Archive for October 2011
Beating Around the Bush
Back in the old days hardly anyone noticed when a Governor took a stand. But times have changed. Just look at the newspaper headline: Perdue Announces She Will Take a Stand. From there the process gets more puzzling. Before she would announce whether she was for or against the Constitutional Amendment banning gay…
Read MoreFlawless Logic
First President Obama announced he was going to raise taxes on everyone making over $200,000 – then he fell victim to logic; Senator Charles Schumer did the math, looked at the numbers and to Schumer the message was clear: There are a lot more people making over $200,000 than there are people making over $1…
Read MoreFair Warning
The other morning after she finished reading the obituaries my wife turned to the front page of the newspaper and frowned then declared, That is ridiculous. Buried in the sports page I muttered, What’s ridiculous? John Edwards says he can’t be prosecuted because the government didn’t give him ‘fair warning’ he was violating…
Read MoreOccupy Me?
The Occupy Wall Street/Washington/Raleigh/etc. protests are a classic example of a political movement that the general public may agree with, at least on some level, but not find agreeable. In politics, as in physics, every action generates a reaction. The Tea Party movement powered Republicans to victory in 2010, but may drag them to…
Read MoreSilent and Deadly
Direct mail is the Ninja assassin of politics. “An icepick to the forehead,” it was called by Dave Gold, who did our direct mail when Jim Hunt beat Jim Gardner in 1992. That year, we targeted 100,000 swing voters statewide. And bombarded them with a series of mailings about Gardner’s checkered business record. By…
Read MorePopish Politics
There is delicious irony in the juxtaposition of the New Yorker story about Art (“I am not an heir”) Pope and Tuesday’s election. The New Yorker critique of Pope is that he spent a lot of his money to support tough, negative, independent campaign attacks on Democrats – which helped Republicans win control of…
Read MoreThe Greatest Threat
There’s been an outbreak of populism on – of all places on earth – Wall Street. It started when a hardy band of protesters camped out in a small park near the Stock Exchange, waving anti-Obama, anti-Republican, anti-Democrat and anti-Wall Street greed signs. For a while no one paid attention. Then, suddenly, the protesters became…
Read MoreDivisiveness Loses
A TAPster sees a factor in Tuesday’s elections apart from the party angle: “There’s an important lesson tucked in the outcome of Raleigh’s school board election Tuesday when voters kicked out the divisive school board chairman. “It’s not a lesson about Democrats vs. Republicans, even though the N&O and its political pundit Rob…
Read MoreWakeup Call
It was a rout. Democrats were fired up and ready to go. They were mad about more than the school board. They were mad about the 2010 elections, the Republican legislature, the Tea Party, even Art (“I am not an heir”) Pope. Incidentally, Tuesday’s results show that Pope’s power was exaggerated by the…
Read MoreAmbivalent Bev
Now we see why it took Governor Perdue so long to come out against the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. First, she was waiting to put it out Friday afternoon – in hopes nobody would notice. Not just any Friday afternoon, but the one right before the Columbus Day-fall break weekend. Second, it…
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