Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Speaker Thom Tillis was a successful management consultant, but he’s having less success at message management. When he met with the Asheville Citizen-Times editorial board recently, the Republican Speaker and his well-paid staff probably anticipated a headline something like “Tillis touts lean budget, efficient session.” Instead, they got this: “N.C. Speaker defends staff…
Senate Chieftain Phil Berger reared up on his hind legs last week and, ripping into lawyers, said one way or the other he’s going to pass his bill to end ‘frivolous lawsuits.’ Only there’s one problem. The bill Senator Berger’s dead set on passing isn’t really about ending frivolous lawsuits. Instead, the Medical…
Everybody assumes there will be a governor’s race next year between Bev Perdue and Pat McCrory. Hold the mayo. Some conservative Republicans (and I’m not talking about Carter; I haven’t asked him) aren’t excited about McCrory. They don’t see much difference between him and Perdue. They’re casting around for a real conservative…
John Deere Company wanted the state to buy more of its tractors. So its lobbyist set to work and Republican House Leader ‘Skip’ Stam proposed a bill to change how the state bids tractor buying contracts. Stam’s bill sailed through the legislature, then the newspaper reported John Deere’s political committee gave seven of the…
Governor Perdue has another State Highway Patrol mess on her hands. This time, it looks like a trooper picked the wrong people to treat the wrong way. If you haven’t read Hoyt Tessener’s letter relating what he says happened to his wife Gina, do so. It is extremely disturbing. Fair or not, since…
I asked a friend who works up in Washington for a Congressman, What’s going to happen on the debt ceiling? They’re all, he said, all the leaders, dying to raise it. The Republican leaders will agree to raise the ceiling $2 trillion in exchange for $2 trillion in spending cuts over ten years. …
Maybe it’s congenital. Democrats love complexity – and loathe simplicity. So it is with state Democrats’ message about the Republican budget. Yes, Governor Perdue has pulled up her polling numbers by standing up to the legislature – and saying the Republican budget hurts education. But it’s hard to prove: that education was…
Richard, the Intellectual, sat down at breakfast and out of sheer devilment looked across the table at Mike the Democrat and said, Well, I see in the newspaper this morning Obama’s now gotten the United Nations to officially go ‘gay, lesbian and transgender’ friendly. Ole’ Will Patton, the lawyer, looked up and said, How’s…
Robin W. Smith, Assistant Secretary for Environment in the Department of Environment & Natural Resources, took issue with an earlier blog (“Chicken Littles”) about environmental regulation in North Carolina. Smith’s response follows: “I read your recent post about environmental regulation [Chicken Littles] and wanted to provide another perspective. I don’t believe the sky is…
Carter Wrenn and I are moving to Substack. That’s where you’ll find our blogs in the…
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…