Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
The seeds for the 2010 election were sown in August 2009 by the raucous public protests that morphed into the Tea Party movement. Will the public employee protests in Wisconsin sow the seeds for the 2012 election? Democrats hope so. Public employees are a big part of the party’s constituency. Democratic office-holders around…
Read MoreSet aside the predictable posturing and apocalyptic doom-saying from both sides. North Carolina’s budget debate is a debate we need. Governor Perdue’s proposed budget is a classic North Carolina Democratic progressive budget. It’s a balance of program cuts, higher revenues and protection for education. It’s essentially the same approach that Democratic governors and legislators…
Read MoreOne legislative observer didn’t share my rosy view of Governor Perdue’s State of the State. In fact, her performance inspired him to think of a new mixed drink: The “Bevtini” Short glass Shaken, not stirring Bland, but bitter aftertaste You’re out after only one Clearly, this is someone with too much time…
Read MoreMy 107-year-old grandmother – yes, 107! – died yesterday. She was born the month before the Wright Brothers’ flight in 1903. She raised two children and outlived two husbands. She worked for much of her life and lived at home – and drove – until after she turned 100. She lived long enough…
Read MoreLegislative Democrats need to extend a laurel and hearty handshake to Republican Rep. Mike Stone of Sanford. Less than a month into the session, he has dragged his party into controversy over secrecy, special interests and pay-to-play – the very sins the GOP inveighed against in last year’s campaign. And I warned them. …
Read MoreStrong speech. Smart strategy. And Governor Perdue won her televised faceoff with Senator Berger. Today, Republicans should be asking: Did we misunderestimate her? She is criticized for not saying how she’ll pay for it all. But that’s good sequencing: The headline today is her cutting business taxes – as the N&O said,…
Read MoreSteve Daniels of WTVD last week broke the story about the FBI’s “political corruption probe” of Governor Bev Perdue some 15 years ago. But Daniels left out an interesting angle: his own. Daniels interviewed Frank Perry, whom he identified as a former FBI agent. But Daniels didn’t tell us that Perry is “director…
Read MoreTwo readers strenuously objected to WRAL’s decision (and WTVD’s apparent intention) not to televise the bloody ending of last week’s hostage-taking in Cary. The stations should have shown the hostage-taker being shot and killed, they argue. One, referring to WRAL’s owner, wrote: “Jim Goodmon’s parochial thinking is what will eventually cause the demise…
Read MoreMr. Speaker, didn’t you guys learn anything from the Democratic scandals of the last decade? Lesson 1: Don’t stiff-arm Andy Curliss and the N&O. Ask Mike Easley how that worked out. Lesson 2: Don’t have a closed-door “policy committee” meeting at the Legislative Building to hear from special-interest lobbyists. Lesson 3: Especially when you’re…
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