Carter is a Republican. Gary is a Democrat.

They met in 1984, during the epic U.S. Senate battle between Jesse Helms and Jim Hunt. Carter worked for Helms and Gary, for Hunt.

Years later, they became friends. They even worked together on some nonpolitical clients.

They enjoy talking about politics. So they started this blog in 2005.

They’re still talking. And they invite you to join the conversation.

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Carter Wrenn

Gary Pearce 2024

Gary Pearce

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Straddling the Fence

By Carter Wrenn 2024-05-08

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…

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Social Media Chaos

By Carter Wrenn 2024-05-07

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…

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Grand Old (Drunk) Party  

By Gary Pearce 2024-05-06

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…

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A World Lit Only by Fire – Part IV

By Carter Wrenn 2024-05-06

Luther fled Worms – the emperor condemned him. Made him an outlaw. Luther fled into hiding in the Thuringian Forest – fate reared its head a third time: The emperor had to leave Germany to go to Spain to fight his war with the King of France. Didn’t set foot in Germany again for ten…

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Protests and Presidents

By Gary Pearce 2024-05-03

Fifty-four years ago this week, on May 8, 1970, 4,500 students from nearly a dozen colleges and universities marched on Capitol Square in Raleigh to protest the Vietnam War. Four days earlier, National Guardsmen had shot and killed four students and injured nine more in protests at Kent State University in Ohio. Our march, which…

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A World Lit Only by Fire – Part III

By Carter Wrenn 2024-05-03

A peasant’s son Martin Luther never knew the year he was born. Believing children were wicked his father whipped him, his mother caned him. Luther’s harsh life led him to take refuge in the cloister. The Saxon prince started a college – Luther moved to Wittenburg, taught about St. Paul. Believed, like Paul, truth and…

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A World Lit Only by Fire – Part II

By Carter Wrenn 2024-05-02

After Rodrigo Borgia died, soft-spoken but cunning Leo de Medici became pope, after bribing cardinals ended up strapped for cash. A German prince said he wanted to be an Archbishop. Leo told him that would cost him 12,000 gold ducats – 1000 for each of the Apostles. The prince frowned: How about 7000, one thousand…

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A World Lit Only by Fire – Part I

By Carter Wrenn 2024-05-01

It was a time, Tom Hanks wrote describing the end of the Middle Ages, when dukes and serfs paid popes to keep from going to hell. The Holy Roman Empire was not holy, not Roman, and not an empire. He’d read A World Lit Only by Fire, William Manchester’s last book, five times. Popes hid…

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Trust Flies Out the Window

By Carter Wrenn 2024-04-29

Planned Parenthood’s spending a ton of money – $10 million – to elect pro-abortion candidates in North Carolina. Eyes locked on white suburban women it’s running digital ads, knocking on a million doors to elect Joe Biden, the Democrat candidate for governor, and break the Republican super-majority in the state House and Senate. The first…

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The Virtues of Blogging

By Gary Pearce 2005-11-15

The News & Observer ran a front-page article Tuesday on John Edwards’ statement that “I was…

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The Politics of Indictments

By Gary Pearce 2005-11-14

It is striking how much of today’s political conversation – in Raleigh and in Washington –…

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Here’s Why Mike Easley is Governor

By Carter Wrenn 2005-11-14

If you saw ‘The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas’ a few years ago, you may remember…

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