Carter is a Republican. Gary is a Democrat.

They met in 1984, during the epic U.S. Senate battle between Jesse Helms and Jim Hunt. Carter worked for Helms and Gary, for Hunt.

Years later, they became friends. They even worked together on some nonpolitical clients.

They enjoy talking about politics. So they started this blog in 2005.

They’re still talking. And they invite you to join the conversation.

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Carter Wrenn

Gary Pearce 2024

Gary Pearce

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The Witness Who Didn’t Show Up

By Carter Wrenn May 31, 2024

Trump’s trial ended. And the media – CNN, Fox, MSNBC, Newsnation – is on fire. Michael Cohen testified he and Trump met – after Trump won the election – and agreed on how to repay him back for hush money he paid Stormy Daniels. Trump says that’s pure blarney. It never happened. But would Cohen…

Hold the Line

By Gary Pearce May 31, 2024

“We’ve been flanked and we’ve lost the line!” – Metropolitan Police radio, January 6, 2021 Fifty years ago this summer, the American system held up against the criminal presidency of Richard Nixon. Trump makes Nixon look like an Eagle Scout. Will the system hold up this year against a convicted felon, fraud and rapist –…

Democrats Exposed

By Gary Pearce May 30, 2024

We’ve been outed, Democrats. A wily Republican strategist, Matt Wylie, has exposed our real agenda. In an op-ed in The Charlotte Observer, Wylie warned his party what America will face if Democrats win this year: “Increasing the federal minimum wage to $17/hour, incorporating provisions of the Green New Deal, implementing new federal voting rights mandates,…

The Adult in the Room

By Carter Wrenn May 30, 2024

Patti Davis, Ronald Reagan’s daughter, writing a column, remembered watching the Kennedy-Nixon debate with her father, said Kennedy and Nixon ‘probably didn’t like each other’ but were ‘unfailingly polite in their disagreements,’ concluded that’s how adults were ‘supposed to behave’ back then. She talked next about Jimmy Carter’s debate with her father – about Carter…

Gag Orders

By Carter Wrenn May 29, 2024

Trump’s gone from sitting in court getting sued to suing. At the Cannes Film Festival a filmmaker played his movie, The Apprentice, a biography  about Trump as a young man building his real estate empire in Manhattan, his first marriage to Ivana, his friendship with Roy Cohn. Who knows how much was true. But it…

Trump’s Reich

By Gary Pearce May 28, 2024

Surely, I thought, this isn’t true. Not even the Trump-MAGA crowd would boast that one result of Trump’s election would be a “Unified Reich.” “Reich.” Like Hitler’s Third Reich. But there it was, on Trump’s Truth Social account, among messages flashing across the screen: “Trump wins!!”, “Economy booms!” and – yes – a headline with…

The Circus is Back

By Carter Wrenn May 28, 2024

Taunting Trump, Biden quipped, ‘He’s not a good loser – but he is a loser.’ Taunting again, mocking Trump saying ‘injecting bleach’ might stop coronavirus, quipped, ‘I think that’s what he did. That’s why he’s so screwy.’ Biden also said when he took office inflation was 9% – even CNN couldn’t shallow that one, pointed…

Memorial Day

By Carter Wrenn May 27, 2024

Memorial Day My publisher called with good news – my memoir, about 50 years of politics, from Reagan to Trump, is going to be published in August. As we talked I asked, What do you read these days for news? He mentioned The Free Press. So, I went to their website, signed up, and today…

The Drama Queen Strikes Again

By Carter Wrenn May 24, 2024

You couldn’t make this stuff up. Trump posted on Truth Social that Biden’s Justice Department: ‘AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE’ when it searched his home at Mar-a-Lago, for classified documents. When she read Trump’s post Marjorie Taylor Greene’s eyes popped – minutes later she took to Twitter: ‘The DOJ and FBI were…

Getting the News

By Gary Pearce March 13, 2026

How do you get your news? Our statewide poll asked North Carolina voters what their primary…

MAGA-gator

By Gary Pearce March 12, 2026

Thom Tillis and Phil Berger fed the MAGA alligator. Then it ate them. Thomas Mills wrote…

Enough is Enough

By Gary Pearce March 11, 2026

Exactly 80 years ago, in 1946, Republicans took control of Congress with a simple message: “Had…