Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
It’s somehow fitting that the state that started the Civil War generally decides the Republican presidential war. The question this year is whether Mitt Romney’s opponents picked the wrong battle. Was it a mistake to attack him on Bain Capital instead of his shifting positions on social issues? Suppose they made more of an…
Judging from Sunday’s letters in the N&O, House Republicans certainly have stirred up the state’s teachers. And the NEA has this story about a 10-year teachers’ assistant from Moore County – a Republican herself – who is mad about how the House treated the NCAE and ready to seek revenge. She says: “The folks…
Here I was thinking that Tom Fetzer, Thom Tillis and Phil Berger were the brains behind the Republican victory in the 2010 legislative races. I find that – instead – it was a group of political consultants based in Florida. And they’re happy to tell you so. Click here to read how smart they say…
The “Smith Center Boos Bev” story is why my new-media guru Nation Hahn says: “If you’re not on Twitter, you’re not part of the conversation.” I was following the New Hampshire results on Twitter Tuesday night (the best way to do it) when John Frank of the N&O tweeted that the Smith Center crowd booed…
Four lessons emerge from Mitt Romney’s less-than-convincing New Hampshire win. First, he’ll be the Republican nominee – thanks to a cast of inept, uninspiring and half-insane conservative rivals. Second, more than 60 percent of Republicans don’t want him to be the nominee. Third, as his announcement speech showed, he lacks even a hint…
I call it Hickman’s Law, because I first heard it from pollster Harrison Hickman: “The worst wounds in politics are self-inflicted.” Mitt Romney has inflected a doozy on himself: “I like being able to fire people.” He did it just as Winning Our Future, a super-PAC supporting Newt Gingrich, released a doozy of…
A TAPster with years of experience around the legislature offers this take on the NCAE veto override: “The Republicans in the N.C. House have made a needless mess of their agenda with 1 am sessions to take potshots at their political enemies. It’s a mystery why the Rs made themselves look so weak and…
Speaker Thom Tillis has enjoyed pretty good press over the past year. Then he has one bad day – or, more accurately, late night/early morning – and he gets touchy: “Tomorrow will be the last day I receive the Charlotte Observer at home after nearly 14 years. I decided if the Charlotte Observer is…
I havenât kept count, but I guess that so far Pat McCrory has âannouncedâ heâs running for Governor about â I donât know, say a bazillion times. So this tweet from Blair Miller, anchor-reporter at WSOC-TV in Charlotte, caught my eye: âAsked the McCrory camp (twice) when/where “official” announcement for his candidacy will…
The political sniping began even as chaos still reigned at the White House Correspondents Dinner. My…
A new nationwide poll shows that, if they could run against each other in 2028, Barack…
Senator Phil Berger was out of touch with voters in his district – and suffered the…