Who said foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds? Republicans in North Carolina certainly appear untethered by consistency when it comes to the relationship between government and the private sector.
Nationally, Republicans are in a frenzy about the Obama administration’s policy toward business. Socialism, they thunder. The very idea of [...]
When I worked at The News & Observer long, long ago, there was a legendary editor named Bob Brooks.
Bob brooked no runarounds from big shots. I can still feel his forefinger jabbing my chest and him demanding: “There’s a hole in this story. You’ve got to ask him the tough [...]
Tom Fetzer is a smart guy. I’m thinking of endorsing him for state Republican Chair. That’s because he would be good, and I don’t want a good GOP chair. I figure my endorsement would be the kiss of death.
Tom has a gimmick in his campaign: help put The News & [...]
How confident is Erskine Bowles of his standing in the legislature? Confident enough to tell the Appropriations Committee that Governor Perdue’s UNC budget is “ludicrous.”
Bowles’ bluntness raised eyebrows around Raleigh. The Governor said she was “miffed,” but then assured us that she and Erskine talked and that love is in [...]
The most striking thing President Obama said in his news conference last night was: "I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak.”
He may be the only person in Washington.
It was his shortest answer of the night – and the most refreshing. His critics – including the self-aggrandizing'" [...]
Right-wingers are so mad at President Obama for trying to fix the economy they’re renewing a war they lost 75 years ago – against FDR and the New Deal.
The Fox mantra has been that the New Deal didn’t end the Depression, but only made it worse; that only World War [...]
State Senator Charlie Albertson has a bill guaranteed to get people talking.
It’s simple. Just one page. It prohibits any participation in athletic competition by “schools in which a majority of the students are below the 50th percentile on end-of-course and end-of-grade tests for two or more consecutive years.”
In other words, [...]
The blabbering classes are taking up pitchforks and torches over the AIG bonuses. The AIGate question now becomes: What did the President/Secretary of Treasury/Fed/Congress know and when did they know it?
My question: Why didn’t David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs see this coming?
Team Obama would not be the first winners to [...]
I give Governor Perdue and her staff an A+ on message management.
They pulled off a neat three-step strategy:
Spend weeks warning people how awful the budget cuts are going to be. Then devote her State of the State speech – and the next week’s media events – to saying education would [...]
I could never predict what will happen to the stock market. But I can predict that President Obama’s numbers will go down – soon.
It’s inevitable. And it’s no reason for Democrats to panic. They just need to prepare themselves.
Here’s why he is headed for a drop – maybe a precipitous [...]
Since the November election, I’ve been telling business people that the election marked a new cycle in politics: from pro-business government to pro-government – and potentially anti-business – government.
That cycle has dominated American history since the Civil War. Government was pro-business in the 19th Century, leading to great fortunes and [...]
News coverage of Ned Cline’s new book about Walter Davis – and his “bags of cash” – reminds me of my two encounters with Davis.
The first was in the Senate Dining Room in Washington during one of Governor Hunt’s first two administrations. I don’t recall the occasion or anything else [...]
I’m an N.C. State grad and a rabid Wolfpack fan. But I’m pulling for UNC this year.
The last time I did this was in 1956-57, when I was a young fan of Frank McGuire’s undefeated national championship team. I got over that quickly. I spent many years enjoying hating Dean [...]
Pat McCrory said recently that he learned a lesson from his loss to Bev Perdue: negative ads work.
What planet has he been on?
My guess is that old warrior Jack Hawke told McCrory long before Election Day that, to win, he would have to attack Perdue.
And McCrory was surprised?
I suspect [...]
Governor Perdue had the makings of a great speech last night. But she didn’t give it.
When she finished, it felt like the old song: Is that all there is?
I had predicted she would paint a broad picture rather than fill in details. But she certainly took that approach to the [...]
June Atkinson apparently has decided to spend her term as Superintendent of Public Instruction fighting to get back her office’s powers – either from the legislature or the courts.
That’s understandable. But is it the best thing for the schools? And is there another strategy for Atkinson?
When Governor Perdue named [...]
One of this blog’s regular readers – a good Democrat – accosted me at breakfast today to demand that I respond to Carter’s series on the Hunt-Helms race.
I had to confess to him that I’m partly to blame for what Carter is writing.
I’m writing a book about Jim Hunt. Lately, [...]
For three days running this week, The News & Observer ran stories about the latest Elon University poll. As did other newspapers and TV stations across the state.
The poll got widespread coverage because the issues were timely: the federal stimulus bill, Obama’s popularity, ratings of Congress and state issues including [...]
Blame James Carville.
Twenty years ago, the then-unknown Ragin’ Cajun got Democrat Wallace Wilkinson elected governor of Kentucky with a new campaign gimmick: an education lottery.
The very next year, he got Zig-Zag Zell Miller elected Governor of George the same way. Miller used the lottery proceeds to create HOPE scholarships, which [...]
Jim Hunt raised eyebrows during the campaign when he said Bev Perdue would be better at being governor than she was at being a candidate.
It sounded like faint praise at the time. Now it seems prescient.
Raleigh is amazed by Perdue’s deft performance since taking office. She is poised and [...]
Everybody agrees that North Carolina’s educational-governance system is dysfunctional. June Atkinson wants the legislature to give her real power. Some legislators want to do away with her job. Governor Perdue bypassed the whole byzantine system by creating her own schools CEO.
You can’t blame Atkinson. She has been elected superintendent of [...]
It’s time to round up the usual suspects. Because Washington is headed into the same old battle over raising taxes. But this time the stakes are bigger, the faces are different and the outcome may be surprising.
Since Ronald Reagan, the Republican formula has been a simple one. As Mary Matalin [...]
President Obama made a crucial strategic, rhetorical and political pivot in his speech to Congress last night. He shifted from warnings of “catastrophe” to an assertion of confidence: “We will rebuild, we will recover.”
More than with most politicians, Obama’s words are worth paying attention to. Because, as a writer, he [...]
As a nation turns its lonely eyes to President Obama tonight, I’m reminded of the plaintive question Casey Stengel asked about the sad-sack Mets: “Can’t anybody here play this game?”
Does anybody in Washington know what they’re doing? Do they know how to stop the Great Recession – and prevent a [...]
Tony Rand rolled out a sure-fire crowd-pleaser last week: limit the number of days legislators can collect their expenses.
Voters love it. Good-government types extol it. Legislators can hardly vote against it.
But some people question – privately – the wisdom behind it.
Are shorter legislative sessions by definition better? In whatever your [...]
Gene Conti’s pick of N&O veteran Ted Vaden as deputy DOT secretary for communications revealed three things:
Conti (caveat: a good friend) will be a good secretary. He understands that DOT will benefit from some disinfectant and sunshine. The N&O, like many daily papers, looks like a sinking ship. The age-old [...]
Now that President Obama has signed the stimulus bill, the real free-for-all begins – both financial and political.
The most popular people in Raleigh today are Dempsey Benton and Gene Conti. As DOT secretary, Conti has road money to spend. As Governor Perdue’s stimulus czar, Benton will oversee the rest of [...]
Several times during the presidential campaign, opponents and commentators dismissed Barack Obama as “Obambi.” John Edwards privately told friends he thought Obama was weak. The Clintons believed he was too soft. So did John McCain.
At every turn, Bambi turned out to have sharp teeth. His path is littered with his [...]
How key was North Carolina in the 2008 election? Well, it’s possible the stimulus package might not have passed the Senate if Kay Hagan hadn’t beaten Liddy Dole.
The bill passed 61-58, with the help of three Republicans. Without Hagan, the vote might have been 60-59. Cut it that close, and [...]
As an NFL quarterback, Health Shuler had a reputation for making bad throws. As a politician, he may have just thrown himself out of the 2010 Senate race.
Shuler voted against the stimulus bill in the House, one of a handful of Democrats to cross party lines on the vote.
That’s not [...]
So Wall Street wasn’t happy with Obama’s bank-rescue plan. As one of my breakfast pals pointed out: “Didn’t Wall Street get us into this mess? Who are they to complain that the rescuers aren’t doing enough to save them from themselves?”
The real question is what the American people think.
Public Policy [...]
President Obama demonstrated anew last night why he’s a political force not to be underestimated. Congressional Republicans need to reassess picking a fight with a President who is smart, articulate (and clean, as Joe Biden would say). Not to mention one who has the biggest microphone in the world.
Obama made [...]
Most employers would look askance on a new employee who takes a week-long vacation after being on the job just over a month.
So Governor Perdue is trying the good nature of North Carolina taxpayers this week.
She has good arguments: She has been working hard. She’s off to a good start, [...]
Face it, Obamaniacs. The Man has had a rough start.
Kind of like Flight 1549, he ran into some turkeys on takeoff. Some of the turkeys were Republicans. Some were Democrats in Congress. And some were in his own administration.
But buck up. At several key points in the campaign, Obama seemed [...]
We’re witnessing the biggest shift in political power in America in a generation: from the state capitals to Washington.
The much-heralded “New Federalism” of the 70s, 80s and 90s is dead. The era of ex-Governors in the White House (Carter, Reagan and Clinton) is past. Today, all power flows to [...]
President Obama has hit his roughest patch since he took the oath from the man Stephen Colbert calls the Justice Chief of the Court Supreme.
So yesterday Obama rolled out his most powerful weapon: Barack Obama. He “roadblocked” every network. He did interviews with Big Feet like Anderson Cooper and Brian [...]
Woody Allen once said 80 percent of life is just showing up. Bev Perdue is proving that showing up is 90 percent of following Mike Easley.
One Raleigh Democrat said last week she had seen Governor Perdue four times since her inauguration: at a Washington event, at a Lillian’s List meeting, [...]
Media commentators and Republican critics alike seem shocked – shocked, I tell you – that President Obama packed the stimulus bill with initiatives he promised during his campaign, like education, energy and health care.
What did they expect? That he would abandon his promises after he took the oath?
Rush Limbaugh actually [...]
What were the Wall Street geniuses thinking when they handed out millions in bonuses with one hand while taking billions in taxpayer-bailout money with the other?
What were Republicans in the House thinking when every one of them voted against the stimulus bill?
Actually, it’s easy to answer both questions.
The Masters of [...]
Like President Obama, Governor Perdue began her administration with a series of executive orders showing she’s on the job and ready from day one. First came her “change orders.” This week her budget officer sent out an email touting her steps to save money.
She has little choice. North Carolina, like [...]
For this year’s legislature, one thing looms larger than the budget crisis: Next year’s elections.
That’s because the legislators elected in 2010 will draw up election districts for the next decade.
So don’t expect anything too bold or radical from this session.
The only tax increases on the table are the “sin taxes” [...]
Bob Scott has his flaws, but he had guts.
The Scott legacy will be tarnished by Meg Scott Phipp’s imprisonment – and by the IRS investigation of Scott supporters when he was governor. But Bob Scott deserves a lot of credit for modernizing North Carolina – sometimes in the face of [...]
It may be the biggest myth in American politics: the well-oiled Kennedy machine.
Well-oiled it was in 1960, when old Joe Kennedy was paying for it and running it through Bobby. But the machine has stumbled ever since, especially on the presidential stage.
Bobby Kennedy’s run in 1968 got off to a [...]
How did David Young suddenly emerge as the leading candidate for Democratic Party chair? Here’s the story from one party insider:
Governor Perdue was supporting David Parker, a long-time party activist who has wanted to be chair for years. But Chairman Jerry Meek didn’t like being told what to do. He [...]
When John Edwards was running for Senate in 1998, the N&O did a story about how little money he had raised from the state’s business community – and how much then-Senator Lauch Faircloth had raised there.
Sam Hunt, ex-DOT Secretary to Governor Hunt, was quoted as saying the road to the [...]
Let’s extend the Obama-Lincoln comparison. Carter finds it troubling. But it’s legitimate given their roots, their inexperience and their unlikely rise to the White House.
Of course, we can’t know now whether Obama will be remembered as a great President – or an awful one. Certainly, expectations are higher for [...]
Of course I give President Obama (I love the sound of that) an A+ for his speech. As Carter said in his post, Obama may not match Lincoln as a President (who did?), but he comes close as a writer.
Obama’s rhetorical skill is more than an exceptional way with [...]
Throughout the transition, I would catch a glimpse of Obama on TV with a graphic reminding me he is President-elect. Every time, I was surprised again. And I am still amazed he carried North Carolina.
But I wonder how long the racial honeymoon will last. How long before bigotry reenters the [...]
George Bush’s presidency was defined and dominated by the image of jets skimming low over Manhattan, slamming into the World Trade Center. Yesterday, his farewell address was overshadowed by the image of a jet resting in the Hudson River, all aboard alive.
Might the miracle on the Hudson be a metaphor [...]
George Bush’s exit interviews accomplish nothing more than to remind us how far in over his head he was as President.
Many Americans voted for Bush in 2000 – I remind you that we did not elect him – because they thought he would be a better guy to have a [...]
Not to compare Bev Perdue with Rod Blagoyevich, but both have shown how the sudden power of the executive branch can frustrate the legislative branch.
Blagoyevich’s appointment of Roland Burris to Barack Obama’s Senate seat was a stroke of evil genius. The already-arrested, to-be-indicted and probably to-be-removed-from-office governor flummoxed the President-elect, [...]
With the unfortunate exception of Jesse Helms, no U.S. Senator from North Carolina has won reelection since Sam Ervin (1956, 1962 and 1968). Kay Hagan needs to keep that sobering fact in mind.
Unfortunately, some of her public statements give one pause about her prospects.
Like her victory speech Election Night, which [...]
Given the criticism of her campaign performances, Bev Perdue gave a surprisingly good inaugural speech.
As a connoisseur of inaugural speeches – and the co-author of several – I give her a B.
She largely avoided the common mistake of “vision strain:” trying too hard to sound lofty. Her speech [...]
Mike Easley’s record is like what was said about Wagner’s music: It’s better than it sounds.
I’ve never been close to the Governor. I worked for Dennis Wicker in 2000. Even worse, I worked forever for Jim Hunt, and Easley clearly didn’t like being compared to Hunt.
And I’ve been critical of [...]
A wise and frequent reader of this blog (but I repeat myself) takes issue with my recent advice to the N&O’s John Drescher re his public disagreements with Governor Easley. The reader writes:
“I disagree on the effectiveness of saying, ‘We stand by the story.’ That's the editor's equivalent of ‘No [...]
As she moved ever closer to achieving her dream of becoming Governor, Bev Perdue suffered from what George Bush called – in another context and in a line he surely didn’t understand – “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”
Maybe it was because she’s a woman. Maybe it was her reputation [...]
Gene Conti’s appointment as Secretary of DOT pleases me not only because he’s a pro, as the N&O headline said, but also because he’s a good friend and good golf partner. (Defined as a golfer who does not beat me too badly too often.)
Gene now takes over one of the [...]
There were all kinds of interesting twists to Governor-elect Perdue’s first Cabinet appointments.
Like President-elect Obama, she started by announcing related posts. Her theme was public safety. That shows the power of the press to dictate her agenda.
But she may not have been happy that the N&O focused on her [...]
Christmas should always come on Thursday. Because that means New Year’s Day is a Thursday. Which puts off Back-to-Work day to January 5.
You have to love the quiet week between the two holidays. But it has its disadvantages. Newspapers and TV news – with little of consequence to cover – [...]
I can’t defend Governor Easley’s comments about the N&O not being “nice” to him – and accusing the paper of a “hatchet job.”
In a recent term-ending interview, the Governor said he often avoids public events because he likes to have time to think things out. He should have thought this [...]
Carter’s recent post about Obama and Afghanistan reminded me of the remark that earned Bob Dole his hatchet-man reputation. In his 1976 vice presidential debate with Walter Mondale, Dole referred to the casualties America had suffered in “Democrat wars” in the 20th Century.
As with most controversial remarks, there was truth [...]
For Christmas, I usually ask for books. And I get some unexpected pleasures. Unexpected this year was Jacob Weisberg’s The Bush Tragedy, which I started reading Christmas night and found captivating.
I hadn’t read it before, because I had expected predictable Bush-bashing. But Weisberg – who makes the perceptive observation that [...]
A Blue Christmas is a Merry Christmas for Democrats. Not so much for Republicans who are sure the end of the world is nigh. So let me offer a note of hope and cheer.
Yes, the news is bad. Retail sales are down. Home sales are down. Car sales are so [...]
George Bush may have screwed up everything else in eight years, but even he knew better than to drive America’s automobile industry into bankruptcy at Christmas.
Not so with Tennessee Senator Bob Corker and some of his Republican colleagues in Congress.
All I have to say to them is: Keep driving, boys. [...]
The Washington Post said last week that the one group largely unrepresented in Obama’s key team is Southerners.
As Gomer Pyle would say, “Surprise, surprise!”
The story didn’t mention that the official voice of the White House will have a Southern accent. That’s Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who grew up in [...]
The political world is in a frenzy of moral dudgeon over the alleged high crimes and moral misdemeanors of Governor Rob Blagoyevich. The nerve of him! Wanting to make money off the appointment of a new Senator!
Besides, get a load of his hair.
Then I read a story about Governor David [...]
The rumor this week has been that Governor-elect Perdue will appoint her Cabinet Friday. Other rumors have it that she’s still having trouble filling some key positions, like DENR and DHHS.
Dumping the whole load at once is a different media strategy from past Governors. Most rolled out their appointments one [...]
I take a back seat to no one when it comes to being a John F. Kennedy hero-worshipper. I shook hands with him in 1960. I was 11 years old. He was campaigning with Terry Sanford, and they stopped at Glenwood Village to change cars. JFK was to me what [...]
Governor-elect Bev Perdue has done a lot of listening lately. Maybe too much.
The highly publicized public forums that her transition team held – and the 14 reports that were generated – may not help her a bit when it comes time to stop listening and start governing.
They may make her [...]
Republicans today remind me of Democrats after Reagan won in 1980: Determined to become a permanent minority party.
If I could be a mole and dupe the GOP into a sure-fire strategy for self-immolation, I would keep them doing what some Republicans seem determined to do anyway:
Drive GM and Chrysler into [...]
After the election, people would ask me: “Aren’t you glad the campaign is over?”
Hell, no. I miss it. I miss the wall-to-wall attack ads. I miss the overheated blogs. I miss the sound and fury.
Now all we have to talk about is policy and personnel. Yawn.
So let’s get on with [...]
Andy Jackson would roll over in his grave.
I just read Jon Meacham’s new biography, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. Meacham shows how Jackson saw himself not just as the executive head of government, but as the true voice of the people. He, not Congress, would chart [...]
Joe Biden warned us that Barack Obama would be tested. We just didn’t realize the test would come within six weeks and would come from crooks at home, not terrorists abroad.
The “pay to pick” scandal in Illinois is getting so much attention we’re all going to learn how to pronounce [...]
“Drill, baby, drill” was the Republican mantra during the campaign. The GOP concluded – and nervous Democrats agreed – that the public wanted no potential source of cheap gas left undrilled.
Now Skip Stam of Apex, the Republican House leader, wades into the debate with a novel justification for drilling off [...]
Back during Jim Hunt’s first stint as Governor, his patronage man was a wily old fellow from Pilot Mountain named Joe Pell, who became legendary. Joe’s job was to get state jobs for Hunt’s friends and supporters around the state.
One day Joe was having breakfast at Finch’s with a county [...]
The News & Observer noted that Heman Clark, who died last week, was a lawyer, prosecutor, judge and Cabinet secretary. At 93, he was one of the last links to the Terry Sanford era in politics.
But I’ll remember Heman most for an evening of kindness to my then-11-year-old son.
It [...]
News that long-time sportscaster Tom Suiter is retiring at WRAL-TV takes long-time viewers back. Back to what some of us view as the Bad Old Days at the station.
The N&O noted that Suiter, from Rocky Mount, was brought to the station by Jesse Helms, then WRAL’s executive vice president for [...]
The most worrisome news today is that Governor-Elect Perdue is conducting a “nationwide search” for a secretary of Health and Human Services.
I hope she has better luck than Governor Hunt did.
When he was first elected in 1976, Hunt did a nationwide search for an expert to run the state’s troubled [...]
Final impressions can count as much as first impressions. And Governor Easley is leaving a bad one.
The N&O asks today: “Where’s Mike?” This comes after “Where’s Libba Evans?”
There’s the mental-health mess. The DOT-Fayetteville flap. Next, apparently, an N&O series on the state probation system.
For dessert, the titillating [...]
Governor-elect Bev Perdue has sought to separate herself from Governor Easley – sometimes indirectly and sometimes directly.
During the campaign, she said she would be more open and transparent. She promised a more ethical administration.
Election night, she said “there’s a new sheriff in town.”
The media focus has been on her staff [...]
Mark Johnson of the Charlotte Observer is one of the best political reporters I know, but I don’t think his story about Zach Ambrose was quite fair about the campaign that Perdue’s transition chief ran.
Johnson wrote:
Ambrose comes into the job with some obvious challenges….(S)ome observers will be watching [...]
Barack Obama is being hailed as a combination of Lincoln and FDR. The economic crisis is likened to secession and Depression.
There seems to be a consensus on what he should do – among Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, Washington and Wall Street: Spend money!
Spend billions of dollars! Trillions, even! [...]
I was on a panel last week for the Women’s Networking Forum sponsored by Hunton & Williams law firm. The subject was “Lipstick, Pantsuits and Politics.”
When I told my wife I would be talking about women and politics, she shot back: “Two of your favorite subjects.” And I actually know [...]
Two pairs of stories in today’s N&O capture the shifting state of politics nationally and in North Carolina.
First, North Carolina. The front page spotlights $270 million going to the highway loop in Fayetteville, home of Secretary Lyndo Tippett and Senator Tony Rand. Then Under the Dome says Marc Basnight [...]
James Carville once defined transitions as when you stop screwing your enemies and start screwing your friends.
Transition personnel always fall into one of two camps: those who were in the campaign and those who weren’t. The two are like cats and dogs.
The campaign people resent the transition people swooping in [...]
Here’s one way to look at the 2008 election: The Old White Guys who were running things got fired.
There’s George Bush, the MBA Presidency and all his OWGs running the war and the economy.
There’s Mike Easley. Bev Perdue spent the final weeks of her campaign promising “change orders” on day [...]
Richard Nixon and Strom Thurmond ginned up the Southern Strategy in 1968. For 40 years, Dixie gave the Republicans an almost insurmountable edge in the Electoral College. The GOP won seven of the next 10 presidential elections.
Now Republicans are trapped by their history.
The only counties where Republicans gained in 2008 [...]
John Drescher’s column in the N&O Saturday – “The fair sex? Not in politics” – was on the money. His money shot: “…based on the recent campaigns, it's hard to claim that women are more ethical and fair than men.”
He cited Liddy Dole’s “godless” ad – “the national cheap [...]
You will recall that George W. Bush was going to give America the “MBA Presidency.” Apparently, that turned out to mean “Management by A--holes.”
The Republicans were done in by the Bush team’s incompetent management of Iraq, Katrina and the economy.
Ironically, the Obama campaign – and, so far, the transition – [...]
Governor-elect Bev Perdue is wrestling with two public images. One is the picture in Sunday’s N&O of her with Marc Basnight, with Basnight looming over her. The other is her vow election night to make a “fresh start.”
Her speech was odd. She sounded tired, even touchy. She reprimanded the crowd [...]
A young, fresh Democratic underdog upsets an older, entrenched Republican United States Senator. North Carolina Democrats take heart. Washington welcomes a promising new face.
Today it’s Kay Hagan. Ten years ago this month it was John Edwards.
Today Edwards gives speeches and the questions are pre-screened. Of course, the hosts insist, it [...]
The sight of Barack Obama and George Bush together at the White House was striking in many ways. For one thing, what will it be like, as Joe Biden would say, to have an articulate President, one who can speak clearly – and write powerfully?
I don’t want to overdraw this [...]
No race shows more dramatically how Raleigh has changed than Josh Stein’s smashing 3-to-2 victory over Johnny Mac Alexander in Senate District 16.
Alexander is prototypical Old Raleigh. He and his family are pillars of the city’s long-time business and social elite. He graduated from Broughton. He and his family have [...]
No, not if he had won last Tuesday. If he had won eight years ago, in 2000.
If he had withstood the Bush smear machine in South Carolina. If he had picked a true maverick with real qualifications, like Chuck Hagel, for his running mate. If he had beaten Al Gore [...]
Carter and I spoke this morning to Leadership North Carolina about the political landscape today. The questions were interesting – and pointed:
What do the Republicans do now?
How will Bev Perdue govern and position herself for 2012?
How will the state solve its fiscal problems?
How will the feds pay for Medicare [...]
Race and politics can bring out the worst in people – and the best. My daughter Maggie, 15, is a high school sophomore. Like her older brother, who has posted blogs here before, she is an ardent Democrat – and fan of Barack Obama. Since Obama won, she has heard [...]
Campaigns end abruptly. One day you’re going 90 miles an hour, 12 hours a day, seven days a week. All of a sudden Tuesday night it’s over. On Wednesday you bask in the glory if you won or bathe in your friends’ condolences and reassurances if you lost.
Then BAM! The [...]
Three factors carried North Carolina for Hagan, Perdue and – maybe – Obama. It is a mistake to ascribe the result to any one of the three alone.
First was the public’s rejection of George Bush because of the economic crisis. In a sense, 2008 was just a continuation of the [...]
An excellent New York Times article today analyzed how 2008 has changed politics forever. And nowhere more than North Carolina. Let us count the ways:
BATTLEGROUND: First the primary. When Obama won North Carolina, the late Tim Russert declared that he had won the nomination. Now we’ve had the heady experience [...]
I’ve been skeptical about the vaunted Obama ground game. But now I believe it’s real. So real, this election may already be decided in North Carolina.
Some 2.6 million people have already voted – 40 percent of the registered voters. Democrats outnumber Republicans 52-30. African-Americans are 27 percent of the total.
Republicans [...]
