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Entries for the 'Raleigh ' Category
Gary Pearce posted on March 04, 2010 10:23
A supporter of the new Wake school board held up a sign at this week’s hearing: “Elections matter.”
At the health-care summit President Obama told John McCain: “The election is over.”
They’re right. And Obama should ram through health-care reform just like the new school board majority is ramming through its new policies.
Obama needs to get something – anything – passed. Then move on to jobs and the economy.
And he’s better off being strong and wrong than weak and right.
Few people will understand what’s in his bill – or whether it makes things better or worse.
The Republicans will have a devil of a time overturning it, no matter how November turns out.
Similarly, in WakeCounty, there’s talk of a recall election of the new majority.
Two problems: How do you do a recall in North Carolina? And what makes you think it would turn out any different?
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Gary Pearce posted on March 03, 2010 10:29
WakeCounty is North Carolina’s most Democratic county. President Obama carried the state in 2008 because he racked up a 60,000-vote margin in this county alone.
But two big and bitter battles yesterday showed what a split county this is – and that there are no final victories in politics.
The votes – the City Council on Raleigh’s public safety center and the Wake school board on the diversity policy – were direct slaps at some formerly high-riding politicians: Mayor Charles Meeker and the staff and ex-majority on the school board.
Just last week, Meeker’s record of rebuilding downtown was toasted at a big dinner.
This week, he got only four votes for another downtown project. The left and the right joined hands to beat him.
As for the schools, the staff and the old board majority (including the mayor’s wife) had earned a reputation for turning a deaf ear to parents’ concerns.
You may not like what the new majority is doing, but they’re listening to the people who elected them.
Sometimes in politics, victory sows the seeds of defeat. That’s because, too often in politics, winners get so full of themselves they forget to listen.
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Gary Pearce posted on February 26, 2010 10:29
Jesse Helms is probably rolling over in his recording studio.
WRAL, the station that used to run Helms’ editorials opposing desegregation, is now running editorial messages opposing resegregation.
That’s how much Jim Goodmon has changed the station.
(Does anybody remember when WRAL used to sign off at night by playing “Dixie” instead of the national anthem? Yes, children, stations used to sign off at night!)
More power to Goodmon for it.
Even better, the Wake School Board Mullahs are mad about it.
Which is another irony. Used to, Yankees were the ones telling us to desegregate our schools. Now it’s Yankees telling us to resegregate.
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Gary Pearce posted on February 19, 2010 10:17
Has there ever been a more arrogant crowd than the new WakeCounty school board majority?
Judging from their comments yesterday, any sign of dissent or disagreement from Superintendent Del Burns is “insubordination” – and a firing offense.
Their attitude reminds me of an old political adage: “The lower the office, the bigger the ego.”
There’s a Tea Party flavor to all this.
The new powers-that-be remind me of Sarah Palin complaining about smarty-pants elitists who keep asking her questions about factual matters. Who needs facts and knowledge when you’re on the side of God and Right?
Teacher-bashing has long been a staple of right wing Republicans. Russell Capps thinks the superintendent should be a businessman, not an educator.
Maybe he could get Ken Lewis from Bank of America.
Pardon me, but I’d like the person running the schools to know something about teaching kids.
People of good will who care about education had better get organized. Or this crowd is going to wreck the WakeCounty schools – and do incalculable damage to the Triangle’s dynamic economic climate.
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Gary Pearce posted on February 09, 2010 10:07
Last fall’s Wake County school board elections followed The Golden Rule of Politics: Them that has the gold rules.
Bob Luddy and Art Pope – two of the biggest opponents of public schools – were the biggest contributors to school board candidates.
Luddy and Pope themselves contributed $38,000.
Here’s a place where the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on corporate campaign spending could have a big impact.
There are some big businesses in Raleigh and WakeCounty that care – or should care – about the public schools.
Time to ante up.
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Gary Pearce posted on February 08, 2010 09:05
Republicans have reason to be confident as filing opens for the 2010 elections. But I’m yet to be convinced this will be another 1994.
That year, Democrats – in Raleigh and Washington – were supremely overconfident, all the way to Election Day.
Not a problem this time.
Still, the cycle favors Republicans. Democrats have won big in the last two elections, so a change is due.
Also, Independents – the unorganized third party nationally and in North Carolina – tilt Republican. They’re unhappy, and they’ll probably take it out on the Ins.
But there are hopeful signs for Democrats.
President Obama is back in campaign mode. He challenged Republicans to a televised debate, in effect, on health care. Don’t underestimate him.
Statewide, while the cycle favors Republicans in the legislature, the money and the relative quality of the parties’ campaign teams favor Democrats. But will corporate money change that?
Locally, schools will dominate the Wake commissioners’ races, and the school board seems hell-bent on imposing its agenda, regardless of what parents said in the recent survey. That’s a sure-fire way to go over the cliff. Plus, three Republican incumbents are up this year, and only one Democrat.
On today’s money, I’d bet on Republican gains, but no replay of the ’94 revolution. And WakeCounty could be the outlier that goes Democratic.
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Carter Wrenn posted on January 20, 2010 16:55
One of the more dangerous varmints walking around on two legs is the good old-fashioned morally outraged Southern Demagogue and right now Reverend William Barber (head of the NAACP) fills the bill and he’s as mad as hell; the Reverend’s razor-tongued and ’fraid of nothing and he’s chomped down on school board Chairman Ron Margiotta with a bulldog grip and shows no sign of turning loose.
Barber’s telling every newspaper reporter who’ll listen Margiotta (who’s from New Jersey) is a throwback to 50’s red-necks, who wants to restore segregation – and what’s more the Reverend’s put the Chairman over a barrel by demanding forty-five minutes to rip into him in front of the TV cameras at the next school board meeting.
What on earth can Margiotta do to avoid a pending disaster? He’s got a buzz saw by the tail and being a Yankee he’s got no idea how to outsmart a southern politician. The minute he tells Barber no he gets pummeled for being un-American and anti-free speech and comes out looking like a thug; but if he’s open-minded and tells Barber yes the Reverend’s going to stand in front of the TV cameras and make it sound like Margiotta’s first cousin to a Grand Knight of the KKK.
Margiotta’s only got one hope but it’s risky: To give the Reverend more than he’s asking for which means (in poker parlance) calling the Reverend then raising him. How? By inviting every local elected Democratic politician in sight to speak at the school board meeting.
At first glance that sounds crazy but what matters is the local Democrats – the ones who have to get re-elected this fall – don’t want to get within a mile of that school board meeting.
And they’ve got good reason: Because last election voters sent a troop of Democratic candidates packing for supporting the Reverend’s position when it comes to busing suburban nine year-olds to achieve racial ‘diversity.’ That’s why just about the only Democrat hollerin’ right now is the Reverend, who’s not running for anything.
So Chairman Margiotta ought to write the Reverend and Mayor Charles Meeker and Commissioner Betty Lou Ward and every other Democrat running in Wake County and say, I’m inviting you all to come on over to the meeting and explain to voters how you figure their voting to return to neighborhood schools – last election – makes them segregationists.
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Carter Wrenn posted on December 23, 2009 16:02
A fellow’d rather be wrestling a swamp full of alligators than to be in the new School Board Chairman Ron Margiotta’s shoes. The board’s only met twice and Margiotta’s already been ripped and torn by our local up in arms, mad as Comanche liberals.
What Margiotta’s done to get local liberals upset is trampling on one of their sacred principles: ‘Diversity.’
Diversity goes right to the bone of what a liberal believes and he’ll fight for it tooth and nail and in the process, it appears from the school board meetings, he’ll have more fun being morally indignant then he can bear.
The fireworks started the minute Margiotta’s gavel hit the desk at the board’s last meeting and announced he wanted to hire lawyer Tom Farr to be the new board’s attorney. No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the former chairman gasped – My God, he’s a Republican.
Apparently, when it comes to diversity Republican lawyers (who are a minority) have no rights at all.
Next, maybe realizing he’d been indiscreet the former Chairman recovered and explained, I mean he’ll be too partisan.
The law firm the former Chairman hired to handle the board’s legal work is headed by former Democratic Party Chairman Wade Smith, a fine fellow and excellent lawyer who’s as partisan a Democrat as you’ll ever meet.
Well, the meeting simmered along then Margiotta took another tiny step toward putting a stop to busing students for diversity and, right off, a lady stood up and wailed, Don’t take us back 40 years.
Ma’am, I wish it was possible but it just ain’t. Urbanization and getting rich have killed the Old South. We had a better chance at winning the Civil War than we have at turning the clock back to the 1960s.
Then another liberal stood up and let fly and accused Margiotta of turning the clock back ever further, saying he was a throwback to the ‘Jim Crow and racist past.’
That had to puzzle Margiotta who’s from New Jersey and Italian and probably never figured he’d get compared to Theodore Bilbo.
One other thing is truly amazing about these liberals: How they march in lockstep. How when it comes to their ideology they’re not diverse at all. They form a phalanx and grim-faced start marching, and watching them you can’t help but get the feeling they’re ready to treat their opponents the way the Inquisition treated witches – burning at the stake.
And if I had to bet, I’d bet they are going to win – because when they’re done demonstrating and raising Cain and having what amounts to a good old-fashioned hissy fit they’ll have raised such a tempest voters will want to get shed of the whole thing so they can have a moment’s quiet and if the price of peace is voting out the school board they’ll figure it beats the alternative.
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Gary Pearce posted on December 14, 2009 09:19
Look for a third head to roll under the new Wake school board regime.
First was ex-Chairman Kevin Hill. Then – as predicted in this blog (you could look it up) – Tharrington Smith law firm.
Next up: Superintendent Del Burns.
When the new crowd was recruiting candidates earlier this year, they reportedly asked for two commitments:
1. Support Ron Margiotta for chairman.
2. Fire Burns.
One of the new majority’s boosters, conservative activist Dallas Woodhouse, makes the agenda clear: "I hope that they very much inject partisan politics."
High-minded supporters of the previous board wanted to avoid partisan politics. Goodbye to all that.
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Gary Pearce posted on December 09, 2009 08:40
Republicans may have awakened a sleeping giant in WakeCounty.
First came the arrogance of the new school board majority. Then came the county commissioners’ Potty-Break Putsch.
Suddenly, Wake County Democrats stopped griping about how President Obama, Governor Perdue and the Democratic Congress haven’t yet produced Utopia.
They realize that last year’s election was not a final victory. There are no final victories in politics.
The Republicans are doubtless energized – by the school board elections (achieved with a small slice of county votes), Harold Webb’s illness and general Fox-fed Tea Party Fever.
They forget that Obama carried WakeCounty by 64,000 votes a year ago.
If that giant revives, the Republican resurgence will be short-lived.
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