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Entries for 'Carter Wrenn'
Carter Wrenn posted on September 25, 2012 13:57
Imagine Mitt Romney, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton sitting in a room together, listening to a pollster describing the mythical undecided voter, saying: She’s forty-six years old. She grew up on a farm or in a working class neighborhood. She’s a working mother now with two children, living in the suburbs. She’s pro-choice. And she’s sitting in the pew in church every Sunday.
Obama nods slowly. Mitt Romney scratches his head. And Clinton grins and says, Yeah, I know that girl. I went to high school with a girl like her.
That’s a long way of saying when it comes to undecided voters Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are talking to a concept they heard from a pollster – while Bill Clinton is talking to a woman he’s met and known.
For example, when the archetypical suburban working mother sees Romney’s new ad about China’s currency manipulation she may think, At last, he’s talking about an issue I care about – but, then again, she may also furrow her brow and sigh, Why on earth is he talking about the Yuan?
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 24, 2012 18:10
It’s been a long hard fought political war – for years the folks over at the Civitas Institute have been racing the liberals at Public Policy Polling (who seem to be able to churn out a poll every five minutes) to see who could bombard the newspapers with the most propaganda disguised as polling.
Not long ago the Civitas Institute gained the upper hand when the New York Times reported that PPP’s polls had a “house effect” (which is a nice way to say a bias) favoring Democrats. But then, unfortunately, the wheel came off Civitas’ cart too. They released a poll showing Mitt Romney with a ten point lead (53% to 43%) over Barack Obama in North Carolina which sounded fine – until a reporter spotted a glitch: The poll had 30% of the African-Americans voting for Mitt Romney over Obama.
This is all more or less politics as usual but it may have added a new aphorism to the American lexicon. For years we’ve heard, “The check’s in the mail” and “Don’t worry, you won’t get pregnant” – now PPP and Civitas have also given us, “Our scientific poll shows…”
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 24, 2012 11:20
In the Senate race in Virginia George Allen debated Tim Kaine the other night and right off moderator David Gregory – thinking of Mitt Romney and the 47% – pointed out one million Virginians do not pay any taxes. Then asked Kaine, Do you believe everyone should pay something?
In other words, he asked Kaine if he agreed with the Tea Party’s position – and challenged Kaine to take a tougher stand than Mitt Romney on taxing the 47%.
To everyone’s surprise Kaine said Yes – he was open to the idea of a minimum tax.
So what happened?
The next morning the National Republican Senate Committee put out a press release blasting Kaine, telling voters he wants to “raise taxes on everyone in Virginia.”
And that’s how politics works.
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 21, 2012 18:09
From Singapore to Casablanca outside our embassies Muslims are rioting – so, exactly how much of the Muslim world is mad at us? Ten percent? Half? Ninety percent? Or, more to the point, how many Muslims agree that taking revenge for a YouTube video by murdering a diplomat who never saw or heard the video is wrong? A handful? A lot? Almost all?
Last Sunday, President Obama’s Ambassador to the U.N. told us the attack on our embassy was spontaneous. It wasn’t a terrorist attack. But whoever heard of a demonstrator showing up at a riot carrying a grenade launcher? So who attacked our embassy? If it was terrorists – who were they? Where are they? We’ve tried attacking whole nations (two of them) to stop groups of terrorists and that hasn’t worked out too well – so, this time, how do we tell the terrorists from the Muslims who bear us no ill will?
And, finally, the biggest question of all: Who is going to answer these questions? President Obama? Secretary Clinton? Congress? Lord, help us, is there someone else? How about the Mossad?
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 21, 2012 11:32
Mitt Romney’s getting pummeled for saying 47% of the voters will not support him because no one getting a check from the government’s going to vote for him over Obama.
Even the conservative pundits are giving Romney the blazes.
But while Romney was fumbling the facts he may also have put his finger on our Modern 21st Century Third Millennium Democracy’s biggest dilemma.
David Brooks wrote this about Romney’s faux pas: ‘In 1980, about 30% of Americans received some form of government benefits. Today about 40% do...In 1960, government transfers to individuals totaled $24 billion. By 2010, that total was 100 times as large… entitlement transfers have grown by more than 700% over the last fifty years… and this spending surge has increased faster under Republican administrators than Democratic ones.’
It’s a hard fact in our democracy: A majority can vote to reach into the treasury and help themselves to other people’s money whenever it wants. It’s redefined the meaning of ‘Majority Rule.’ And it’s not a new phenomenon.
Back during the 1820’s, Congressmen from the North (who wanted to protect manufacturers in New England from imports) and Congressmen from the West (who wanted Washington to build roads in their states) got together and passed tariffs – that were primarily paid by Southerners.
After the Civil War the railroad tycoons corralled enough votes in Congress to get the federal government to give them free and clear title to 12,000 acres of public land for each mile of track they laid – and, in the end, the tycoons ended up owning more land than there is in all of Germany.
Social Security and Medicare started out with the best of intentions but, today, unless you have the misfortune of dying young, when you retire the government is going to pay you a lot more than you ever paid into either program – whether you need the money or not.
And there seems to be no solution to the problem – instead it looks like once a democracy gets itself good and organized (which takes around 200 years) this is where it ends up.
So, maybe, instead of backpedaling Romney ought to let fly and say: I know pointing out our government has become a system for plunder is unpopular – but here’s an even harder fact: An economy based on plunder won’t work and it’s just a matter of time before the plunder gets so out of hand the economy collapses. So do we fix the problem now or do we wait for the collapse?
It would probably cost Romney the election but that debate is coming sooner or later.
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 19, 2012 16:35
UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp made one mistake.
When the News and Observer first asked him for Matt Kupec and Tami Hansbrough’s travel records, Chancellor Thorp said, I’ll get back with you. When he got back with them a week later he told them Kupec and Hansbrough had taken the trips together at the University’s expense – then announced Kupec had resigned.
By then Thorp almost certainly knew the records also showed he’d taken trips with Kupec and Hansbrough but he didn’t mention that – or give the records to News and Observer.
A few days later Tami Hansbrough resigned.
Then, suddenly, Holden Thorp resigned too.
Which seemed odd – until the next morning when the News and Observer published the travel records beneath a headline: “Chancellor Thorp flew with former UNC fundraisers.”
It’s an old story. Rather than telling the press an unpleasant fact Chancellor Thorp told the News and Observer part of the truth – and put himself squarely behind the eight ball.
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 13, 2012 17:56
Almost every day, sometimes a couple of times a day, someone will ask, Well, who’s going to win this election? It’s human nature: We want bedrock beneath our feet. But there is no answer to the question. Not even the handful of undecided voters have a clue how they’ll vote at the end of the day.
But that’s only one conundrum. There’s a bigger problem. In politics, like, say, when you’re walking down the street, the unexpected happens. One day you’re rolling along fine and rosy and the next you sit down in a doctor’s office and he says, You have a tumor, and the ground shakes beneath your feet.
Two days ago the ground shifted beneath Mitt Romney’s feet. No one could have foreseen what happened in Libya and Egypt but the Jihadist (or whatever they were) may have just handed Obama a real – as opposed to political – October surprise. Is Obama about to hunt the criminals and smite them hip and thigh – like Osama bin Laden? Will Obama fumble? Will the whole thing fade away? Will the unseen hand move again?
The only other surprise would be if the unexpected doesn’t happen.
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 07, 2012 17:04
Bill Clinton teed the ball up and drew a laser-beam-line from the ball to the target for President Obama but then Obama walked right past tee, ball and target to make a speech with the same old same old litany of promises ending with promises of hope.
This election there’re three different ‘worlds’ in our politics: Obama voters (mostly Democrats), anti-Obama voters (mostly Republicans) and Swing Voters (almost entirely Independents).
Which world was Obama talking to?
It wasn’t swing voters – right now, they have bigger issues on their minds than solar energy, higher mileage standards and global warming.
Last night Obama sailed right past the Independents and, instead, talked to the people in the convention hall (who were already voting for him). He was at ease attacking Romney, at ease singing to the choir, but it was as if he were oblivious to what Bill Clinton had done the night before – it was like he couldn’t comprehend (or talk to) the voters in the third world.
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 06, 2012 15:04
Gary, I’m guessing you slept very well last night and woke up this morning with a smile on your face. If I had a lick of sense I’d hang out a sign today that says “Gone Fishing” instead of writing about Bill Clinton’s speech but I promised so here goes.
The good news, from where I sit, is one speech can’t decide the election. The bad news is one speech can be a wind change – and Bill Clinton gave such a humdinger of a speech he had me thinking I ought to be for Obama-care and that Republicans can’t add 2 + 2.
More seriously, since January voters have formed a picture of what has happened to them over the last four years and of Obama and Mitt Romney. Last night, Bill Clinton offered them a completely different way to interpret the picture. For instance he said, No one could have repaired the damage he (Obama) found four years ago – then set out to prove it, in detail, and along the way rebutted the Republicans’ attacks on Obama on workfare, on Medicare, on unemployment.
The moment he was done, thinking, With all those statistics that speech must have been packed full of half-truths, I clicked over to Fox News to watch the ‘fact-checkers’ whip out the long knives and see the “fair and balanced” commentators chop Clinton to shreds. I heard:
The speech was defensive – backwards looking.
People will get lost in the details.
The speech was sprawling, undisciplined, self-indulgent.
It was a policy work seminar.
Well, Obama’s no Clinton.
And finally, Clinton’s speech was too long – people turned off the TV set at eleven o’clock.
Let’s hope so.
Because not one commentator cited a fact Clinton got wrong.
As I said, Bubba’s speech didn’t elect Barack Obama, but Bill Clinton did hand Obama a road map to get elected and what happens next depends on whether Barack Obama knows a good thing when he sees it: Whether he returns to the Obama campaign’s ‘politics as usual’ or changes course to follow Clinton’s roadmap.
If he does, Mitt Romney is going to need a new road map too.
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Carter Wrenn posted on September 05, 2012 15:49
This blog is also posted on The Charlotte Observer's DNC blog site.
It’s not about the conventions – it’s about the stories the conventions are telling.
The Republicans’ story goes like this, Obama hasn’t done the job, let ‘em go. The Democrats’ story goes this way, We are more like you than Mitt Romney.
The question is: Which story is the strongest with Independent voters? And, right now, my guess is it’s the Republican story. Because, more than anything else, Independent voters want the economy fixed. They want out of the ditch. And if Obama can’t fix the economy, it won’t matter much if he is “more like them.”
There’s another difficulty with the Democrats’ story.
I thought, last night, Mrs. Obama made an excellent speech. I get her story. Poor. Growing up in Chicago. African-American. Dad ran a pump in the water plant. Mom held the family together. I have met women like Michelle Obama.
But after the convention, while I was watching Charlie Rose, author David Maraniss made an excellent point of his own: He said Mrs. Obama’s story is a natural American story. But President Obama’s story is “exotic.” He grew up in an unusual family. Without a father. He lived in Indonesia and so on. Unlike Mrs. Obama, voters don’t hear the President’s story and say, I’ve met people like him.
So it’s powerful, Maraniss added, when Michelle Obama says, I respect this man. He’s been a good father.
In a way, Obama’s gift for oratory works against him. He is so erudite and articulate he sounds more like a blue-chip product of the Harvard School of Elocution than a guy you might meet on the street – so President Obama saying to a “middle class” voter, I’m more like you than Mitt Romney, may not ring true because, in a sense, neither candidate fits that bill.
Which party’s story is more powerful? My guess is the Democrats’ story doesn’t work unless they prove Mitt Romney can’t fix the economy – or prove that Barack Obama can.
If we ever had a President who wasn’t “middle class” it was Franklin Roosevelt. And he was elected four times. Voters didn’t care if he was “like them.” They cared about whether he could defeat the Nazis.
The Democrats are betting in the end they can make the election about empathy. But, right now, it looks like the question this election is: Can you get us out of this ditch?
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