Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
They’re a lot of things going on at DHHS that are just plain odd, even for a state agency. For instance, Governor Perdue put a health care lobbyist in charge of DHHS’ budget – which includes granting billions in health care contracts. Then the lobbyist – Secretary Lanier Cansler – put a gynecologist in…
Read MoreMy old friend and North Carolina native Harrison Hickman, a Washington pollster, has written “a 2010 survival guide for Democrats” He writes that, “Survival is possible even in the worst of climates, as many Democrats in 1984 and 1994, and many Republicans in 1986 and 2008 have shown.” Here’s his first prescription: …
Read MoreOver the summer I did TV ads and Internet videos for the Association for Hospice and Home Care and, in the process, got a close up look at the inner-workings of the Department of Health and Human Services – which has to be the looniest department in state government. I guess the best example…
Read MoreOver at the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Lanier Cansler has been lamenting that he’s got to cut $4 billion or $1 billion (the number seems to change from day to day) from his department’s budget. When you think about it it’s an odd thing – but the liberals in the Perdue…
Read MoreDemocrat Creigh Deeds’ disastrous campaign for governor of Virginia may give North Carolina Democrats a foretaste of 2010. Politico.com wrote: “Faced with the choice of running as an unapologetic Democrat in a state trending toward his party or keeping his distance from Washington in the fashion of a generation of Southern Democrats, Creigh…
Read MoreSince Election Night the pundits on Fox and CNN and MSNBC have been furiously pontificating, the Democrats declaring, Well, it’s not really all that bad, and Republicans arguing back the Democrats got drubbed and voters repudiated Obama. But what really happened was a typical odd-year election. President Obama hasn’t ended the…
Read MoreGovernor Perdue didn’t need this flap about dangerous killers being let out of prison. She’s done everything she can think of to protect herself politically – even saying she’ll go to jail before she lets them out. That’s going a bit far, but it tells you how worried her team is. Republicans…
Read MoreOle Tony ‘the Fixer’ Rand is hanging up his spurs and retiring from the legislature and it’s created quite a buzz in Raleigh. It’s like the Pope retiring. But what’s got everyone befuddled, the big question everyone’s asking is, Why on earth does Tony – at 70 years old – want to be Head of…
Read MoreDemocrats who didn’t panic after Tuesday’s election might panic over Tony Rand leaving. They can see the dominoes falling. Martin Nesbitt replaces Rand as majority leader. The campaign machine that Rand and Marc Basnight built sputters. Republicans win a Senate majority in 2010. Nesbitt becomes minority leader. Raleigh is abuzz with conspiracy theories…
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