Perdue 3 Moore 0

All I know about the Moore-Perdue debate is what I read in the N&O. And I see three points for Perdue: At first her attack on Moore for the Randy Parton-Local Government Commission looked like a reach. The N&O wrote that it was an overreach. But this dog may bite. At the least, anybody who…

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Walter “The Dodger” Dalton?

Some free advice for State Senator Walter Dalton, Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor: Don’t dodge debates. Don’t give your opponents that club to beat you with. Dalton is saying he won’t participate in debates matching the Democratic candidates. So one opponent, Hampton Dellinger, is riding Dalton hard about it. Dalton needs to wake up, smell…

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Hucka-Dean

Mike Huckabee is to this presidential race as Howard Dean was to 2004: Both were small-start Governors with modest records. Both started out as minor candidates. Both catapulted to the front by capturing a bloc of voters who were leaderless: the Democratic antiwar left and the Republican Christian right. Both turned out to have a…

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Passing the Buck to Parton

The City Fathers up in Roanoke Rapids are giving Randy Parton a good old-fashioned drubbing. He’s been accused, one way or another, of everything from drunkenness to negligence to mismanagement. But, after all, who’s really to blame? The City Fathers, not Parton, decided to borrow $21.5 million to go into the country music business –…

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Hackney Steps Up

After I posted my blog yesterday calling on Speaker Joe Hackney to clean the House of Thomas Wright, the Speaker did the right thing. (I don’t have any illusion that my blog is responsible, by the way.) By speaking out quickly – calling for an ethics investigation and a special session – Hackney met the…

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When Campaigns Change Direction

In a campaign, the first rule when you change strategy is: Don’t admit you’re changing strategy. But when a campaign dramatically changes what it’s saying, it’s changing strategy. Witness John Edwards and Beverly Perdue this week. Edwards introduced a new stump speech in Iowa: “America Rising.” It’s a return to the positive, optimistic Edwards who…

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The Sledgehammer Falls Again

Whenever I’m asked about the impact of bloggers on politics, I point to Joe (The Sledgehammer) Sinsheimer. This week, largely because of Sinsheimer, another protruding legislative nail got pounded. A Wake County grand jury indicted state Rep. Thomas E. Wright, a Democrat, on five felony charges of swindling banks, corporations and campaign contributors out of…

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Senate Democrats

A political constant for years in Raleigh has been Democratic dominance of the state Senate. Maybe not so much now. Marc Basnight’s hold on the Senate has relied on a number of old Democratic bulls who kept their seats in tough districts. Now, one of them has announced he won’t run again: John Kerr. And…

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Perdue’s Budget Bust

Beverly Perdue has trotted out one of the oldest and tiredest campaign proposals there is: a bipartisan commission to find savings in the state budget. What’s worse, the idea could hurt her in the Democratic primary. This retread comes back up every few years – usually from a conservative or a Republican. It’s total bull.…

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Lancaster’s Got Guts, Too

Martin Lancaster’s last act may be his best. Lancaster is retiring next year as president of North Carolina’s community college system. He used to be a legislator and a congressman before he lost to Walter Jones in the 1994 landslide. But this is his finest hour. Lancaster is another rare politician who has the guts…

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