Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
There is a natural rhythm that usually governs politics. And it suggests that 2010 will be a Republican year. But not so fast. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote The Cycles of American History about those political rhythms. In recent years – as both parties have migrated to their political extremes – the cycle…
As the health-care battle resumes in Washington, some history may be just what the doctor ordered. Most people believe this battle traces back to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s failed effort to reform health care in 1993-1994. Actually, it goes back to 1991 – and a now-forgotten special election for the U.S. Senate in…
In 2008 while running for Governor, Bev Perdue said: Then, this year, she put a lobbyist in charge of health care, gave him the green light to spend $250 million to pass out no bid contracts (many to his former clients), then gave him her blessing to cut health care to thousands of…
It sounds un-American, but I’m adamantly opposed to New Year’s resolutions. First of all, all the media stories are tiresome: How to start a new exercise routine – or a new life. How to lose 20 pounds. How to change your diet. How to run that ultra-marathon across the Sahara that you’ve always dreamed…
Back when Lauch Faircoth was running for Senate the first time ole’ Tom Ellis launched the campaign two years before the election and he had a good reason – the first time he took a poll and looked at the political chessboard what the pieces said back to him loud and clear was Lauch was…
Go back 50 years in North Carolina. To 1960. The year Terry Sanford was elected governor. Tobacco was king in North Carolina – politically and economically. WRAL-TV started its broadcast days (after a devotional) with the Farm Report. The News & Observer had a regular farm reporter. And the health of the…
A national Democratic Party reform that Jim Hunt pioneered nearly thirty years ago is under attack. And state Senator Dan Blue is defending the reform. There is some irony here. When Hunt was Governor and Blue was House Speaker in 1993-94, the two didn’t always get along. They clashed especially on Hunt’s crime…
The Teens may come to be Barack Obama’s decade the way the Eighties were Ronald Reagan’s decade. Ideology aside, the two Presidents have much in common. Both were outsiders who ran campaigns that upset conventional wisdom. Both had lives before politics – Reagan as an actor and union leader, Obama as a…
Republicans – including Senator Richard Burr – couldn’t wait to blame the Obama administration for the Christmas Day terrorist scare. In other words, to indulge in the kind of politics they called unpatriotic when Bush and Cheney were in charge. Let’s look at some facts. A. Burr agrees with the President that…
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…