Mark Johnson noted in Under the Dome that – counting her 2000 campaign – Bev Perdue had five communications directors as lieutenant governor.   Now David Kochman is leaving that job in the governor’s office.   The problem isn’t the staff.   It’s that – after a dozen years in the legislature, eight years as lieutenant…

  A lot of my Democratic friends and a fair amount of the media were raving last week about how cool and unflappable Mike Easley was at his hearing before the State Board of Elections;—but how many times can a fellow fall for the same con job?   Sergeant Shultz was German and pedantic while…

Jack Betts wrote Sunday about the contrast between Mike Easley being grilled by the Board of Elections and Jim Hunt breaking ground for the new Hunt Library:   “It was hard not to draw comparisons between Hunt’s visionary rhetoric and Easley’s labored accounts about the past.”   What accounts for the difference? Why did Hunt…

Ferrel Guillory – political expert extraordinaire and director of the Program on Public Life at UNC-Chapel Hill – offers a good perspective to my question (see below) about coordinated campaigns.   He cites an article by two of his students about the 2004 coordinated campaign.   Ferrel notes: “As you know, Jim Hunt used to…

Are reporters and reformers skirting the truth by suggesting – and even stating flatly – that the Easley campaign and the Democratic Party skirted the law?   As I understand it, coordinated campaigns are not a loophole – or a way around the law. They are actually encouraged by the law.   The law was…

The old amateur boxer sure won yesterday’s round.   Of course, the match isn’t over. And Governor Easley has more fights ahead. But he showed yesterday he can slip a punch – and land a few of his own.   If I was a federal prosecutor, I’d think twice about going in the ring with…

Watching the hearings, you see why Mike Easley was the candidate and the other guys weren’t.   It looked like their lawyers had cowed the other witnesses into being so careful and precise they came off slippery and evasive, even if they weren’t.   Easley, by contrast, is charming, confident and commanding. Too busy with…

I’ve been quick to note lately that I supported Dennis Wicker in 2000.  I remember the arrogance of some – not all – of Mike Easley’s people after they won.   But I’ll say a word in their defense.   The News & Observer said: “Easley camp pushed donation law’s limits.”   News flash: So…