PPP: Burr Has Early Advantage in 2016 Race
This post continues the analysis from yesterday of PPP’s latest poll. This time, we’re going to be concentrating on the U.S. Senate race. Richard Burr is the Republican incumbent and plans to seek...
View ArticleObama’s message: We’re on your side
Barack Obama is on a roll. Yesterday, he announced that he’s proposing two years of free community college. It’s a great start for a Democratic agenda that directly impacts the lives of blue collar...
View ArticleVice President Foxx?
Forget U.S. Senate. Some think Foxx would be a strong contender for Vice President. (No, not that Foxx. Liberals everywhere breathe a sigh of relief.) The thinking goes like this: Hillary Clinton is...
View ArticleThe next 30 years
In his State of the Union speech, Republicans and pundits have accused Obama of cynically trying to shape the 2016 presidential election with proposals that he knows won’t get much traction in a GOP...
View ArticleMore poll dancing
Over the past week, I’ve seen three separate polls that look at the political environment in North Carolina. While some numbers differ, the trends are basically the same. North Carolina voters are...
View ArticleRepublicans can cure Democrats’ disarray
At the Democratic National Committee’s winter meeting, an internal report says the party is in disarray. It lacks a coherent message and the ability to motivate its base, the report says. To win, it...
View ArticleBest Week in NC Politics: Rep. Mark Meadows
Well, that was interesting. Earlier this week we learned that Rep. Mark Meadows was going to be removed from his position as chair of the Government Operations subcommittee. Meadows, a conservative...
View ArticleWhy the flag debate matters
Progressives claiming that the flag debate is a distraction have missed the point. As President Obama made so clear in his eulogy for Clementa Pinckney, a racist white guy tried to start a race war by...
View ArticleTrolling the GOP
Nobody trolls Republicans quite like Barack Obama. Yesterday, he changed the name of Mt. McKinley back to Mt. Denali. Natives Americans have always referred to it as Denali which means “the high one.”...
View ArticleWhy I won’t vote for Bernie Sanders
It seems yesterday’s blog post caused quite a stir among Bernie Sanders supporters. For the record, I agree with much of what Sanders says and I’ve always liked him in the Senate. That said, I don’t...
View ArticleIt’s the fear, stupid!
Instead of looking at guns and Muslims, politicians need to better understand fear and insecurity. Emotions, not issues, drive politics. The desire to stem the flow of refugees into the country and the...
View ArticleHope and change
As a Democrat, I’ve often been frustrated by Barack Obama’s failure to sell or defend his programs, but last night he nailed it. He laid out his accomplishments, defended his legacy, and described the...
View ArticleIt’s government dysfunction, stupid.
It’s election year and pundits across the political spectrum are speculating about what will drive the electorate next November. In 2014 in North Carolina, the Kay Hagan campaign almost made the...
View ArticleOverreach
Republicans really don’t seem to understand overreach or the political environment. Voters are angry right now because they believe government is broken. They want Congress to make it work again and...
View ArticleRigged and broken
Anybody wondering why the public has so little faith in the the political system today should be reading the headlines in North Carolina newspapers this week—or following #NCPOL on twitter. For the...
View ArticleDysfunctional and outmaneuvered again
The US Senate showed exactly how dysfunctional it is yesterday. The Republican majority decided that it will not even consider any appointment to the Supreme Court made by President Obama. Essentially,...
View ArticleThe party of pointing fingers
Remember when the GOP was the party of personal responsibility? Not any more. Now, they’re the party of pointing fingers. They’re blaming everybody but themselves for the continuing bad press being...
View ArticleDo your job
I really don’t understand Republicans’ Congressional strategy. The whole country is mad at Congress for being ineffective and incompetent and they still won’t do their jobs. Instead, of announcing he’s...
View ArticleLost
The Republican Party has lost its ability govern. In states and in Washington, the GOP is passing laws hurting the people it’s supposed to serve and preventing government from functioning effectively....
View ArticleMaking the case
Yesterday, Democrats had a remarkably good day and Donald Trump had a remarkably bad one. In Philadelphia, speaker after speaker, laid into Trump as an untrustworthy con man unfit to serve as President...
View Article