Archive for July 2009
An Education for Bev
Last week I blogged that Governor Perdue was doing a better job than her poll numbers suggest. But I’m starting to think she’s snake-bit. Her signature action, her big bold idea of appointing a state education CEO, got thrown out by a judge. Now Bill Harrison has graciously retreated from the battlefield. Predictably,…
Read MoreTax Gamble
The N&O’s banner headline today had to give Democrats heartburn: “The new plan: more taxes for all.” Democrats in the legislature have no choice. For all the Republican fulminating about waste, piers and crabpots, the only alternative to higher taxes is deep cuts in education and human services. Democrats just can’t do that. …
Read MorePolls and Seesaws
Polls are a lot like seesaws: They tilt up then gravity takes hold and the poor fellow who was rising finds himself dropping like a stone. Right now gravityâs pulling the Democrats down and the liberals over at Public Policy Polling are so concerned by this seismic shift theyâve turned their automatic polling machines…
Read MoreA Voice
For a long time the North Carolina Republican Party has needed its own ‘voice’ and at last it’s found one. Whether you opposed or supported Tom Fetzer during his campaign for State Chairman you have to give him credit: He’s not bashful about debating Governor Perdue and he has a gift for it. …
Read MoreJoe Hackney One Ups Tony Rand
There’s an apocryphal story about the penultimate political Insider, Tony Rand, debating Jim Gardner during the Lt. Governor’s race in 1988;–in the middle of the debate Gardner was giving Rand (and the other Democratic insiders in Raleigh) the blazes for negotiating secret budget deals behind closed doors, saying, The whole state budget was written in…
Read MoreRechanneling 1994
Back when Casey Stengel was managing the woeful New York Mets in their first year, he looked down the bench one day and moaned: “Can’t anybody here play this game?” You might ask the same question in Washington today. About both the Democrats and the Republicans. Both parties are still hung up on…
Read MoreThe Meltdown
Governor Perdue’s is having the political equivalent of a meltdown;—yesterday a liberal pollster wrote that she is now more unpopular than any Governor he’s polled in the country. Her job approval is lower than Congress’s; in six months her popularity’s fallen further than President Bush’s did in seven years. The meltdown is so complete she’s…
Read MoreDome Going Under?
When Pat Stith left the N&O, John Drescher promised that the paper’s investigative role would not lesson. He kept that promise. Now, with Ryan Teague Beckwith gone, can the N&O maintain the momentum he gave Under the Dome? So far, the answer is no. Dome lacks the speed and bite Beckwith had. …
Read MorePayback
Sarah Palin and her amen chorus are an endless source of free entertainment. In the increasingly incomprehensible interviews she has given since her incomprehensible announcement that she would resign as Alaska’s governor, she has loudly complained – and her acolytes on the right and on Fox News have loudly echoed – about how badly…
Read MorePerdue So Far
Cullen Browder at WRAL asked me to rate Governor Perdue’s first six months in office. I think she’s doing pretty well. Give her a B. An A if she would take a stronger role in resolving the budget. She took over the ship of state in a hurricane: a bad economy and the…
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