Charlotte Rising?

Money talks in politics and there is more money – a lot more – in Charlotte than anywhere else in North Carolina. So the emergence of two new candidates from Charlotte may be Republicans’ best hope of nominating candidates who can match the Democrats’ – until now – huge financial edge in the campaigns for…

Read More

Speculating on the Presidential Race

Here is a bit of speculation – just for the fun of it – with the first round of Republican Presidential primaries around the corner. Mike Huckabee – Rolls to victory in Iowa, then South Carolina. Which makes him one of the final two Republicans left standing. He will fight it out with either Romney,…

Read More

Walter “The Dodger” Dalton?

Some free advice for State Senator Walter Dalton, Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor: Don’t dodge debates. Don’t give your opponents that club to beat you with. Dalton is saying he won’t participate in debates matching the Democratic candidates. So one opponent, Hampton Dellinger, is riding Dalton hard about it. Dalton needs to wake up, smell…

Read More

Freedom Requires Religion?

The Republican presidential race is serving one useful purpose. It is forcing us to think about the role of religion in politics. Too many people either assume or dismiss that role without thinking hard about it. Examine this statement by Mitt Romney: “Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom.” Really? Does freedom really require…

Read More

Freedom and Religion

I must admit Romney’s statement – “Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom” – sounds like a political slogan, not theology. After all, religion has been around since before God told Abraham to leave Ur and go to The Promised Land; it survived the Pharaohs, Romans and The Dark Ages when there was little…

Read More

Hucka-Dean

Mike Huckabee is to this presidential race as Howard Dean was to 2004: Both were small-start Governors with modest records. Both started out as minor candidates. Both catapulted to the front by capturing a bloc of voters who were leaderless: the Democratic antiwar left and the Republican Christian right. Both turned out to have a…

Read More

Passing the Buck to Parton

The City Fathers up in Roanoke Rapids are giving Randy Parton a good old-fashioned drubbing. He’s been accused, one way or another, of everything from drunkenness to negligence to mismanagement. But, after all, who’s really to blame? The City Fathers, not Parton, decided to borrow $21.5 million to go into the country music business –…

Read More

We Know Hillary

Hillary Clinton is imploding in Iowa. Will she finish second or third? So her campaign started a website about “The Hillary You Don’t Know.” Voters do know her. They’ve watched her up close for 16 years. She can’t do what Bill Clinton did in 1992, when he reintroduced himself mid-campaign as The Man From Hope.…

Read More

Heating-Up Watch

Here is the latest sighting of the Most Overused Cliché in Political Reporting. CNN’s coverage of the Iowa race early Tuesday morning was bannered: “Race Heating Up.” Reporters especially love using “heating up” when the weather is snowy and below zero. As in: “It may be cold and snowy here in Iowa, but the race…

Read More