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Gary Pearce posted on January 29, 2010 13:00
I don’t know Ruffin Poole well, but he never struck me as a fellow who posed a physical danger to the populace.
So why did the feds force him to make a well-photographed “perp walk” in cuffs?
I put that question to a Democratic lawyer friend of mine who has done considerable work in the federal courts.
He said the feds are sending a message to anybody who works in state government: Violate the law – and the public trust – and this could be you.
That would get my attention.
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Gary Pearce posted on January 29, 2010 09:35
“The jobs governor.”
“Setting government straight.”
“Career and college – ready, set, go.”
“Safe communities.”
You may as well get familiar with all these phrases. You’ll be hearing them from Governor Perdue – presumably for a good while.
Team Perdue has carved out those words as her roadmap to political recovery. They’re putting into practice the most fundamental political-message lesson: focus and discipline.
The media, of course, won’t like it. Their job is to find something new to report every job. Perdue’s job is to say the same thing over and over. Therein the tension.
Democrats should welcome the Governor’s course. And hope she pursues it relentlessly.
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Carter Wrenn posted on January 28, 2010 16:59
When Ruffin Poole was indicted for 51 counts of extortion, bribery, racketeering, fraud and money laundering Governor Perdue chirruped: “The people of North Carolina are tired of this. It’s just wrong for North Carolina.”
The people of North Carolina are also tired of waiting for Governor Perdue to do something about it.
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Gary Pearce posted on January 28, 2010 09:39
President Obama showed anew Wednesday night why he got elected – and why he remains the dominant political talent in America today.
His speech was masterful. His tone was perfect. And he smilingly skewered a range of targets – Republicans, Democrats, Supreme Court, big banks, you name it.
But his positioning was even more important than his performance.
The key to his speech was a warning to Republicans in the Senate. In effect, he said that, if Washington doesn’t produce this year, you’re to blame.
Republicans have been in high spirits since the Massachusetts election. If they have any sense, they’ll realize they’re on the court with the political version of LeBron James.
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Carter Wrenn posted on January 28, 2010 09:23
I don’t recall hardly ever seeing eye to eye with State Representative Mickey Michaux but the other day he hit the nail on the head.
Governor Perdue’s favorite Cabinet Secretary Lanier ‘The Artful Dodger’ Cansler traipsed over to the legislature for a meeting and after a fair amount of hemming and hawing admitted he had miscalculated his department’s budget by $250 million.
Representative Michaux shot back, ‘So, now, you’re telling us that money we put in the budget for you, your figures, are not going to happen?’
That’s exactly what Cansler’s telling legislators and they might as well get ready – because the bottom line may turn out to be a lot worse than Cansler’s ready to admit.
Last summer Secretary Cansler promised legislators if they’d let him pass out $250 million in no bid contracts he’d be able to cut his department’s budget. Well, he’s passed out the contracts but there’re no cuts. Instead, by coincidence, Cansler’s budget is in the red $250 million.
What went wrong? Cansler gave legislators two explanations at the meeting.
First, he said, He just never figured in a recession unemployment would go up and more people would need Medicaid.
Second, he blamed the Obama Administration.
Washington, he said, has been painfully slow in signing off on the Medicaid cuts he wants. (Of course, what he didn’t tell to legislators is the Obama Administration told him last summer it wouldn’t go along with his plan to cut thousands of elderly and disabled patients’ health care by expediently declaring they were no longer – ‘legally’ – sick.)
So, now, the horse is out of the barn.
The $250 million’s spent, the Obama Administration’s done just what it told Cansler it’d do and legislators might as well get ready for more bad news: The $250 million Cansler admits his department is over budget – is probably just the tip of the iceberg.
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Posted in: General, Issues
Gary Pearce posted on January 27, 2010 08:46
Once you get past the dishing about Sarah Palin, John Edwards, et al in the book Game Change, you learn a few things.
Like about President Obama.
That he’s like a basketball player who wants the ball when the game is on line.
That he has supreme confidence he can rise to the moment.
That he especially has confidence he can give a speech that changes the game.
He came through throughout his campaign – the speech on race, his performance in the fall debates, his cool response to the economic meltdown that caused John McCain to melt down.
Can he do it tonight?
One caution: Don’t rush to instant judgment tonight or tomorrow. Wait a few days. Instant analysis often proves wrong later.
Bill Clinton’s first State of the Union after the 1994 election – which lasted about 17 hours, as I recall – was panned at first.
Later, it turned out that Americans watched it all. And liked it.
Two weeks ago, Scott Brown was a game-changer.
Tonight, the reigning king takes his shot.
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Carter Wrenn posted on January 26, 2010 12:49
Coming out of a meeting over in the state legislature Senate Kingpin Marc Basnight ran head on into a gaggle of reporters and right off someone asked if it wasn’t a bit underhanded for Basnight to appropriate $25 million for a new fishing pier at Nags Head and then have his own construction company build it.
No sir, Basnight said, There wasn’t one thing wrong with that.
Why not, the reporter asked.
Because, Basnight said, He hadn’t had a thing to do with Basnight Construction in ten or fifteen years.
What’s more, Basnight added, Last August when his cousin Jimmy had told him the company was going to bid to work on the new pier he (Senator Basnight) had uprightly and immediately resigned as President of the company.
Resigned, that is, as President of a company he’d just said he hadn’t had anything to do with for fifteen years.
About an hour later from after Basnight’s perspective things went from bad to worse.
Researchers at the Civitas Institute issued a ‘Research White Paper’ that showed Basnight Construction Company was awarded a contract to work on the pier nine months before Basnight resigned.
So Basnight’s been President of a company for fifteen years – but he now says hasn’t had anything to do with it; and he told the press he resigned before the company bid on building the pier – but now it turns out his company got the contract months before he resigned.
Well as the comedian on television used to say, that’s his story and he’s sticking to it.
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Gary Pearce posted on January 26, 2010 11:18
Congressman Brad Miller is never the happiest of warriors. But this year could raise his angst to new levels.
“I’ve made a real nuisance of myself to the most financially powerful industry in the United States,” Miller told Mark Binker.
Banks wouldn’t be his only worry. He’s also got Carter Wrenn running Bernie Reeve’s campaign against him.
Democrats facing Carter always ask me: “What’s he going to do?” Like it’s a mystery.
Carter will do the voodoo he always does.
Bernie’s campaign will do the research, they’ll raise the money, and Carter will have Bernie chewing on Brad’s leg from the get-go.
Memo to Brad: Don’t sit around waiting for it. Get going now. Define Bernie before he defines you.
Miller should win his race. After all, he drew up his own district.
But he won’t be having a lot of fun.
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Carter Wrenn posted on January 25, 2010 16:59
Sometimes it seems like one of a President’s less enviable jobs is to be a kind of national whipping boy, an outlet for our pent up frustrations and afflictions. And even if pummeling, say, Barack Obama or George Bush won’t put people back to work it sure is satisfying to have someone to blame.
Don’t misunderstand – it’s not that the poor Presidential lambs are innocent of error. They’re not. President Obama’s crusade to remold American society has given a lot of people the willies and his spending a couple of trillion dollars to jump start the economy has turned out to be a dud not a stimulus – but at the same time there are also forces afoot in the land more powerful even than a President. Of course that doesn’t matter politically because Americans are accustomed to instant gratification and if we don’t get it – look out.
Independent voters were so incensed at President Bush two years ago they elected Obama (even in North Carolina) and now they’re so mad at President Obama they’re electing Republicans (even in Massachusetts).
These days the political tides are flowing against President Obama so fast and deep they’re drowning Democratic candidates left and right. He got 62% of the vote in Massachusetts in 2008. The Democratic candidate for Senate in Massachusetts just got 46%. That means a whopping 25% of Obama’s supporters switched sides and voted Republican. Which means heading into the fall election there’s not a safe Democratic Congressman or Senator in sight.
And what about the Republicans up in Washington?
They’re doing two things. First, they’re congratulating themselves on their new found political brilliance.
Second, like Napoleon’s mother at his coronation they’re praying, If only this lasts – until November.
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Gary Pearce posted on January 25, 2010 14:02
Team Obama has a 1-1 record. They won the 2008 campaign, and they lost the 2009 campaign. Now they’re resetting for the 2010 tie-breaker.
One step is organizational, and another is rhetorical.
Organization: They brought back 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe to oversee the 2010 elections. The lesson Team Obama took from Massachusetts is that the DSCC is inept. Where’s Chuck Schumer when you need him? Are you watching, Cal Cunningham?
Rhetoric: Last week Obama rolled out a speech where he used the words “fight” or “fighting” about every other paragraph. And he took a whack at big banks.
True-blue fans probably love that. But Americans generally don’t like angry politicians. And Obama doesn’t do a good angry-politician act.
His State of the Union speech will tell us what tone Obama has settled on – for now. And whether he’s figured out which direction to go on health-care reform.
Given what has worked for him before, Obama should be the picture of sweet reasonableness. Warmly invite congressional Republicans – and Scott Brown – to help shape health-care reform.
Put nicely, put up or shut up.
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Spirits of the Air
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