In defense of centrism
Last week, I got another email accusing me of being a centrist hack. The writer said, “You can talk a fairly progressive game at times but always seem to fall back on this belief that all the voters are in the center. This nation is so polarized that...
Rural NC Has a Chance at Revitalization
The rural-urban divergence in North Carolina has become so acute that it turned one of the most right-wing politicians in the state into one of the most left-wing. Six years ago, promoting a scheme to redistribute sales tax money from urban counties to rural ones,...
Quit pretending and pass the maps
I’m really over the redistricting stuff. I don’t want to see any more proposed maps. I don’t want any more speculation. I don’t want any more polls showing what people want or don’t want. I don’t want any more public hearings. I just want to see the maps. This...
A failure to communicate
When I first started working in politics in the mid-1990s, Hal Malchow was one of Democrats’ top political strategists. He was a direct mail guru who built a highly successful firm and wrote the first book on microtargeting before computers revolutionized the...
The fight on the right
There’s been an interesting debate raging among conservative intellectuals on social media to determine the best way to navigate a post-Trump world and assess the threat that the nationalist and populist base of the GOP poses to the country. The factions are roughly...
Pat McCrory Courts Ethical Controversy Yet Again With Stock Holdings
In his latest financial disclosure report, Pat McCrory gave North Carolinians yet another reason to view him warily. Acknowledging millions of dollars in assets, McCrory disclosed that he owns hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock from numerous companies. Some of...
CRT and Holocaust denialism
North Carolina Republicans have been trying to censor schools to prevent them from teaching uncomfortable truths about our history. In Texas, we can see where it leads. A school principal there told teachers that they need to find balance. If they have a book in their...
Defund the Senate
Americans once again find their national well being captive to the depredations of the United States Senate. Alas, this is hardly the first time. Throughout its history the Senate has functioned as a barrier against needed social reform, and a bastion of reaction in a...
The dumbest tweet
The dumbest take on Twitter this week, and maybe year, came from Senate President Pro-tem Phil Berger’s press shop. After Democratic Party Chair Bobbie Richardson sent out a fundraising letter calling for Democrats to “curb Lt. Governor Mark Robinson” and...
Democrats Have a Bench problem
In 2008, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee attempted to recruit a governor, an attorney general, and four congressmen to run against Elizabeth Dole. When they came up short, most observers understood it as a recruiting failure. What is more striking in the...
A message for 2021, not 1991
I’m going to continue my discussion of Shorism, as it’s now been called, that I began on Monday. Several pundits and Democratic activists have pushed back on the idea of moderating the Democratic message. They’ve claimed that it would be a return to Clintonism and the...
Mark Robinson Continues the Hateful Homophobia of Jesse Helms
Most North Carolina Republicans wouldn't consider it an insult to compare their darling with Jesse Helms. So I feel no compunction about drawing parallels between our Lieutenant Governor in the year 2021 and the most notorious Dixie demagogue of the late twentieth...