Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
It’s baseball season, and all across our land fans are enjoying hits, runs – and errors. So it is in politics in North Carolina. Herewith, our Top 3 of the week. Number 1, of course, has to be the pileup of errors by Governor Perdue and her staff over her whereabouts when the…
On the off-chance Republicans don’t nominate Donald Trump and hand him reelection, President Obama needs a better story. Not a better story about where he was born or how he grew up. A story line that explains the times we live in and where he thinks we should go. All great Presidents develop…
For years auto insurers have locked horns with Insurance Commissioners over raising car insurance premiums, but, now, Republican legislators are about to solve their problem – by getting the Insurance Commission out of the auto-insurers hair – a move the Commissioner says is dead certain sure to bring higher car insurance premiums. The newspaper,…
Governor Perdue & Staff are wrapped up in an unnecessary kerfluffle over where she was Saturday when deadly tornados struck North Carolina. It turns out she was in Kentucky, maybe – or maybe not – at a horse race. Which led one TAPster to look past the political flap to the economic possibilities of…
A TAPster calls attention to a bill before the General Assembly titled “Upgrade Security Services-Government Complex” and observes: “It calls for x-ray machines and metal detectors for state buildings downtown. It calls for EMTs on staff. This is all sounds really good. But it allows up to 1 million dollars to cover the walkway…
I was out of town this weekend and had difficulty following news about the tornados and their aftermath. But that was nothing compared to the difficulty untangling the PR disaster surrounding Governor Perdue’s whereabouts Saturday. An obliging TAPster summed it up this way: “Governor Perdue should fire her entire communications team after their…
Republicans have opened the doors of opportunity for Governor Perdue. And missed a golden opportunity for themselves. Perdue can now say – according to State Board of Education Chairman Bill Harrison – that the Republican budget cuts would make North Carolina LAST in the nation in per-pupil education funding. We can’t even say…
For the last ten years – girding their loins for this year’s redistricting battle – over in the State Legislature Republicans have been telling anyone who’ll listen that the Democrats should set up an ‘Independent Commission’ to draw new House and Senate districts. What they had in mind was simple: They didn’t want Democrats to…
Some 500+ of Bill Friday’s closest personal friends attended a luncheon in Chapel Hill honoring him for 40 years of hosting “North Carolina People.” (Warning: Shameless self-promotion ahead! I’m on his show tonight and Sunday, talking about my Jim Hunt biography.) Friday has conducted these gentle, relaxed interviews with probably 2,000 North Carolinians…
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…