Archive for September 2009
Tax-Hike Survival
Earlier this week I wrote that Governor Perdue should consider championing tax reform. To her advisers, that lifeline probably looks more like an anchor. But history suggests otherwise. Mike Easley raised taxes – and survived. At least, survived raising taxes. Jim Hunt raised the gas tax in 1981. Jesse Helms &…
Read MoreHail Mary for Bev
A few weeks ago, I thought Governor Perdue’s best strategy was a Dick Morris/Clinton-like series of small, popular initiatives. She’s been doing that lately, though I’m sure it wasn’t at my suggestion. She has rolled out a series of announcements on new industries, rural health care, nanotechnology and offshore energy. But offshore energy…
Read MoreMediScare
Life and politics are full of irony. Like health-care reform. One of the great obstacles to a “public option” is the fear of “government-run health care.” One voter group most worried about reform are seniors. Specifically, they worry that reform will jeopardize Medicare. That is, they fear that government-run health care will…
Read MoreObama’s Polls
The media frenzy over the last month or so has been that Americans don’t support – or understand – President Obama’s health-care reforms. Bad news for Barack, the media and the pundits proclaim. In Washington this week, a local executive told me, she heard one of the media Big Feet pontificating about how…
Read MoreStandards of The Times
I’m a big fan of The New York Times. It’s still the best newspaper going. But sometimes I wonder what happened to “All The News That’s Fit to Print.” Like last Sunday, when the Times ran a front-page story on the John Edwards saga. Must be something big, right? There was the page-one…
Read MoreOnce Upon a Time in New York
Here’s a strange tale straight out of the North Country of New York State. The liberals in the Democratic Party absorb modern values like the air they breathe. Their belief in the Modern State is absolute. Their faith in diversity and pluralism is written in stone. Their doubt is nonexistent. To a Republican…
Read MoreWhere do you Stand Beverly?
If anyone’s wondering why Governor Perdue’s popularity is languishing at political rock bottom the answer may be zigging and zagging. Governor Perdue was for budget cuts, then she was against budget cuts. She told the legislature to raise taxes, any taxes, it didn’t matter to her which; then she blasted legislators for raising the…
Read MoreGiddy GOP
A Democratic friend who was in Washington recently reports that Republicans there are “giddy.” They’re convinced they have Obama and the Democrats on the run, certain they’re finally headed for a big election. But they may have miscalculated. The election is next year, not this year. And they may be overreaching. Especially if…
Read MoreRepublican Death Panels
Sometimes Democrats are too logical. They forget that communication is mostly emotional. Like health care “death panels.” Democrats need to get off the defensive and turn the issue into political death for Republicans. A Harvard Medical School study says 45,000 Americans die every year because they don’t have insurance. People will gladly…
Read MoreThe Surprising Congressman Jones
Walter Jones Jr. always surprises me. I first met him in 1977, when he was Governor Hunt’s “eastern North Carolina representative.” It was understood that he was hired as a favor to his father, Congressman Walter Jones, and that young Walter was preparing to take his father’s seat eventually. That was no surprise.…
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