Archive for 2012
Re-Wired
Back in the old days when Marc Basnight and Tony Rand ran the General Assembly a cohort of Democratic lobbyists who controlled scads of money their clients could give candidates had the legislature wired up;–though no one quite realized it at the time that world came crashing down on Election Day in 2010 when the…
Read MoreMcCrory and the Media
Carter pointed out (“Counting His Luck Stars,” below) how Pat McCrory unwisely opened himself up to a counterstrike by Democratic lawyers. In that same press conference, McCrory unwisely picked another fight: with the media. The N&O reported that “McCrory chastised reporters at his news conference, saying their stations should pull the ad.” He…
Read MoreDemocratic Spin?
Not all the spin in politics comes out of the mouths of politicians;―just about every day or so there’s a poll in the News and Observer and the N&O is pretty careful to identify PPP as a ‘left-leaning’ pollster but PPP’s pollsters will also argue their politics don’t interfere with their polling or, in other…
Read MoreWhen We Were Fighting Hitler…
I opened the newspaper the other morning and stared at the headline, Afghan War to end by 2014, and thought, How could anyone know that? Imagine opening the newspaper one May morning in 1943 and reading: ‘War to end by 1945’ – you’d have thought someone had lost their mind. But, of course, the…
Read MoreThe Hard Way
For decades no matter how hard our Republican legislators in Raleigh tried they just couldn’t get themselves into trouble with a lobbyist – they just didn’t have the umph in the General Assembly to pull it off. But now they do and, suddenly, Republicans are learning some hard lessons. The greater your power…
Read MoreCounting His Lucky Stars
Last week McCrory got up at a press conference in Raleigh, lambasted Walter Dalton’s negative ads, then said he’d sued two of Dalton’s Democratic supporters for slander, but, then, it turned out McCrory hadn’t sued anyone – all he’d done was file a two page form called an ‘Intent to Sue’ which to any attorney…
Read More166 Hours a Day
WRAL News received a tip about Medicaid fraud in Governor Perdue’s mammoth Department of Health and Human Services, then spent weeks pouring over stacks of Medicaid bills, then reported the department had run amok again. For instance: WRAL found one licensed therapist, a psychologist, whose name was “linked to 22,984 hours of therapy last…
Read MoreWho Is Fred Davis?
Davis is Pat McCrory’s ad man. He made headlines recently for advocating controversial ads attacking President Obama over Jeremiah Wright, as Carter noted in his blog below, “The Pirates and a Chicago Billionaire.” Democrats, predictably, are calling for McCrory to fire Davis. Hold the mayo. Maybe it would be better for Walter Dalton if…
Read MorePity the Jurors
A TAPster wrote to express his rage over news that John Edwards took in a ball game while the jury deliberated this week: “Law-abiding citizens are summoned away from their jobs and families to be sequestered for weeks on end to decide if John Edwards has committed campaign fraud, in addition to the other…
Read MoreThe Pirates and a Chicago Billionaire
These two political consultants from Hollywood go to Chicago and tell a billionaire they have a sure fire way to whip Obama by tying him to Reverend Jeremiah Wright and all they need is $10 million – then, next, before the billionaire writes a check, the consultant’s fifty-four page plan lands in the New York…
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