Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Four years ago, the May primary thrust North Carolina into the national spotlight. An unexpected surge of new voters clinched the Democratic presidential nomination for Barack Obama. The tide raged on into November. It lifted Democrats to one of their biggest election victories in decades. This year, we’re back in the spotlight. This time,…
If a newspaper is going to be a ‘Fact Checker’ it ought to take the time to do the research to get its facts straight. A few days ago the News and Observer reported Paul Coble ‘has voted to issue’ millions of dollars in new Wake County bonds (debt) but added, But those bonds…
Yes, the gay-marriage amendment has “revealed generational and urban-rural divisions,” as The News & Observer reported Sunday. But, as is so often true in North Carolina politics, the fundamental divide is over religion. Note how often supporters of the amendment say or write something along the lines of one bumper sticker: “It’s in the…
It looks like the prosecutors put a pretty big hole in Edwards’ boat last Thursday: For months Edwards has been arguing the million dollars he took from ‘Bunny’ Mellon and Fred Baron wasn’t a campaign donation because he spent the money to hide his affair from his wife and not voters. But Thursday two…
House Speaker Thom Tillis spent last week catching hand grenades – first his Chief-of-Staff landed on the front page of the newspaper for having an affair with a lobbyist then a second Tillis aide confessed to a peccadillo with another lobbyist; — both aides promptly resigned (at Tillis’ request) then the press asked Tillis the…
A Democratic TAPster offers the thoughts below on how quickly things change in politics: “Just a few days ago Stuart Rothenberg had a column in Roll Call pondering whether President Obama and the Democrats have made a big mistake focusing on North Carolina as part of the 2012 campaign strategy. Given what has come…
Ever since what one observer called David Parker’s “televised suicide bombing,” I’ve been pondering his infamous press conference performance. Especially: Who told him that would be a good idea? The answer, apparently, is no one. I’m told that he talked to no one on the party staff, sought out no one’s advice. …
Here is the kind of information you won’t get from what Sarah Palin calls the “lamestream media.” It’s only available in the lamebrain media, like this blog. Specifically, you have to read our Forum section to discover that Pat McCrory’s new campaign manager “has ties to CHARLIE CRIST!” The TAPster adds: “Crist is…
There’s an outbreak of fornication on Jones Street. In the State House. In Speaker Thom Tillis’ office. Between lobbyists and Tillis’ aides. Yesterday after all the shenanigans landed in the newspapers Speaker Tillis disposed of two aides then, after “reviewing” 130 pages of emails and other records, announced they hadn’t lifted a finger to give…
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…