Teachers and Taxes

While Governor McCrory and his patrons at the John Locke Foundation were bragging about tax cuts on Tax Day, Republicans in the Legislative Building were digging an even deeper teacher-pay hole for themselves and McCrory.   The N&O’s page one headline said: “Broad teacher raises unlikely.” McCrory proclaimed, “we’re leaving a little extra money in…

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Tillis, the GOP and God

Thom Tillis is a lot like Mitt Romney, and he learned one big thing from Romney’s 2012 campaign: Don’t get on the same stage and same page with the nuts in his party.   So Tillis may be making the right strategic decision by ducking the WRAL debate. It’s better to look chicken than to…

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Son of Speaker Ban

“Will no one rid me of this troublesome professor?” (Paraphrasing King Henry II on Thomas Becket.)   Fifty years ago, the legislature brought shame on North Carolina, dishonor on themselves and harm to UNC when the honorables passed the Speaker Ban Law to protect college students from a feared invasion of pro-Communist speakers. Eventually, wiser…

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Deadly Politics

Misery loves company and right here, in Raleigh, it’s led to a pretty strange alliance. Governor McCrory’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources and President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency have joined arms.   To whip the ‘coal ash’ problem.   According to the newspaper reports the Governor is “pleased” but, so far, the EPA hasn’t…

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Straw Polls

When it comes to straw polls, from cradle to grave, there’s a whiff of deception in the air. Hardly anything is what it seems.   For instance, political groups don’t take straw polls to measure voters’ opinions or candidates’ strengths – they take them to gin-up attendance for meetings. By telling a cash-strapped candidate, We’re…

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Is Good Money Bad Too?

This is a story about how even “good” money – that is, money spent for candidates and causes I like – can be bad.   It’s a story about how outside donors and independent campaigns, not candidates and office-holders, are setting the political agenda. You can walk, and run, but money talks.   Most every…

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The Cape and not the Bull

Long ago and far away, in bygone days, during Jim Hunt’s first incarnation as Governor, we (Jesse Helms’ political organization) lit on what we thought was a grand idea: We ’d do a TV ad attacking Governor Hunt for giving AFL-CIO boss Wilber Hobby government CETA grants.   We made the ad, tore into Wilbur…

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Tillis Out of the Closet?

How would Republican primary voters feel about a prominent supporter of gay marriage holding a fundraiser for Thom Tillis in New York City?   That would be Paul Singer, a hedge-fund CEO whom the Washington Post calls “the money man behind pro-gay marriage Republicans.”   The Post reported that, “Last week, Singer and other donors…

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Rethinking Koch

Maybe the attack-Koch strategy is a good idea after all. I had questions, but I’m coming around.   Every story needs a villain. That lesson is as old as the Bible. (See: the Serpent, Garden of Eden.)   Just as Republicans here want to make William Barber of the NAACP the face of the Democratic…

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Be Careful What You Wish For …

A year ago when my health insurance went up I grumbled and blamed Blue Cross. Then, this year, my new bill arrived and the premium went up again even more. But this time I didn’t blame Blue Cross. I laid the blame squarely on the shoulders of one man: Barack Obama.   In bygone days,…

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