Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
A political candidate lives in his or her own small world. Fitting a jigsaw puzzle together, figuring out how to win an election, everything a candidate knows goes back to what he sees, hears, likes, fears, what he’s lived through – and there’s only one way he can escape that small world. Poll numbers aren’t…
We’ve never seen an election like this one. There was a time, long ago, when a candidate had to pass a ‘smell test’ – a character test – to get elected. If he flunked the test even people who agreed with him, shaking their heads, wouldn’t vote for him. We’re in an era now where…
I had no idea there were pro-Hamas groups on UNC’s campus – so when protests erupted in Chapel Hill I wondered: Students? Or outside agitators? I read articles about the protests at Columbia, UCLA – the New York Times interviewed a dozen protestors: Every one was a student. A second article was different. As protestors…
Joe Biden is a great President, but not a great communicator. He has a good story to tell. It goes like this: For more than 40 years, since 1980, the Republican Party – and, sad to say, too many Democrats – have taken the American people down the wrong road. They saddled us with trickledown…
Kristi Noem’s attractive. Long brown hair. Glossy lips. A MAGA superstar on Trump’s list of picks for Vice President. Last weekend she went on Face the Nation to sell her new book – sunk herself. In her book, telling a story about meeting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Noem said, “I’m sure he underestimated…
Two things have been true throughout American history: We love to protest, but we hate protesters. And bashing protesters is always good politics. Protesting is deep in our DNA. Protesters settled the country. The American Revolution was the ultimate, violent protest. Ever since, we’ve cycled through protest and repression. When abolitionists protested slavery, Southern slaveowners…
It used to be Democratic politicians marched in a phalanx behind Israel. Joe Biden did. For years. Now a new generation of Democrats smile at Hamas. Frown at Israel. And Biden, shifting with the political winds, has taken to straddling the fence. To be safe Israel has little choice but to eliminate Hamas – but…
You’d have to look a long time to find a grander Trumpster than Marjorie Taylor Greene. She’s one of a kind. And so’s he. Both have huge social media ‘Followings’ and like Trump, Greene knows how to set her followers on fire – she just did with three words, Oust Mike Johnson. When she said…
Before North Carolina Republicans got down to business in the legislature, they got down to some serious partying. First there was the incident at the December wedding of Rep. Destin Hall, who wants to be Speaker next year. One of his groomsmen fell off a truck and was injured so badly he was hospitalized for…
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…
A reassuring lesson from our trip to Germany and Czechia is that dictators, despots and tyrants…