Keith Weatherly Responds

I received this email from Keith Weatherly re my blog on “The Tillis Retirement Home”: “You need better informed TAPsters.  I work for Majority Leader Stam – not the Speaker.  Past 2 years I worked for Minority Leader Stam.  I had floor privileges as staff for minority (as does current Minority Leader’s staff).  Majority Leader’s…

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What’s Running NC Politics…

Cynics laugh and say no good deed ever goes unpunished and I’m beginning to think they have a point: Last year for the first time since Reconstruction voters elected a Republican legislature, which looked like a near fatal political blow to Governor Perdue but now, instead, it looks like voters may have thrown the Governor…

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Yow Shoots PR Bricks

Whatever her talents as NCSU’s AD, Debbie Yow’s PR skills are lacking. As an alum, I hope she’s better at hiring than communicating.   I’m a fan, not a fanatic. I like what I see about the new coach. But, once again, I’m stunned by the frenzy Wolfpack fans can work themselves into when everything…

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The Tillis Retirement Home

Here’s an interesting tip from a TAPster:   “Has anybody noticed that the cozy corner office of the NC Speaker of the House has become a retirement home for wayward ex-legislators? At last count, the Speaker has three of the lost souls on his staff. Charles Thomas and Bill Daughtridge were recently joined by Bruce…

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The Elephant in the Corner

Decades ago I attended a meeting on redistricting over at State Republican headquarters and a bright, sharp young man whipped out a stack of maps of Congressional Districts and happily announced he had figured out a way to create three minority districts in North Carolina.   Then he whipped out more maps of State House…

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Out-organized?

State GOP Chair Robin Hayes says President Obama carried North Carolina in 2008 because of simple political mechanics. He told McClatchey reporters:   “The president and his group did a much better job of organizing through the Internet, through social networking, through every possible means to identify and get their folks to the polls. They…

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An Odd Confluence of Events

Duke Energy plans to build a new nuclear plant and to pay for it it’s sponsored a bill in the legislature to raise electric rates, which it says is reasonable because nuclear power plants are good things and a public benefit so why should it have to borrow money on Wall Street for its plant?…

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Bugs Bunny Always Beats Daffy Duck

Those six words may be the most brilliant I have ever read about political and media strategy.   I found them in Jeff Greenfield’s new book, Then Everything Changed. The book is an interesting foray into “alternative history,” based on real events: What if JFK had been assassinated in December 1960, before taking office? What…

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The Word Is ‘Extreme’

I’m told that flustered Democrats in the legislature don’t seem to understand they’re not still in charge – and don’t know how to act as the minority.   They could take a cue from no less a message maven than Senator Chuck Schumer of New York.   This week, according to The New York Times,…

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