Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Rob Christensen’s column about “Walmart Moms” shows that this election is more about personalities and less about Medicare, the debt, competing budget plans, taxes or any of the issues that animate the media and political chatter. The focus groups Christensen went to focused not on “issues,” but on personal impressions of the candidates and…
Read MoreUNC-Chapel Hill’s biggest mistake in handling its academic scandal: Treating it as a PR problem (“How do we put a stop to these stories?”) instead of a leadership problem (“How do we find out what happened and make sure it never happens again?”). The Jim Martin investigation is a good step. But way past…
Read MoreIt doesn’t take a great deal to turn a fellow’s head – a blonde whispering in his ear, unexpected praise from a stranger, a new sports car. Humility’s hard to come by and harder still to hold onto which, I guess, is one reason the Good Lord made the world such a difficult place to…
Read MoreBetty Owen, a valuable aide and adviser to Governor Hunt both in and out of office, died Friday. Click here for her obituary. Betty was a schoolteacher, a mom and an activist in Charlotte when Hunt first ran for Governor in 1976. He brought her to Raleigh as his education adviser. Through his first…
Read MoreThe author of a recent guest blog (“GOP Sex Change 2012”) was amused by the comments she provoked. She responds: “Your readers’ comments about my Shirtless Paul Ryan guest column demonstrate the depth at which the True Believers have their collective pointy little heads stuck in the sand. In no way was I implying…
Read MoreGuest Tapster blogger Joe Stewart writes: People don’t want more government or less government, they want just enough government and no more. I heard then-president Bill Clinton say that during his visit to North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Fran in 1996, when I was legislative liaison in the NC Department Crime…
Read MoreWhen Carter and I were beating up on Jim Hunt and Jesse Helms, respectively, in 1984, we said some tough things. But we always stuck to some semblance of the truth. Not that we were all that noble; we feared the backlash from the media and the voters if we went too far. Something…
Read MoreGuest Tapster blogger Joe Stewart writes: In the same way my daddy has a saying that manners are not all that matter, but what they do matter matters a lot, the relative financial advantage of one candidate over their opponent, or one party versus their rival, doesn’t make all the difference but the difference…
Read MoreI had to laugh when Republicans claimed credit for North Carolina’s high-school graduation rate topping 80 percent. And I have to stake a claim for Jim Hunt’s role. Over the last six years, the state’s graduation rate has gone up nearly 12 percentage points –from at 68.3 percent in 2006 to 80.2 percent. …
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