Archive for October 2015
There’s no ! in Jeb anymore
Poor Jeb looked like an aging big-leaguer striking out on three straight pitches from a Little Leaguer with a wicked fastball. Now Marco gets his moment on the mound. So four questions from last night’s Republican playoff game: When will the rats desert the SS Bush? You almost feel sorry for the Establishment Republicans, including…
Read MoreShorter sessions don’t mean better government
A TAPster beat me to the punch in dismissing Rep. Gary Pendleton’s headline-grabbing but misguided idea of limiting the length of legislative sessions: Rep. Pendleton bravely talks about how other, larger states get their work done in 60 or 90 days and North Carolina’s General Assembly languishes for eight or nine months, sometimes longer. He’s…
Read MoreRepublicans do believe in government spending!
Sometimes politicians just have to rise above principle. Like Republican legislative leaders who have come to love spending taxpayers’ money – for goodies that help them politically. The Republican civic religion is that government is the problem and no problem can be solved by throwing tax dollars at it. Unless it’s a baseball stadium or…
Read MoreThe Great GOP Benghazi Bungle
After suffering one of the worst summers in the history of presidential races, Hillary Clinton just wrapped up one of the best weeks in the history of presidential races. Thanks to the House Benghazi Committee. Last week she won the Democratic debate. Then Joe Biden decided he couldn’t beat her. Then she did something John…
Read MoreMust Love Dogs
Long ago the bib-overall wearing editor of a small weekly newspaper in Raleigh published a story claiming Jim Hunt was gay. There wasn’t a word of truth in it. He’d made it up and splashed it across the front page, hoping to elect Jesse Helms. For one stunned moment, there was a collective gasp. Then…
Read MoreRyan and Biden bidin’ their time
Paul Ryan and Joe Biden are playing high-stakes poker. Who will hold and who will fold? Biden still isn’t decidin’ whether to run for President. But he’s taking shots at Hillary Clinton just as she’s getting a poll bump from her debate performance. And Biden seems to be rewriting history on what he told President…
Read MoreHillary versus The Donald
This will be The Greatest Show on Earth. Or maybe a sign of the End Times. It will pit the yin and yang of American politics, the alpha and omega, Wonder Woman versus Captain America, Good versus Evil (whichever side you’re on). The only thing they have in common is our obsession with their hairstyles.…
Read MoreFollow the Money
It’s hard for a Washington politician to explain away a $300 million snafu but it’s even harder for a Raleigh Bull Moose without the opportunity to learn dissimulation first-hand by watching the masters in Congress. From the first day Phil Berger rapped the gavel his hand-picked Medicaid Czar, Senator Ralph Hise the Mountain Statistician, made…
Read MoreTine’s time-out
Boweaver is a yellow-dog Democrat. He was wound up at breakfast about retiring Rep. Paul Tine of Dare County. Tine, who switched from Democrat to Unaffiliated and joined hands with House Republicans this session, has announced he’s not running again. He maintains he was undaunted by the prospect of running as an Unaffiliated, because he…
Read MoreControlling the Money
It was modern politics at its noisiest with shouting and arm waving and bark-peeling emails flying through the ether but even by modern standards the State Republican Party blasting the Republican Leaders of the State House and Senate Leader was odd. Last spring just about every Republican Leader from Pat McCrory to Phil Berger endorsed…
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