Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
After Tea Party candidates rolled to victory in 2010 they headed for Congress to cut spending, and late one night, six months later, President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner announced they’d made a deal to pass the biggest annual spending cut in history. Now, two years later, it turns out the cuts were…
Thanks to the 2012 campaign and Mitt Romney, President Obama has found his voice. That gives him a big advantage over Republicans the next two years. For all his writing and oratorical skills, Obama never found a way in his first term to effectively tell his story – and sell his message. That led…
Some Republicans seem determined to be “the stupid party,” in Bobby Jindal’s memorable phrase. Like U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx. The Sunday New York Times took a look at how some students today pay for college. The story focused on Steve Boedefeld, an Appalachian State University student who wants to avoid graduating with a…
War’s broken out in Raleigh. The Republican County Commissioners launched a blitzkrieg, hiring a lobbyist (for $25,000) to get the Republican legislature to redraw the districts of the Democratic School Board members – then the Democratic School Board struck back (to keep their districts) by spending four times as much ($100,000) to hire their…
There’s a full throated debate going on in Washington – Republicans are saying ‘the Sequester’ wasn’t their idea, it was Obama’s idea, and the White House is saying, ‘Obama’s idea! John Boehner not only voted for the Sequester, after it passed he bragged he’d gotten 98% of what he wanted.’ Meanwhile the Republicans, after…
After three days on a retreat at a spa near Washington, and after meeting with President Obama, House Democrats headed home ‘billing and cooing’ like reconciled brides because they’d built a ‘closer relationship’ with the President. But in this case the path to reconciliation wasn’t romantic: It was money. To sooth the Congressmen…
Jim Gardner almost changed political history twice – 20 years ago and 40 years ago. In 1972, he was the fair-haired boy of the North Carolina Republican Party. Six years earlier, he had unexpectedly defeated a long-time Democratic congressman from the East, Harold Cooley. How big an upset was it? Cooley was chairman of…
Didn’t we see this movie in the Sixties? The President and his aides huddle over maps and pick targets. Jets drop bombs or drones launch missiles. Our enemies die. So do innocent civilians. The natives hate us and we make more enemies. As Congressman Walter Jones asks: Why are we still in Afghanistan? …
George Washington supposedly said the Founding Fathers created the Senate to cool House legislation just as a saucer cools hot tea. In North Carolina, it looks like the House and Art Pope are cooling the Senate’s hot tea. The House promised to take a long second look at the Senate’s boards and commissions…
North Carolina voters don’t like either the Democratic or Republican parties. But Independent voters – who…
How do you get your news? Our statewide poll asked North Carolina voters what their primary…
Thom Tillis and Phil Berger fed the MAGA alligator. Then it ate them. Thomas Mills wrote…