WW – Columns

Winners still flirt with swing voters

Audio Article

Carolina Journal’s first post-primary survey is out. It shows our state’s 2024 general elections will be, as usual, quite competitive. That’s not to say North Carolina’s electorate is perfectly purple. It’s not. All other things being equal, Republicans enjoy a modest edge statewide of a few percentage points. As John Locke Foundation analyst Andy Jackson points out, GOP candidates won […]

NC’s legislative majority embraces unfiltered extremism

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For decades, political operatives crafted their parties’ strategies according to the delicate tenets of the median voter theorem. The protocol was to prune and adjust controversial positions until the party’s platform aligned with the preferences of the most moderate and influential bloc in the electorate: the fabled and elusive swing voter.  In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, a […]

Why no Poole’s in ‘Roadside Eateries’?

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“I can’t find Poole’s in the revised edition of ‘North Carolina’s Roadside Eateries: A Traveler’s Guide to Local Restaurants, Diners and Barbecue Joints.’ What happened?” It is the first complaint I have gotten about the new version of “Roadside Eateries,” being published by UNC Press on April 1. The book features locally owned restaurants on or near North Carolina’s interstate […]

Election 2024: Closer, and less important, than you probably think

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Depending on whom you listen to about the constantly shifting horse race we call a U.S. presidential election, either Joe Biden or Donald Trump is always ahead or behind by a nose … nationally. For example, a March 7-13 Ipsos/Reuters poll has Biden at 39% and Trump at 38%, while a March 10-12 Yougov/Economist poll shows Trump at 44% and […]

Judges see past Cooper’s rhetoric in appointments battle

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Lawyers for Gov. Roy Cooper labeled the changes “shocking” and “breathtaking.” The governor himself complained about a “blatantly unconstitutional legislative power grab.” But a bipartisan group of Superior Court judges saw a much different picture. In a unanimous Feb. 28 decision, the judges rejected most of Cooper’s challenges to new state laws affecting appointments to North Carolina government boards and […]

NC’s political right promotes conspiracy theories and secrecy

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This week is Sunshine Week — the 20th such annual celebration of open government principles and accomplishments since the event was conceived and launched in 2005 by the American Society of News Editors. And if there was ever a time in which all aspects of law- and policymaking in our country were badly in need of more sunshine, this is […]

Can Congress take away TikTok? Only if you allow it

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On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 7521, the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.” The bill, which would attempt to ban the social media app TikTok unless its Chinese owners, ByteDance, sell it to non-Chinese owners, faces an uncertain future in the Senate, but president Joe Biden says he’ll sign it if it passes. I […]

7-month forecast: Stormy with a probability of ugly

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You don’t need a crystal ball to predict that the seven months before the Nov. 5 general elections promise to be ugly, costly and divisive. They will affect our moods, our interpersonal relations, our work and normal events.   Typically, the time after the primary elections is a period I call “reconciliation month.” To win primaries, candidates must reach out […]

‘Give us a king’

Audio Article

The want of a king is not new. Grumbling people fill the pages of history. We gripe about wages. We bemoan our tax situation. We whine about our health care and our schools. We complain about our lot in life, even when the sun rises on a day when employment is high, wages are up and crime is declining. Grumbling […]

Politicians play with fairy dust

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It’s hard not to play along when children come up with cute untruths. Back when one of my now-grown sons was just an Opie Taylor-like tyke, for example, he used to tell me matter-of-factly that if he didn’t go to bed, the moon wouldn’t rise. It was a reasonable conclusion based on his experience at the time. Later, as his […]

Feeling overwhelmed? Here’s how to move forward

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Although life has its ups and downs, at times of prolonged or intense down periods, there is the potential of feeling overwhelmed. When this happens, it can create a cascading effect. Your attitude turns negative, you feel distressed, your patience is worn thin, you become frustrated, your energy level drops and you become discouraged. When you get into this mode, […]

Maine pushes vets aside to hire ‘New Americans’

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New York, Illinois and California are among the states most closely associated with embracing illegal border-crossers and assorted other asylum-seekers. But perhaps because the state is smaller than the major destinations and somewhat off the beaten media path, Maine’s over-the-top illegal immigrant red-carpet layout is less well-publicized. Make no mistake — Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) ranks on par with […]

On UFOs, don’t expect the truth from government

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On March 8, the U.S. Department of Defense’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office released the first volume of a two-volume “Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.” Like all previous government statements on the subject of UAPs — what we used to call, and will likely continue calling, UFOs for unidentified flying objects — this […]

Voters want more transit options; politicians should listen

Audio Article

Not long ago, a user-made map depicting a vastly expanded Atlanta transit system went viral on social media. Instead of just four branching main lines that intersect like a plus sign, the imaginary map spindles out like a bicycle wheel in 10 directions, with an additional ring around the periphery connecting the spokes. Comments like “They should’ve done this 25 […]

Celebrate Sunshine Week by supporting local journalism

Audio Article

Sunshine Week is March 10-16, and this year, there’s an even greater need for you to get involved. Sunshine Week annually celebrates freedom of information laws in every state. It also salutes efforts by good government advocates and journalists to use and ensure the effectiveness of those laws to get the information we need as self-governing citizens.  The name is […]

‘Gun control’ is a call for returning to the Stone Age

Audio Article

Last November, 11-year-old Domonic Davis was killed and five others were wounded in a drive-by shooting in Cincinnati. “Federal investigators,” the Associated Press reports, “believe the 22 shots could be fired off with lightning speed because the weapon had been illegally converted to fire like a machine gun.” Per the AP report, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives […]

Disappointing primaries lacked substance

Audio Article

Party nominations for North Carolina’s 2024 elections are, for the most part, decided. Just four races remain to be settled in runoffs on May 14. So, would you say you’re generally satisfied or dissatisfied with our primaries this year? Here’s my answer to the question: I’m deeply disappointed. It’s not that all the candidates I favored lost their primaries. Many […]

Mighty Mecklenburg

Audio Article

“Why do you Mecklenburgers always act so high and mighty?” I still get this question every now and then even though I moved away years ago. Last week, I remembered the best answer to that question. On March 4 in downtown Charlotte, members of the Mecklenburg County Commission hosted political officials and community leaders from the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. […]

Should religious extremism have an equal voice in America?

Audio Article

Americans have been slow to wake up to the fact that religious extremism is a form of political extremism. Religious authoritarianism substitutes the decision-making of a private religious clique for the decision-making of the people’s public representatives in a democracy. The same thing that happened in Gaza when Hamas took over the government there without elections is happening in America […]

Fruits of our labors

Audio Article

It’s budget season on a permanent basis now. When I was a full-time community organizer, I used to love to go to Washington in time for the cherry blossoms and the hog slopping.  Hog slopping? That was just one of the terms used by many Hill staffers (and even some administration figures in places like the Office of Management and […]


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