Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
What do you do when your poll ratings are as bad as any governor’s in the country, somewhere down in Bush-Cheney territory? When you’ve been outfought and outfoxed by June Atkinson, for Pete’s sake? And when fellow Democrats are calling you a lame duck in your first year? Well, you could find something more…
Alright. Follow this: The Governor rips into the House and Senate Democrats’ tax increase – saying she cannot abide their raising taxes on working people. Then (giving Mark and Tony and Joe another rap on the nose) she lets fly, again, saying they also cut education too much. Of course that didn’t sit too…
Columnist Rick Horowitz may be the sharpest tongued liberal around. He probably doesnât mean much harm but sometimes when he writes he sounds like he has the disposition of a water moccasin. The other day in a column he called Dick Cheney âgreedyâ¦vainâ¦and scaredâ then panned Cheney for âdishing the dirt.â Now heâs aimed his…
Last week I blogged that Governor Perdue was doing a better job than her poll numbers suggest. But I’m starting to think she’s snake-bit. Her signature action, her big bold idea of appointing a state education CEO, got thrown out by a judge. Now Bill Harrison has graciously retreated from the battlefield. Predictably,…
The N&O’s banner headline today had to give Democrats heartburn: “The new plan: more taxes for all.” Democrats in the legislature have no choice. For all the Republican fulminating about waste, piers and crabpots, the only alternative to higher taxes is deep cuts in education and human services. Democrats just can’t do that. …
Polls are a lot like seesaws: They tilt up then gravity takes hold and the poor fellow who was rising finds himself dropping like a stone. Right now gravityâs pulling the Democrats down and the liberals over at Public Policy Polling are so concerned by this seismic shift theyâve turned their automatic polling machines…
For a long time the North Carolina Republican Party has needed its own ‘voice’ and at last it’s found one. Whether you opposed or supported Tom Fetzer during his campaign for State Chairman you have to give him credit: He’s not bashful about debating Governor Perdue and he has a gift for it. …
There’s an apocryphal story about the penultimate political Insider, Tony Rand, debating Jim Gardner during the Lt. Governor’s race in 1988;–in the middle of the debate Gardner was giving Rand (and the other Democratic insiders in Raleigh) the blazes for negotiating secret budget deals behind closed doors, saying, The whole state budget was written in…
Back when Casey Stengel was managing the woeful New York Mets in their first year, he looked down the bench one day and moaned: “Can’t anybody here play this game?” You might ask the same question in Washington today. About both the Democrats and the Republicans. Both parties are still hung up on…
Thom Tillis and Phil Berger fed the MAGA alligator. Then it ate them. Thomas Mills wrote…
Exactly 80 years ago, in 1946, Republicans took control of Congress with a simple message: “Had…
Jim Hunt would like James Talarico winning the Democratic primary in Texas. Like Talarico, the late…