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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George McGovern in the Age of the Internet?

By Carter Wrenn 2008-06-05

Every time a fellow opens his mouth he tells you something about himself – though politicians try harder than most folks to fool you. Senator John McCain spoke for a solid hour on Fox News Primary Night – and it was tough sledding. He read his speech from a teleprompter – and it was not…

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Why Obama Will Win

By Gary Pearce 2008-06-05

Because the choice between Obama and McCain will come down to Change versus Race. And Team Obama is smart enough to make McCain pay for a race-based campaign. Obama owns Change. It’s one big reason he beat Clinton, Edwards, et al. That one-word Change message gets ridiculed. It would be worthy of ridicule if change…

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Letting Off a Little Steam

By Carter Wrenn 2008-06-04

Scott McClellan: Truth teller or dirty rat? Whatever the truth is McClellan’s sent the political pundits on MSNBC and Fox into the kind of feeding frenzy you usually see reserved for Hollywood, say, when Britney Spears has one of her meltdowns. Keith Oberman is ecstatic. Sean Hannity is outraged. The political pundits are stampeding like…

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Unhappy Newsrooms

By Gary Pearce 2008-06-04

Frank Daniels, the acid-tongued former N&O publisher, greeted a Raleigh reporter recently thusly: “Still got a job?” It’s a question of lot of newspaper employees are asking these days. Two big trees fell last week: Paul O’Connor with the Winston-Salem Journal and Chuck Riesz with the Wilmington Star took buyouts. Word is that more axes…

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Drescher Vs. Easley, Round II

By Gary Pearce 2008-06-03

Raleigh hasn’t seen a good fight between an editor and a Governor in 20 years. John Drescher, Executive Editor of the N&O, has a good one going now with Governor Easley. Witness these zingers from Drescher’s Sunday column: “He’s a big-picture guy detached from his own government.” “It’s not that we don’t like Easley and…

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Ruthless Republicans

By Gary Pearce 2008-06-02

I’m back from a week in California (Big Sur and San Francisco), where I soaked up good food, good wine and Nancy Pelosi values. Deprived of my usual North Carolina political diet, I indulged in HBO’s “Recount” about the 2000 Florida election theft. On the flight back Sunday, I read The New Yorker profile of…

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Reintroducing Obama

By Gary Pearce 2008-05-30

Barack Obama needs a Manhattan Project. No, not a bomb. But an intensive strategic and research project like the one the Clinton campaign undertook in 1992, when they figured out why Clinton was running third (behind Bush and Perot) – and how to fix the problem. The ’92 Clinton campaign is more famous for its…

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Three Trends

By Carter Wrenn 2008-05-29

It seems to me, over the years, I’ve witnessed two political earthquakes that changed the ground rules in American politics and gave birth to new political movements. The pictures on TV of American soldiers and refugees fleeing Saigon on the skids of helicopters said to the generation of men and women who’d fought in and…

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Caution to Business: Left Turn Ahead

By Gary Pearce 2008-05-29

Toe-sucking transpartisan consultant-turned-pundit Dick Morris, the only man alive who advised both Bill Clinton and Jesse Helms, is right about one thing: Politics in America is headed left. Race may keep Barack Obama from becoming President. But otherwise 2008 looks like 2006 continued. That could mean more Democrats in the Senate and House. It could…

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A Simple Question

By Carter Wrenn 2024-03-27

Hamas stormed into Israel, killed men, women, and children. Shocked Israelis thought, We’re no longer safe.…

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Plagues

By Carter Wrenn 2024-03-26

Plagues have been around since the time of the Pharaohs: What caused the plague that killed…

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Both Sides Now?

By Gary Pearce 2024-03-26

Democratic heads exploded over this story in The News & Observer last week: “The two candidates…

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