North Carolina – Democrats

Every campaign, some fool candidate promises to campaign in all 100 counties. Every time, I say: You’re crazy. This year, GOP gubernatorial candidate Fred Smith and Democratic Senate hopeful Jim Neal are drinking the 100-county Kool Aid. I’d like to put a lie detector on them after they go to, say, 60 counties. Ask them…

The appointment of John Drescher as Executive Editor of The N&O means the paper will be led by a newsman who knows North Carolina politics and government. Drescher wrote a great book about the 1960 Terry Sanford-Beverly Lake race for Governor. He is the son-in-law of Phil Carlton, one of Jim Hunt’s oldest friends. Drescher’s…

The flap over the state giving $40 million in incentives to Senator Tony Rand’s – one assumes – friends at Goodyear Tire and Rubber just took another strange turn. After Rand’s bill – giving Goodyear a good-sized chunk of state pork – passed it was promptly vetoed by Governor Easley. Then the legislature returned to…

A Democrat poses this question about Kay Hagan’s run for U.S. Senate: “It is going to be interesting to see how voters respond to Hagan’s candidacy and whether she can dance around the question (or put it to bed) of whether she is running b/c Neal is gay. If you think back to the Sanders/Gantt…

If Richard Moore and Beverly Perdue stop sniping over resumes, degrees and ages, they will see the real target in the Governor’s race. And they can remind voters why North Carolina needs a Democratic governor next year. Republicans always say that North Carolina’s schools are failing. Their solution, always, is to starve the schools of…

The News & Observer’s recent examination of economic incentives said “attitudes have changed” here since North Carolina lost Mercedes to Alabama in 1993. Actually, attitudes changed because we lost Mercedes. The story accurately noted that North Carolina didn’t get the Mercedes plant because we didn’t match Alabama’s incentives. The N&O noted that my old boss,…

Some Democrats are asking: Isn’t Richard Moore’s campaign too negative? Won’t he suffer a backlash for attacking Beverly Perdue? The answers are no and no. For nearly thirty years, since the onset of negative TV ads, I’ve heard the same arguments: “People won’t believe those attacks.” “Voters don’t like negative ads. You need to stay…

Governor Easley emerges from the Mansion to tell municipal officials we’re facing a drought emergency, but he doesn’t declare a state of emergency. City officials say they’re already taking action. Raleigh’s City Council waits until after the elections to take up a ban on all outdoor watering. Meanwhile, the sprinklers and hoses keep running. And…