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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PPP to the Rescue

By Gary Pearce September 1, 2023

I certainly don’t begrudge the Raleigh consultants who took PPP relief during the pandemic. If they’d gone under, the economic consequences could have been devastating for certain Capital City watering holes, fine dining establishments and upscale clothing stores. Danielle Battaglia revealed the deals in The News & Observer (“How US allowed pandemic relief to go…

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St. Paul to Titus

By Carter Wrenn August 30, 2023

To rescue a church at war with itself Paul wrote Titus: ‘When a man stirs up division warn him once, warn him a second time, then have nothing more to do with him.’ (Titus, 3:10) Titus was from Greece. The divided church was in ancient Crete. Today political civil wars rule the news – you…

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Fight Back. Vote.

By Gary Pearce August 30, 2023

Since Monday’s shooting at UNC, the gun lobby’s flacks, flunkies and apologists have been furiously tweeting/X’ing to justify inaction. One state legislator said “it’s a mental health and woke society issue.” A long-time Republican operative saw a dark link between Covid, Wuhan and the UNC lab. Another, mightily offended that Congressman Jeff Jackson said “our…

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Mark Misquoted?

By Gary Pearce August 28, 2023

Pardon back-to-back blogs on Mark Robinson, but he says he was misquoted. By his autobiography. In the 2022 autobiography, “We Are The Majority,” the Republican candidate for governor said K-5 education should focus exclusively on reading, writing and math: “In those grades, we don’t need to be teaching social studies. We don’t need to be…

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Governor Bonkers

By Gary Pearce August 25, 2023

Way back in the 1970s, Jerry Brown got tagged as “Governor Moonbeam” in California for far-out ideas that turned out far-seeing, like environmental consciousness and the state launching its own space satellite. Mark Robinson would be Governor Bonkers. A HuffPost article, “The Unbelievably Bonkers Conspiracy Theorist Running For Governor Of North Carolina,” collected some of…

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Great News About the Economy

By Gary Pearce August 23, 2023

One of my favorite reads every week is Dan Barkin’s Tuesday report in the Business North Carolina Daily Digest, for gems like this: “There were 44% fewer manufacturing jobs in our state last year than in 1990. Some of the decline was automation, some of it was due to competition from low-wage countries like China.…

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What Matters Most?

By Carter Wrenn August 23, 2023

Ron DeSantis’ SuperPac told him in the debate he should: 1) ‘Defend Trump’ and 2) ‘Take a sledgehammer to Vivek Ramaswamy.’ That was his political guru’s practical advice. But there’s a more important question. Trump’s convinced Republicans Biden ‘stole the election.’ During the debate Pence or Christie or Hutchinson may ask Trump: You said 30,000…

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Schools Lose This Bet

By Gary Pearce August 21, 2023

When North Carolina’s legislature debated whether to start a lottery 20 years ago, one argument overcame concerns about gambling and corruption: All the money would go to public schools. The result was the Education Lottery. Back then, Republicans opposed the lottery – period. They pilloried then-Lt. Governor Bev Perdue for casting the tie-breaking vote to…

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They Heard It on TV…

By Carter Wrenn August 21, 2023

In days long past the news media boasted it was ‘unbiased.’ It wasn’t. But to their credit when a politician they liked spun a lie most reporters called him out. Back then, at the same time, over in Great Britain newspapers didn’t pretend they were unbiased. They took sides. And made no bones about it.…

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Finding a Genius

By Carter Wrenn January 3, 2025

Happy, naming cabinet members, on his way back to the White House, Trump says he sees…

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Governor Stein

By Gary Pearce January 2, 2025

Because he grew up in Chapel Hill and went to Ivy League colleges, Josh Stein sometimes…

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Strange Times

By Carter Wrenn January 1, 2025

He married, divorced, married again, divorced again, married his second wife again (his third marriage), divorced…

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