Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Like many small towns in rural counties Albemarle is not exactly a boomtown. But a local banker and a Stanly County Commissioner have come up with a political grab that makes government funding of the Randy Parton Theatre look like a small-time sideshow. The hydro-electric plant is a modern marvel. Hydro-electric plants create electricity and…
All the signs point to a blowout for Barack Obama in North Carolina. More than 100,000 new voters have registered, including a surge of Democrats and African-Americans. Some 5,700 people showed up to see Michele Obama in Raleigh, twice the size of any crowd she’s had anywhere. Most telling, Richard Moore and Bev Perdue are…
Governor Easley told top newspaper editors in a meeting with the leaders of the NC Press Association that the flap over his aides ordering state public information officers to delete e-mails “should never have happened.” (Earlier, he – or his office – had denied any such thing ever happened). He added, reassuring the editors, that…
Political junkies had poll whiplash this week. The N&O/Charlotte Observer poll had Richard Moore leading Bev Perdue by six points. Then Public Policy Polling sent out an email saying Perdue was ahead by eight points. PPP’s Tom Jensen went farther. He blasted the media poll: “The simple answer is that the (media) poll is wrong.…
This sounds like horror story from a 19th century workhouse, straight out of Dickens: a fourteen year old girl, suffering from mental illness, is locked in a prison. Only it didn’t happen in 1850. It happened this year. Right here in North Carolina. A mentally ill 14 year old girl from Rowan County was locked…
It’s like there are two Hillary Clintons. There’s one I call ‘Hillary-the-mother.’ When she talks she sounds like a mother talking about her daughter. She’s likeable. And attractive. That’s the Hillary on display in her new TV ad. The other Hillary is Hillary-the-politician and, more often than not, she sounds like a shrill shrewish wife.…
There were two articles â one about Barack Obama and another Iâll tell you about in a moment â in the News and Observer the other day. Hereâs one paragraph from the story about Obama. He said, speaking in Indianapolis, âNo matter what the color of your skin, no matter what faith we practice, no…
Hillary Clinton’s new TV ad in North Carolina plays to her Clintonian strength: I feel your pain. It’s a deliberate contrast to Obama’s appeal: the lift of optimism and hope. Clinton’s appeal is who can do the hard, gritty work of government. Just as Democrats are split, there is a vast gap between the candidates’…
For weeks there have been hints of bad blood between John Edwards and Barack Obama. The rumors include a face-to-face blow-up between the two, and possibly Elizabeth Edwards. Which may be why Edwards has not endorsed the opponent who seemed closest to him ideologically. Now Edwards seems to be edging closer to Hillary Clinton. When…
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…