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Carter Wrenn posted on June 18, 2013 10:47
The newspaper set out to land a Democratic shark. And landed a Republican whale instead.
The roots of the News and Observer story run back 26 years – to when Jim Martin was Governor. Back then the Democrats in the legislature decided, instead of letting Martin pass out what’s euphemistically called ‘Economic Development Grants,’ they’d set up their own independent group and pass them out themselves. That gave birth to The Rural Center. Which ripened into a classic ‘good ole boy’ network that worked (for the politicians) like a charm:
* Democratic Legislators gave Billy Ray Hall – their choice to head The Rural Center – money.
* Legislators then ‘suggested’ who Hall give grants to.
* Then Hall trooped back to the legislature to ask for more money.
Legislators liked it so well they kept right on doing it after Jim Hunt was elected, and they set up more ‘good ole boy’ funds with high-sounding names like The Golden Leaf Foundation and The Clean Water Management Trust Funds.
It all rolled along fine for over two decades then two misfortunes occurred: Republicans took control of the legislature. And Billy Ray Hall landed on the front page of the News and Observer – alongside a picture of, of all people on earth, Art Pope.
After years of opposing pork barrel giveaways Art probably never dreamed he’d open the newspaper one morning and see his picture sitting beside headlines reading: “Spending in the Shadows” – “Politicians, powerful touch NC Rural Center cash” – and “Pope acknowledged his company may have been indirectly helped.”
My suspicion is Art got famoozled or just plain ambushed, but, anyway, his cutting (as Governor McCrory’s budget director) Billy Ray Hall’s funding by 60% is pretty good proof he isn’t lusting after state money.
That said, Art’s also the one Republican Democrats love to hate so the Democrats are going to holler bloody murder.
On the other hand, the News and Observer just handed Republicans a gift: A golden opportunity to drive a spike through the heart of ‘good ole boy’ politics and pork barrel spending.
For years Billy Ray Hall’s had an unusually happy job: He gives away money. Which is almost a sure fire way to make friends – and being no fool Billy Ray long ago figured that out. Over the years he’s given tens of millions of dollars in grants at the request of Lt. Governors, State Senators, State Senators and State Representatives.
The News & Observer told a story about one grant: A State Senator asked Hall to give a $300,000 grant to help a business in his district. Billy Ray waived a few rules and awarded the grant. And the Senator raised $6,500 from partners in the business for his campaign.
Hall’s Rural Center has also poured millions into companies that don’t seem to need help at all – like Wendy’s, Kohl’s, Krispy Kreme, Bojangles’ and Walmart (which benefited from $6 million in state subsidies). And funded grants to help a golf course near Southern Pines and a video sweepstakes company in Greenville – all dressed up in a figure-leaf of effusive love for rural North Carolina, or as Hall opined to the News and Observer, “I eat, sleep, and breathe rural North Carolina.”
It’s all ‘good ole boy’ pork barreling at its most glorious but there’s one problem: Letting legislators pick who gets state money probably isn’t the best way to create jobs.
Right now, Billy Ray Hall’s sitting on $69 million in unspent state cash in the Rural Center’s bank account. So what happens next matters.
In the Governor’s budget, Art Pope proposed cutting The Rural Center’s funding 60% this year – giving Hall another $6.6 million.
The State House went in the opposite direction – instead of cutting, it increased Hall’s funding – giving him another $36 million over two years.
The Senate cut Hall’s funding to zero. And didn’t give him another penny.
Which bring us back to the N&O’s gift: The problem here isn’t Billy Ray Hall or just Billy Ray Hall, it’s ‘good ole boy’ politics and legislators setting up pork barrel funds with high sounding names to dole out state money.
Some Republicans are naturally sort of intrigued by the idea of turning those ‘good ole boy’ Democratic funds into ‘good ole boy’ Republican funds. But this is no time to succumb to temptation. Instead Republicans ought to shut ‘em down and deal ‘good ole boy’ politics a lethal blow.
They can start with The Rural Center.
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Gary Pearce posted on June 18, 2013 10:14
They don’t make Republicans like Jim Holshouser anymore.
Big pay raises for teachers? Statewide kindergartens? Coastal Management Act? Rural health centers? Expansion of the state park system? More African-Americans and women in government? Help for black business enterprises?
They’d throw him out of the party today. Actually, they did in 1976. As Rob Christensen noted, Jesse Helms’ forces booed Holshouser at the state GOP convention and denied him a seat as a delegate to the national convention. Holshouser supported President Ford; Helms was for Ronald Reagan.
Holshouser was tougher than he looked. He beat two charismatic politicians in 1972: Jim Gardner in the primary (for which North Carolina owes Holshouser a debt of thanks) and Skipper Bowles in the fall (with George McGovern’s help).
About 10 days before the November election, the 38-year-old Holshouser told the 35-year-old Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor: “I think it’s going to be you and me.”
Holshouser and Lt. Governor Jim Hunt had their fights over the next four years, but they also worked together on education, health care and environmental issues. When I interviewed Holshouser for my biography of Hunt, he laughed, “Every month or so Jim would whack me publicly, but I knew he had to do that.”
Hunt, who was looking four years down the road, also helped him fight legislators’ efforts to strip powers from the governor. Holshouser was the last Governor who couldn’t succeed himself, so they weren’t going to run against each other.
Holshouser arguably had a tougher row to hoe than any Governor in the 20th Century. The Democratic bulls in the legislature didn’t want to give him anything. The Democratic-dominated bureaucracy resisted him. The media was tough on him; he got off to a bad start when several appointees flew around the state on a helicopter firing state employees. Then came Watergate, Nixon’s resignation and the 1974 elections, which left one Republican in the state Senate and nine in the House. Then came the Republican civil war in 1976.
Holshouser kept his sanity and balance through it all. He and Terry Sanford started a law firm together. He helped Republicans build a fortress in Moore County. He worked tirelessly for UNC. He and Hunt worked together on issues like campaign reform and against private school vouchers. He suffered through his wife’s death and his own health problems.
There is a tendency now to underplay the fierce political battles of 40 years ago. They were tough and brutal. But there was a time when Republicans and Democrats worked together in North Carolina. That time is gone now, never to return.
Republicans have gone farther right than even Jesse Helms and Jim Gardner dreamed. Let them go. Democrats should remember that elections in North Carolina are won in the middle, that powerful stream where Jim Holshouser spawned and swing voters swim.
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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
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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