Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
In his terse, clipped way, Bert Bennett once summed up perfectly why we’re Democrats and why he helped elect Terry Sanford and Jim Hunt: “Sanford and Hunt had the right attitude: human dignity, based on ethics and work and not color or background or money.” Rob Christensen’s N&O profile today caught the essence of Bert,…
Read MoreBack when Jim Hunt was Governor (the good old days) he routinely had job approval ratings in the mid to high 60s. He was one of the most popular governors in America, until Carter & Co. spent two years and $20 million knocking him down in 1984. Even then, Hunt bounced back into the 60s…
Read MoreElections are usually about issues. But sometimes character overwhelms issues. Like with Trump. The Gallup Poll asked: “Thinking about Donald Trump as a person, do you have a positive or negative opinion of him?” Only 36 percent of voters – just over one in three – said positive; 55 percent said negative. Among Independents, only…
Read MoreThe ABC News reporter asked Steve Bannon if Trump ever lied and Bannon said ‘never’ then the reporter asked, Never? and Bannon quipped, “Except when he called me Sloppy Steve.” Politicians telling tall-tales is an old story but, like insults and boasting, in days past lying was a taboo – Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, Conservatives all…
Read MoreSometimes Carter and I get asked to speak about the 1984 Hunt-Helms Senate race. Some of the people we see weren’t born then. For them, it’s like going to the Dinosaur Museum – and the dinosaurs come out and talk. Because we lost, I’m often asked what was the biggest lesson I learned. That’s easy,…
Read MoreThe same way people once frowned on insults and name calling, there was a time in our country when people frowned on bragging. Ronald Reagan never bragged about winning the Cold War and Obama didn’t boast about how many times he’d been on the cover of Time magazine. But those days are past. A reporter…
Read MoreYou knew there was something just a little too good about Fred Rogers, didn’t you? Now all is revealed, thanks to a new documentary. Brace yourself: Mister Rogers was a lifelong Republican. That’s about it. Otherwise, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” shows him to have been just as kind, wise and decent in real life…
Read MoreThe arena hushed and lifting his right arm, finger pointing upwards, eyes narrowing, lips forming into a circle Trump said, He’s a loser – and it was more than the words it was the disdain in his voice that gave the words power. A master of ridicule, Donald Trump has used mockery as a weapon…
Read MoreGovernor Cooper has been in some fights in his political life. This is the fight of his political life. And North Carolina’s. November’s legislative elections will decide the course of Cooper’s first term – and perhaps his entire tenure and his place in history. The elections could set North Carolina’s course for the next decade…
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