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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Follow the Money

By Gary Pearce June 26, 2009

  That old Watergate adage may dictate the 2010 elections. Democrats – both in Raleigh and Washington – may follow the money straight to big-time mid-term defeats.   Sometimes at the beach, two waves merge together to make a big wave that about drowns you. That may happen next year.   Nationally, the NBC/Wall Street…

Berger’s Blooper – Chapter III

By Carter Wrenn June 25, 2009

Senator Doug Berger’s blooper is going on television. When Senator Berger passed a bill to cut the home care of 20,000 elderly Medicaid patients, he said he had a study that proved they weren’t eligible for care. Period. Well, it turns out, over a month ago the Department of Health and Human Resources told Senator…

Having Our Cake and Eating it Too

By Carter Wrenn June 25, 2009

No one seems to drive a true-blue liberal up the wall like Dick Cheney;—just about all Cheney has to do is walk into a room and say, Hello. How are you? and folks like columnist Rick Horowitz go wild-eyed and lose control.   The other day Horowitz lit into Cheney, first giving former President Bush…

The Love Gov

By Gary Pearce June 25, 2009

What are they serving these days at governor’s conferences and Senate caucuses? Viagra?   Eliot Spitzer, John Edwards, David Vitter, John Ensign and now Mark Sanford.   One story has it that Sanford’s staff merely misunderstood him. They thought he said he would be “on the Appalachian Trial,” but he actually said “on some Argentine…

Let The Chips Fall Where They May

By Carter Wrenn June 24, 2009

Mrs. Easley’s lost her scholastic robes and left the stage at NCSU to a communal sigh of relief;—but there’s an important question left unanswered: Who pulled the strings to get her the job?   After all, when someone robs a bank, gets caught and gives back part of the money they don’t get a medal…

Berger’s Blooper – Chapter II

By Carter Wrenn June 23, 2009

Some people never seem to learn and Democratic Senator Doug Berger is looking like a case in point.   State Senator Berger, who back in his student days at Chapel Hill signed up for something called the ‘Democratic Socialists of America,’ is now head of the Senate Sub-Committee on Health Care. The other day, after…

Whack the Lawyers

By Gary Pearce June 23, 2009

Richard Vinroot is right:  How can the legislature tax the services of mechanics and hairdressers, but not lawyers? Of course, lawyers write the tax legislation. But Democrats are getting themselves into enough political trouble without being elitist, too. Governor Perdue is on her “Save the Schools – and My Poll Ratings” tour. Democrats in the…

A Crazy Kind of Logic

By Carter Wrenn June 23, 2009

Over in the legislature, the Democrats took out an axe and cut just about every program in sight from education to health care – and each Democratic legislator voted for it.   Then once the Democrats had made half the state mad they turned around and supported a billion dollar tax increase – and made…

A Fatherless Boy

By Carter Wrenn June 22, 2009

Before Father’s Day Barack Obama (whose own father left home when Obama was two years old) speaking to a group of fatherless boys, said, “Just because your father wasn’t there for you, that’s no excuse for you to be absent also…you have an obligation to break the cycle and learn from those mistakes…” No one…

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…

Faith in Politics

By Gary Pearce March 10, 2026

Jim Hunt would like James Talarico winning the Democratic primary in Texas. Like Talarico, the late…