Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Most Democrats are ambivalent about Brad Miller running against Elizabeth Dole – apparently including Brad Miller. Miller sounded ambivalent in his interview with The N&O’s Rob Christensen. He even said, “A lot of my closest friends are pretty ambivalent about it. They have mixed feelings, including my wife.” Well, Brad, that makes it hard to…
Read MoreAt a Wake County Democrats’ panel this morning, we were asked whether the Internet will make TV irrelevant in politics. My answer: look at Hillary Clinton’s new video about her campaign song. It led the morning news. It dominated CNN. CBS’ Bob Schieffer called it “genius.” The video gave Hillary millions of dollars worth of…
Read MoreLast week I trashed Fred Thompson as too lazy to run for President. Now a national Republican consultant whom I greatly respect tells me I dismissed Thompson too quickly. He says Thompson has what no other major Republican presidential candidate has: a political and cultural affinity with the hard-right conservative, even fundamentalist, base of the…
Read MoreFive members of the School Board are up for re-election this fall and School Superintendent Del Burnsâ decision to cashier high-school teacher Robert Escamilla may land right in their laps. Mr. Escamilla teaches â or did teach until Burns demoted him â at Enloe High School. For twenty-four years, he has received good to exemplary…
Read MoreFor thirty years rural voters have been the bedrock of the Republican Party. President Bush beat John Kerry in rural America by 20%. But, suddenly, according to a new poll (www.npr.org) rural voters are poised to vote Democratic. John Edwards and Barack Obama are as popular in rural communities as President Bush, John McCain and…
Read MoreThere’s another scandal brewing in the State House, around Rep. Mary McAllister (D–Fayetteville). Last session Rep. McAllister slipped a line in a bill to give $500,000 to a non-profit that pays her a $115,000 a year salary. She also failed to disclose her conflict of interest. When the State Auditor found out he showed up…
Read MoreI bet Fred Thompson’s presidential prospects are no more real than the TV and movie characters he plays. He’s done the Dance of the Seven Veils about running for months now. Why doesn’t he get in the race? My guess is that he’s one of these politicians who wants the office but doesn’t want to…
Read MoreIn the 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton had sewn up the Democratic nomination, but was trailing George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot in the polls. So – at the Democratic Convention – he reintroduced himself as “The Man from Hope.” He and his consultants painted that picture to counter the popular view of Clinton as a…
Read MoreRep. Mary McAllister is a Democrat from Fayetteville. According to a report published by Democratic researcher Joe Sinsheimer last year she sponsored a bill that read: “There is to be appropriated from the General Fund to Operation Sickle Cell, Incorporated, a non-profit organization, the sum of five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) for the 2006-07 fiscal…
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