Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Maybe I was wrong. After the primary, I didn’t see how Cal Cunningham could come from nine points back. Elaine Marshall’s campaign manager, Thomas Mills, is trying to cut off Cunningham’s cash by sending out a memo saying he can’t win. The Cunningham campaign is pushing back, trying to reload his donor base.…
I admire Roddy Jones, John Prestage and the 800 business and civic leaders they say have “responded to an invitation from former U.S. Sen. Robert Morgan and Democracy North Carolina to form Campaign Donors for Campaign Reform.” In their op-ed “Urgent need for clean elections” in today’s N&O, they say that today’s “campaign financing…
While Democratic Senate Leader Martin Nesbit was dancing a two-step with reporter Mark Johnson, Governor Perdue was having her own duel with the News and Observer’s Andrew Curliss – and she wasn’t doing as well as Nesbit. Curliss set about grilling the Governor on what she’s doing – and not doing – to clean…
Josh Stein is the hottest freshman from Raleigh since John Wall. I’ve known Josh for more than a dozen years, and I feel like I helped raise him in politics. So permit me to brag. The N.C.Center for Public Policy Research ranked Josh the most effective freshman in the 2009 General Assembly: 19th…
You can’t have a temperance meeting in a bar. And a group that wants to reform lobbying and fund-raising can’t have a fundraiser sponsored by lobbyists. But that’s what the N.C. Coalition for Lobbying and Government Reform is doing. The result: Governor Perdue – who, hard as she tries, can’t satisfy the N&O…
There is no political spectacle quite like watching a politician duke it out with a reporter; like when Charlotte Observer reporter Mark Johnson interviewed Senate Democrat Leader Martin Nesbit about cleaning up corruption in state government. Only Nesbit wasn’t punching. He was floating like a butterfly. Like Mohammed Ali. Johnson took the bull by…
Ms. Kathleen Parker doesn’t like Reverend Franklin Graham one bit and she let him have it with both barrels in her column Sunday saying she’s delighted Graham had to do his praying in the Pentagon parking lot – on National Prayer Day – while the respectable religious leaders were doing their praying inside. What…
I spoke Monday night to the Wake County Democratic Men’s Club – which, I learned, also has women members. I talked about the two groups that have always competed for political dominance in North Carolina: the “Just Say No” crowd of Jesse Helms, Richard Burr and the Tea Party and the “Go Forward’ crowd…
One overlooked factor in the Democratic Senate primary: Did being the Washington pooh-bahs’ pick hurt Cal Cunningham? The DSCC heavies got behind Cunningham only after a long and frustrating courtship of Bob Etheridge. Cunningham got so frustrated he dropped out of the race, then got back in when Etheridge finally said no. So…
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…