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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A Whole Different Kettle of Fish

By Carter Wrenn June 5, 2012

We all know one of those ‘Eeyores’ who whatever happens can’t help seeing a dark lining in every silver cloud, but most times when a fellow’s handed a blessing he didn’t earn or expect he just naturally starts looking on his future with more optimism.   Since the last election there’s been a happy mantra…

GOP Silence is Deafening

By Gary Pearce June 5, 2012

Suddenly the Republican chorus howling for justice has gone silent.   The chorus was in full cry for John Edwards, Mike Easley and Bev Perdue.   Now comes Charles Thomas. Like Edwards, Thomas held a position of public trust and power. Like Edwards, Thomas cheated on his wife. Like Edwards, Thomas’s wife had cancer.  …

The Choice Is…

By Carter Wrenn June 4, 2012

With the election roaring down the homestretch, last weekend Republican leaders gathered at their convention in Greensboro (to gird for the final battle with Obama) and who did they choose to give voice to the party’s leaders and say to voters, We have the wisdom and character to lead the country through storm and turmoil…

Edwards’s Revenge

By Gary Pearce June 4, 2012

Wade Smith wisely advised that John Edwards plant a garden and bide his time before finding a new endeavor. A less philosophical and forgiving soul might have a different suggestion for Edwards’s new life.   No, there won’t be any return to politics. But suppose Edwards bides his time until his nemesis George Holding (former…

The Verdict

By Gary Pearce June 4, 2012

John Edwards wasn’t found guilty, but the federal government certainly was – of overreach, incompetence or both.   Here’s how bad the U.S. Attorneys Office and Justice Department bungled: They indicted the most despised politician in America – a man a jury might want to convict just on general principle. The government throws at him…

Thoughts

By Gary Pearce June 1, 2012

A Tapster submitted this blog about the John Edwards verdict.:   The John Edwards verdict hopefully ends a decade-long parade of Democrats doing the perp walk to federal and state courthouses to atone for political and financial misdeeds.  Our ears ring from the sound of judges’ gavels banging down on the careers of Mike Easley,…

Trumped-Up Hate

By Gary Pearce June 1, 2012

There’s no point wondering what Donald Trump was thinking when he dragged the “birther” dead horse back into Mitt Romney’s stable. What’s inside Trump’s head is even more ridiculous than the hair on top.   But here’s a question more to the point – from a friend visiting elderly relatives and subjected to days-long exposure…

A Romney-McCrory Collapse

By Gary Pearce May 31, 2012

A couple of Republican friends confess to their nightmare scenario: a collapse by both Mitt Romney and Pat McCrory.   Conservative Republicans have long worried that Romney might fail to stir the base. That turnout was key to the 2010 election and the gay-marriage amendment.   Now McCrory’s petty, panicked and petulant mishandling of the…

Wired Up

By Carter Wrenn May 30, 2012

Before the legislators trooped back to town the News and Observer ran an ‘expose’ about how public hospitals receive millions of dollars in tax breaks to help them care for the indigent but how those tax breaks put millions more in the hospitals’ pockets than they are spending on the poor.   Governor Perdue, when…

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…