Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
Staring at a title, tempted by two words, I clicked – it looked like a knife fight was coming. Between an atheist and an evangelical Christian. Growing up in Kentucky, David French went to a small Christian college, went on to Harvard Law School, served in the army during the Iraq War, came home with…
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Roy Cooper could be just what the Democratic Party will need in 2028. A progressive with a Southern accent. A proven winner in a swing state. A two-term governor who leaves office even more popular than when he took office. A successful leader who – despite a gerrymandered Republican legislature – won healthcare for 600,000…
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Watergate sunk Nixon. Jimmy Carter was elected. Two years later Jesse Helms ran for reelection. In 1972, he’d been the only Republican to win a Senate election in North Carolina in the 20th century. After sweeping statewide elections in 1974 and 1976 Democrats were on a roll. Here’s a story about Jesse’s 1978 campaign from…
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We Americans are angry this Christmas. 77 million voters were so angry they elected Trump. 75 million are angry that Trump won. Many people are so angry at health-insurance companies they cheered the cold-blooded murder of a CEO on a Manhattan street. In North Carolina, Republican politicians are so angry about Democrats winning elections they…
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‘You tell a lot of good stories about Reagan, like his saying a prayer for the man who shot him,’ a friend reading my book said – then laughed, ‘But I wish you’d been kinder to Trump.’ He’s a conservative. Reagan was a conservative. Trump’s now head of the Republican Party. So he sees Trump…
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The Grinch tried to steal Christmas. Jefferson Griffin is trying to steal an election at Christmas. Call him Grinch Griffin. Griffin lost the Supreme Court race to Justice Allison Riggs. Repeated recounts and audits confirmed the result. But he wants Republicans on the Supreme Court to overrule the voters’ decision, throw out 60,000 votes on…
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I might be wrong but a story one of Kamala Harris’ political wizards told after she lost sure sounded like a tall tale. He started out by telling a reporter there was no value, during the campaign, in Harris speaking with the New York Times or the Washington Post, added, Their readers are already with…
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Forty years ago this month, at a low point in his political career, Jim Hunt had his best idea. It became the Centennial Campus at North Carolina State University. You can argue with “best.” He had plenty of good ideas and initiatives. Like: Smart Start, raising teachers’ pay to the national average, the Primary Reading…
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Scratching the Surface Broadcasting live on the radio from Grovers Mill, New Jersey on Halloween night 86 years ago a stunned reporter watched Martians leaving a spacecraft, blasting policemen with heat rays. Panic swept across New Jersey. But he wasn’t a reporter he was an actor reading The War of the Worlds on Orson Wells…
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From Walter Mondale to Obama Democrat politicians preached the same gospel: Government was the way to…
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At the end of the Vance–Walz debate I thought, I wish those two were the ones…
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In 1984, Carter hired me to work for the Helms campaign. While my primary assignment was…
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