Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
It probably seemed like a good idea at the time: A group of people building a swimming complex in Cary hired an architect, Kenn Gardner, who was also a County Commissioner, who as Commissioner had been advocating for a government subsidy for their complex. But, in the end, it didn’t work out well at…
When you’re running a political campaign, it’s hard to keep your perspective. It’s especially hard to remember that not everybody is paying as much attention as you are. Even worse, the voters who count the most – the truly undecided voters – aren’t paying any attention yet. Harrison Hickman, who was Governor Hunt’s pollster…
Mike Huckabee always struck me as a likeable Republican. So his critique of his party in The New York Times Sunday was striking. He was asked: “Is this different from the party that you know and love?” His answer: “Very much. It’s one of the reasons that I did not think this was…
In the old days there were only around a dozen political pollsters in the whole country and men like Lance Tarrance and Arthur Finkelstein spent years bent over poll books looking for trends and subtle enigmas and if you were in politics – like Tom Ellis and Jesse Helms and me – what they learned…
In 2010 Governor Perdue steered Democrats to defeat, in 2011 the Republicans in the Legislature pounded her, and in 2012 she announced she was not running for reelection. Speaker Thom Tillis has had his own problems: Two of his aides had affairs with lobbyists, Tillis declared nothing untoward (beyond adultery) was going on, then…
Summertime is historically when presidential candidates get defined in a way that cripples them in the fall. It happened to Michael Dukakis in 1988. After he locked up the nomination, he went back to Boston, rolled up his sleeves and work to work – on being governor. Meanwhile, Lee Atwater rolled up his…
How Washington went about setting health care policy is for more erudite minds than mine but here goes: Tom, Dick and Harry rolled into the ER in ambulances and each was having a heart attack – Tom’s so poor he couldn’t afford to buy health insurance, Dick could almost afford it but not quite,…
It happens on Wall Street: A tycoon calls an eager young executive into his office and hands him a job to do (like selling Facebook stock) and says, This is your responsibility – you ‘own’ it. Three years into the ‘Great Recession’ no politician in his right mind wants to ‘own the economy.’ It…
When Dr. Craigon Gray headed Medicaid in North Carolina he didn’t care much for home health care – he would tell anyone who’d listen how home health care was riddled with fraud. Now a lot of folks suspected Dr. Gray’s animus towards home care (and his preference for sending elderly people to nursing homes)…
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…