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Carter Wrenn posted on June 17, 2013 12:28
The Democrats have gotten plenty fired up about the ‘Moral Monday’ protests down at the state legislature – even an old war horse like Gary, catching a whiff of grapeshot in the air, rode to the sound of the guns, defending the protestors from a broadside by Governor McCrory.
But, in another way, all this consternation seems out of place – the protests may have ignited the imaginations of political insiders but they don’t really seem to have caught the imagination of the man on the street. Instead of protests filled with high drama – like fire hoses and clashes with police – every Monday the protestors politely line up, blocking the huge metal doors into the State House and State Senate, then the Capital Police politely carry them away one by one, book ‘em, then let ‘em go.
No harm’s done. No one suffers. And everyone goes on about their business.
In addition while the demonstrators are chanting away decrying the foibles of Republican politicians, the lead protestor (leading the chants) is the one of the most colorful demagogues to come down the pike in North Carolina in years – the Reverend William Barber. North Carolina’s answer to Al Sharpton.
As a firer of broadsides Reverend Barber is second to no one – but as the face and voice of a political movement he leaves something to be desired.
The Republican’s best response to the “Moral Monday” protests isn’t to start firing back – it’s simpler: Just go on being courteous.
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Gary Pearce posted on June 17, 2013 11:11
It took the critics no time to pounce on the news that John Edwards is opening a new law firm.
A Republican friend e-mailed: “Is it a coincidence that Edwards reactivated his license, set up a speaking engagement, and leaked the idea of a new firm all within weeks of Mark Sanford's return to Washington?”
That’s a good one. But it’s time to give Edwards a break.
Yes, he screwed up royally. And he still is paying the price. He blew a good chance to be President. He has been publicly shamed. He was hounded by federal prosecutors and tried by jury. Every time he pops up his head, he gets tabloid-bashed.
But he did right by staying out of sight for a year. He has a lot to offer, especially if he helps people who have no voice or other recourse. Edwards had the courage as a presidential candidate to talk about issues that no other presidential candidate has since Robert Kennedy in 1968: people in poverty, people without health care and people without jobs and hope.
Looking back, perhaps Edwards should have taken more time to absorb the death of his son Wade. Wade died in April 1996, and Edwards started running for the Senate in December. For 10 years, he ran for office. Maybe he tried to run away from grief. In the end, he ran into trouble.
Then he had to stop running. He had to walk the path of grief, suffering and reflection – on Wade’s loss, Elizabeth’s death and his own mistakes. Now life has given him a rare gift: a second chance.
I bet he’ll do well with it.
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Carter Wrenn posted on June 14, 2013 15:18
Right now there’re three great powers in Republican politics in Raleigh: The Governor, the House, and the Senate.
Now the Governor’s pretty easygoing – the kind of fellow who, when he can, will go out of his way to avoid a fight. Even when he disagrees with folks, he’s not inclined to say much bad or unkind about the other fellow.
The State House, on the other hand, can get pretty obstreperous. But, most often, the Republicans in the House are aiming their barbs at each other. A couple of weeks ago a Republican legislator let fly at Speaker Thom Tillis calling him a liberal, then another Republican legislator let fly calling the Speaker a pay-to-play politician. Last week, Republican legislators scuttled the Speaker’s tax reform plan in the House Finance Committee one day, scuttled it again in the House Appropriations Committee the next day, then on the third day they passed the whole thing (just the way the Speaker wanted it) almost unanimously.
Compared to the House, the Senate is a study in order.
The Republican Senators take their conservative ideas seriously – and they’re not prone to sit on their hands and wait for someone else to come along and do something about them. In their budget they cut state spending more than the House or the Governor, and in their tax package they cut taxes more than the House or the Governor – which has left the other Republican powers in Raleigh in a quandary. Because no Republican State Representative wants to have to go home and explain to voters that, the way he saw it, the Republican Senate cut taxes and spending too much.
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Carter Wrenn posted on June 13, 2013 16:25
The other day the News & Observer wrote a long report comparing the State House and State Senate budgets – but who, other than a certified budget expert with a PhD, could figure out the welter of numbers?
The newspaper wrote – in great detail – about who spent money on what: How the House funded a non-profit with a high sounding name (the Rural Development Center) which the folks in the House appear to view as essential to the public good but the folks in the Senate appear to view as an old-fashioned political slush fund (they refuse to spend a penny on).
But, beyond this welter of numbers, in the end this debate may boil down to one simple number: Who spent the most – the House or the Senate?
Because once that’s clear folks who want less government will support the budget that spends the least – and folks who favor more government will come down on the other side.
So what’s the number? Who spent the most? The House or the Senate?
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Gary Pearce posted on June 13, 2013 08:51
Snowden is a 29-year-old high school dropout, former Elizabeth City resident and computer nerd who was making $200,000 a year until he started an international furor over U.S. government surveillance.
Snowden says, essentially, that the NSA (“No Such Agency”) can hack anybody, anytime – including you and the President. The government and President Obama say, essentially: Yes we can. But you can trust us. And we’re keeping you safe.
Joyce asked: Why isn’t Snowden a hero? Why are Very Important and Serious members of Congress calling him a traitor? Except Senator Rand Paul, who plans to sue the government. (Side note: Snowden supported Ron Paul for President.)
Are we OK with all this?
The British government says law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear here. But look at it this way: Say you’re Facebook friends with someone who, unknown to you, leaks a government secret to the media – maybe something about Fort Bragg. The government, if it wishes, then could examine all your Facebook posts, all your Twitter posts, all your cell phone records and all your emails.
But you have nothing to worry about. So long as the government considers you a law-abiding citizen.
I hope they don’t decide this blog is a national-security threat. You’re in trouble if they do.
So it’s The Government versus The Kid. Maybe it’s the aging hippie in me, as Senator Goolsby would say, but I believe the kid.
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Posted in: General, Issues
Gary Pearce posted on June 12, 2013 09:28
Maybe it’s the heat, the humidity or just that it’s June. A reporter gets arrested. Senator Tom Goolsby has 60s flashbacks. Governor McCrory sees “outsiders” when they’re not there. The Democratic Party debacle deepens.
But the flap over the Governor’s game of catch – and his spokesperson’s bizarre statement – still stand out in a week of bizarre capital news.
First video evidence and a time stamp are examined to resolve whether the Governor was in a meeting or playing catch on the lawn when Progress NC, Bob Etheridge and a group of children brought him a petition protesting education cuts.
Then Kim Genardo makes this classic statement:
“The photo being circulated today by that liberal advocacy group was taken AFTER the petitions were dropped off at the Capitol. Taking the advice of First Lady Michelle Obama, the governor each day attempts to get some exercise, yesterday throwing the baseball and today walking from NC State's campus back to the Capitol. Governor McCrory will be back out tomorrow throwing the baseball perhaps with children who share his All-American passion.''
That’s the ticket: Blame Michelle. And hide behind America and baseball.
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Gary Pearce posted on June 11, 2013 11:36
Ah, the old “outsider” shibboleth rears its head. Shades of George Wallace’s “outside agitators.” But it’s not outsiders that Republicans should worry about; it’s the changing electorate inside North Carolina.
The Republican overreaction to Moral Mondays looks shaky and out of synch. Especially when you see this photo of a policeman hauling off a pleasant-looking middle-aged woman with her hands zip-tied behind her back. Thank goodness our government is now safe from her!
Here’s a good article that captures the tension developing across the South between hard-right Republicans in power in state capitals and an increasingly younger, darker and more progressive voting population.
It’s like pressure building up between tectonic plates. Eventually there’s an earthquake.
Governor McCrory sounded like he was standing on shaky ground when he warned the state Republican convention that "Outsiders are coming in and they're going to try to do to us what they did to Scott Walker in Wisconsin."
Senator Tom Goolsby sounded like he had fallen into a 1960s time warp when he railed: “Several hundred people – mostly white, angry, aged former hippies – appeared and screeched into microphones, talked about solidarity and chanted diatribes.”
Clearly, Democrats have a lot of work to do before they can turn this energy into victory at the polling place. But, one way or another, that energy will find an outlet.
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Carter Wrenn posted on June 11, 2013 10:34
It seems Republicans up in Congress have split into two hostile tribes – whether you call them ‘Moderates and Conservatives’ (as they did forty years ago) or the ‘Conservatives and Pragmatists’ (as they did twenty years ago) or ‘Insiders and Outsiders’ (as they do now).
Now, say, on spending, the Conservatives (or Outsiders) are dead-set certain we’d all be a lot better off with a lot less government. It’s an article of faith. To Conservatives Less Spending = Less Government = Good Things Happening.
More to the point, they figure if voters don’t agree, say, with shuttering the Department of Education, it’s their job to go to work and show ‘em that sending billions to Washington for schools then turning around and sending it back to the states isn’t the best idea on earth.
And they’re willing to risk their political hides to do it.
The Insiders (or Pragmatists) don’t really have any philosophical aversion to cutting spending or government. But they also figure Republicans aren’t going to be doing much good in Washington if they lose their majority in the House – so they don’t see much virtue in risking their political hides for an unpopular spending cut, even if they agree with it.
It’s as old a political fight as I know of in Republican politics: One group of fellows says, Let’s do what’s right and damn the torpedoes. It’ll all come out right in the end – and the other group takes one look at the torpedoes and says, Hold on.
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Carter Wrenn posted on June 10, 2013 16:35
These days conservatives are reeling in the face of the sudden ascendance of gay marriage as a popular issue – they’re looking back at all the votes traditionalists (or old fogies) have won in referendums (including one in North Carolina just a year ago) and then looking at the latest polls saying there’s been a wind change and now people are all for gay marriage, and it’s like the earth suddenly shifting beneath their feet – so naturally they’re shaking their heads and wondering: What happened?
And the mavens and masters of public opinion are answering, You just lost the Culture War – it’s a startling revelation.
For thirty years Republicans have been fighting and, if not winning, at least holding their own in the Political Wars. But now, suddenly, they find the liberals (or secularists or whoever) have also been fighting (and winning) another war that has the power – at a touch – to sweep the ground out from under their political feet. It’s as if some enlightened rock star or movie celebrity suddenly has the power to stand up, say, at the Emmy Awards and reveal in a flash of insight that the faithful have been dead plumb wrong about the Sacrament of Marriage for twenty centuries – then the next day some fellow takes a poll that shows a tidal shift in public opinion overnight that leaves people (who, say, a year ago voted no to gay marriage) agreeing with the rock star and saying, Yes sir, the old fogies had it dead wrong all along.
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Posted in: General, Issues
Carter Wrenn posted on June 10, 2013 10:45
John Drescher recently shared this quote from a column by A.C. Snow:
“In my many years I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a Congress.”
-President John Adams
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Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
The Charlotte Observer says: “Carter Wrenn and Gary Pearce don’t see eye-to-eye on many issues. But they both love North Carolina and know its politics inside and out.”
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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