Archive for April 2008
Bad News for the Fall
For Democrats, this is supposed to be our can’t-lose year – in North Carolina and nationally. But the bad news keeps piling up in Raleigh. You can just see the Republican ads this fall. First there was the mental-health debacle. Now it’s the probation system’s inability to keep up with dangerous criminals. We have the…
Read MoreSledgehammer Conspiracy?
The most ludicrous assertion made in Raleigh this week (no mean feat) was the suggestion by disgraced Rep. Thomas Wright’s attorney that avenging blogger Joe (the Sledgehammer) Sinsheimer targeted Wright because Wright fell “out of favor with the power structure in the North Carolina House.” Ludicrous because Sinsheimer’s crusade against corruption was about as welcome…
Read MoreBubbas or Blacks
Rob Christensen may be right that the Bubba vote – male and female – will decide North Carolina for Clinton or Obama. That’s why the two old Bubba Buddies from their days together as attorneys general – Bill Clinton and Rufus Edmisten – have been campaigning together (a thought that gives one pause). But black…
Read MoreThe Most Bungled Cover-Up in History
When we last visited The Case of the Missing Emails it was a tangled web. It all started when The News and Observer reported the Department of Health had wasted $400 million – it was supposed to spend to provide health care to the mentally ill. Next, the Department of Health’s spokeswoman told The News…
Read MoreEasley Versus N&O
Governor Easley doesn’t need – and can’t win – this fight with The News & Observer over whether PIOs were told to delete emails. The paper all but called the Governor’s lawyer a liar – on the front page and in a news story, not an editorial. The PIOs’ notes seem clear: “Public records request…
Read MoreLonging for Jim Hunt
When it comes to managing North Carolina’s state government, the Easley Administration is beginning to sound like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. There’s been one mishap after another. The Department of Transportation wasted $30,000 on a ferry junket to watch the tall ships sail around Beaufort Harbor. The Department of Health and Human Service…
Read MoreNo More Stumbling
It looked for awhile like Fred Smith was doing some adroit foot work in the Republican primary, moving to Pat McCrory’s right. (Or, conversely, and more lethally, moving Mayor McCrory to the left). But, now, McCrory is doing some footwork of his own – moving just where Smith doesn’t want him on an issue Smith…
Read MorePolitics in a Nutshell
There’s a good old-fashioned brou-ha-ha going on in the Democratic Governor’s primary. Beverly Perdue says – in her latest TV ad – Richard Moore’s Wall Street’s boy. That as Treasurer, he increased fees to Wall Street Money managers 600% — and the Wall Street tycoons paid him back with $1.5 million in campaign donations. Moore,…
Read MoreHitting the Foul Shots
The final weeks of a campaign are like the final minutes of a basketball game: If you’re behind, you start fouling. Richard Moore is fouling Bev Perdue – hard. But nothing flagrant; it’s part of the game. Cullen Browder at WRAL-TV asked whether Moore’s ad recalling a 1995 traffic accident involving Perdue – and the…
Read More