt tribe. Then it was the Senate’s Basnight-Rand clan, which produced Easley, Perdue and Dalton. It was a good run, but has run dry. The party has talent in the legislature. But do the rising stars have the requisite political…
Read MoreYears ago when I enrolled at the University of North Carolina, I arrived on the campus and to my delight I found I had been assigned to the first ever co-ed dormitory. Then, my first night on campus, at orientation the powers that be introduced us to the wonders of birth control. We were all…
Read MorePat McCrory’s just captured the biggest tarbaby in North Carolina. State government has never been a paragon of efficiency but after twelve years of Mike Easley and Beverly Perdue and pay-to-play politics it’s become an unusually broad and deep quagmire. The state’s Medicaid claims processing contract is an example: Years ago when Mike…
Read MoreWill Republicans’ Election Day encounter with reality put them more in touch with reality on global warming, evolution and whether women who are raped get pregnant? Don’t count on it. Denial is a powerful habit. In the election’s aftermath, it is clear that the Romney-Republican-Rove-Fox echo chamber fell victim to their own spin.…
Read MoreThe waitress nodded to a slender fortyish brunette at the next table and said, ‘This is Gwyn, she’s a Republican’ – then Gwyn leaned across the gap between our two tables and said, ‘Just look at those Democrats, they didn’t win anyone’s hearts or minds this election – all they did was change who voted.…
Read MoreThis election showed how closely – and bitterly – divided Americans are. Suppose we go through another 2000 cliff-hanger one day? Increasingly, we don’t just hold different views and opinions from our opponents. We hold them in contempt. We call them ignorant, bigoted, fascistic, communistic, unpatriotic and un-America. We question a winner’s very legitimacy.…
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