The more TV weather I watch, the more confused I get.

Thursday afternoon, I watched two forecasts back-to-back on two stations.

The local cable system news, Channel 14, said top winds from Ernesto were 70 mph.

 The Weather Channel said top winds were 30 mph.

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Triangle Transit Authority trustee Nina Szlosberg doesn’t want the TTA to strike the flag on Lite-Rail – so when the other trustees arrived at their last meeting she gave them copies of the children’s fable The Little Engine that Could.

Taxpayers have poured tens of millions of dollars into the TTA; we’ve paid for studies, bureaucrats, lobbyists, mock-ups of train engines, for land for train stations and what we have to show for it is The Little Engine that Could.

The federal government has told the TTA no and the TTA said it accepted that no as final. But now it has turned around and said it doesn’t matter. That it’s going to seek other ways to pay for Lite-Rail. Now who – other than the federal government – is going to give the TTA $800 million?

Part of the problem is government agencies don’t ever, ever say, Our job is done. Let’s shut down.  They just don’t work that way. Government agencies get to spend other people’s money – taxpayers’ money – and spending other people’s money is like an addiction. It’s hard to give up. So the TTA is looking for a fig leaf to justify their next million.

But the fact is they have run out of rope.

City Councilman Phillip Isley has proposed taking the money we are giving the TTA and spending it on better roads and schools. Mayor Meeker or his allies on the City Council didn’t like his idea and they killed it before it got off the ground. But taking Councilman Isley’s advice may be the best public service the trustees of the TTA can perform.

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Sometimes you have to wonder if the Democrats in the State Legislature are really serious at all about cleaning up corruption.

Attorney General Roy Cooper asked the Democratic leaders in the legislature to give him two weapons to fight corruption. He asked them to make “it a crime to lie to SBI agents, and to allow state and local prosecutors to hold grand jury investigations into public corruption.” (News and Observer, 8/30/06).

Neither law passed.

The Democrat leaders in the House killed the provision to make it a crime to lie to SBI agents by saying it was not germane to the bill it was part of. The definition of what is germane in the House is simple: it’s whatever leaders say it is. If they like a law, it’s germane. If they don’t, it’s not. What really happened is House leaders didn’t want to pass the law but they didn’t want to take the heat for voting against it either. So they killed it without a vote by saying it wasn’t germane.

What Republicans should be asking their Democrat opponents in the elections this fall is: Why on earth did you want to make it legal to lie to an SBI agent? It sort of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

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New Orleans hasn’t recovered from Katrina.  Nor has George Bush.

And neither one’s prospects look good.

Bush has never recovered politically because his actions in the storm’s aftermath burned an indelible image in the nation’s mind: an aloof, disengaged patrician totally unable to grasp the suffering of thousands of Americans.

No one can imagine Bill Clinton doing that.  Or Ronald Reagan.

But Bush did.  And a year’s worth of spinning since hasn’t change the image.  Nor will this week’s photo ops.  Nor will anything.

Once people get a glimpse of the truth, they won’t get fooled again.

Of course – in the immortal words of Barbara Bush – this may be working out quite well for some people: the Republicans.

The depopulation of African-Americans in Louisiana may accomplish what Bush and Karl Rove could never do: turn it into a red state.

But Bush has written his page in history – or, more to the point, painted his picture.

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In baseball and politics, it’s time for the stretch run.

The Yankees took a big lead over the Red Sox last weekend.  And my Democratic friends in Washington are feeling like Joe Torre.

Guy Cecil, head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, sent out a tip sheet boasting:

• Dems lead Republicans 50-41 in a generic ballot question;

• 65 percent disapprove of the GOP Congress in a Gallup poll

• Just 34 percent in a Harris poll give Bush a positive rating, and 63 percent say the country is off track;

• Senate Dems have outraised Republicans $77 million to $66 million in this cycle

• The DSCC has $35 million on hand, to the Republicans’ $20 million.

Here’s hoping against a late-season collapse by the good guys.

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What does Raleigh need more: another nature park or a place where teenagers can play basketball and stay out of trouble?

It seems to me that is the issue in the Horseshoe Farm debate.

Horseshoe Farm is a 146-acre tract of land off U.S. 401 in northeast Raleigh, bounded by the Neuse River.

Nature lovers want the land preserved as nature intended it.

But the City Council is considering a recommendation from its parks, recreation and greenways advisory board to build a 24,000-square-foot center along with outdoor basketball courts on the property.

Rec-center supporters – like City Council member Jessie Taliaferro – say there are precious few recreational places in that part of the city for teenagers, few other places to compete with the draw of drugs, drinking and just hanging out.

The nature lovers say that’s a noble idea.  Just not here.

I don’t understand that.  Isn’t Umstead Park a nature park?  In fact, I understand that in Northeast Raleigh alone there are about 1,000 acres already serving as Nature park experiences - greenway trails, Forest Ridge Park at Falls Lake, the Dr. Annie Louise Wilkerson gift, and Camp Durant Nature park.

But there are no active organized recreation opportunities north of Millbrook Exchange Park.

What’s more, Horseshoe Farm was a working farm until the city bought it for $1.1 million.  It’s hardly a pristine, untouched natural site.

Ironically, the naturalists support the construction of an art and nature education center with parking lots, but not a building where kids would play basketball and have after-school care.

On 146 acres, surely the city can provide both some protected nature experiences and active recreation areas for youth and adults. 

And don’t say – as some city leaders apparently have – that Raleigh can’t afford a recreation center.

After all, they found the money for a new Fayetteville Street, a new Civic Center, a new downtown parking deck and a $20 million subsidy for a new downtown hotel.

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I didn’t know John Pope, the uber-wealthy retail king who died this week.  And I don’t know much about the business empire he built at Variety Wholesalers.

But I know about his political empire.

I don’t like it, but I damn sure respect it.

Pope was the big money behind the John Locke Foundation and its various political planets, like the Civitas Institute.

I take it his son, Art, did much of the thinking and creating.  But the money and much of the spirit and drive seem to have come from John Pope.

The highest compliment I can pay the Popes is that – for at least 15 years – Democrats and progressives have been saying: “We need something like the John Locke Foundation.”

But no Democrat has stepped up with the money – or the drive – to do it.

Maybe one will – one day.

But it seems that – from the Congressional Club to the Pope Empire – the conservatives have been better at building that kind of political organization.

Of course, North Carolina still has a Democratic (not Democrat) Governor and a Democratic legislature.

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Wal-Mart is becoming for Democrats what al-Qaeda is for Republicans: the source of all evil.

The Democratic presidential candidates – even including moderate Senator Evan Bayh – are attacking the big retailer.

Its sins include low pay, scarce benefits and big success.

All this while Wal-Mart – with Al Gore’s help – is trying to paint itself green.

Corporate America take note: Your company might be next on the firing line.

Wal-Mart is fighting back aggressively – putting up tough websites and hiring gun-slinging political consultants.

The attack is orchestrated by the Change To Win labor coalition.  That’s made up of newly aggressive, politically oriented unions like Service Employees International Union and United Food and Commercial Workers.  UFCW also targets Kroger and Smithfield Packing in North Carolina.

John Edwards is working hard to make the coalition part of his presidential base.  And Hillary Clinton, who along with Bill got a lot of money and help from the Arkansas company in years past, is backing away fast.

To fight back, Wal-Mart had hired Andy Young, the Georgia civil rights leader, as a spokesman for the past six months.

But Young shot himself and Wal-Mart in their collective feet this week.

In a newspaper interview, he said Wal-Mart “should” replace small community stores:

“You see those are the people who have been overcharging us, and they sold out and moved to Florida.  I think they’ve ripped off our communities enough.  First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now it’s Arabs.”

Oops.  Andy resigned as Wal-Mart’s mouthpiece.

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One reason I enjoyed Ned Lamont’s victory in Connecticut was the triumph of the bloggers.

I like anything that makes politics more personal, more accessible and more open.  And political bloggers do all that.

Blogs enable people to have a voice, just like big-money givers and big media.

But the Connecticut race made another thing clear: Blogs aren’t going to “clean up” politics.

In facts, New Politics blogs showed themselves to be just as – if not more – negative, personal and scurrilous as the Old Politics.

But that’s not surprising.  American politics has been negative, personal and scurrilous since Jefferson and Adams squared off in 1800.  New technology won’t change that.

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After State Senator Howard Lee was defeated for reelection in 2003 the governor appointed him to the Board of Education. Serving on the Board is an unpaid position and the Board only meets two days a month. But The News and Observer (8/14/06) reports Senator Lee also spends “a couple of days a week” on the road doing Board business.

Last year, Senator Lee drove his own car 26,000 miles on State Board of Education business and he was reimbursed by the state. This year – at Lee’s request – the Department of Public Instruction rented a car for him from a car rental agency – like Hertz or Avis – for $1700 to $1900 a month. That’s more than three times it would have cost the state to simply reimburse Lee for his mileage. And it’s more – a lot more – than the cost of leasing a car from a dealership. After all, according to the ads in the newspaper, you can lease a new Mercedes Sedan for $700 to $800 per month.

But that’s not the whole story.

Governor Easley also appointed former Senator Lee to the Board of the State Utilities Commission. That’s a full-time job. It pays $115,000 a year. So, how, in addition to his full-time work at the Utilities Commission is Senator Lee – by his own reckoning – spending “a couple of days a week” traveling for the Department of Public Instruction?

This is an example of the decline in “ethics” in state government. Government has been a playground for powerful Democratic politicians and ethics don’t seem to matter (unless you get caught).

And what happens when you do get caught?

After state VIP’s spent $30,000 of taxpayers’ money to sail legislators around Beaufort Harbor in a state ferry to see the tall ships, the governor gave them a “good stiff reprimand.” In Senator Lee’s case he didn’t even issue a reprimand. You have to wonder if the Democrats are really serious about “cleaning up” state government.

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John Edwards and Joe Lieberman have little in common.  But they do both have one big thing this year: running as outsiders.

Most politicians fantasize about “outsider” campaigns.  Usually when they get tired of playing insider games with other politicians, interest groups and contributors.

But the dream has come true for Joe and John.  And their success – or failure – will say a lot about American politics in 2006 and 2008.

In Connecticut this year, Lieberman has the luxury of attacking both Democrats and Republicans.  He can run against partisan politics, after being a partisan politician for three decades.

That’s where Edwards started in North Carolina in 1998: the outsider challenging the inside politics of both parties.

Once in Washington, he tried to run from the inside.  That’s why he voted for the Iraq war.

Now out of the Senate, he’s free to run from the outside.  And he is – full tilt. 

Go to his website – www.oneamericacommittee.com – to see.

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Nothing is quite so repellent – or dangerous – as a politician in the throes of reform-mania.  Witness the North Carolina legislature.

To start with, no legislator really wanted to pass lobbying or campaign finance reform.  They liked the old system.  After all, they had designed it to serve themselves.

So they did what they had to do to satisfy the press, especially The News & Observer.

The 60-page monstrosity they produced may – in the end – do far more damage than good.

For example, I’m told the law as nearly passed could have required all newspaper editorial writers to register as lobbyists – because they are in the business of influencing elections.

How about bloggers?  Do they – we – all have to register and file expenses?

And lobbyists.  They can still solicit money for legislators.  They just can’t touch the checks.

For all the new regulations in the law, there are more loopholes.  And smart people will figure out the loopholes by the next election.

The cliché today is that money, like water, always finds a way.

Therein lies the fundamental problem: True reformers don’t want money in politics – period.  But in politics today you cannot run for office unless you can afford to communicate with thousands, even millions, of voters.

That costs money.  Most candidates, unlike reporters and editors, don’t have instant, free access to hundreds of thousands of readers.  They have to pay for it.  So they either have to be rich or they have to ask rich people for money.

Making it harder to ask doesn’t make the problem go away.

My solution: total deregulation of campaign contributions.  That’s right: no limits on how much you can give, no limits on corporate money, no limits on labor or interest group money.

Instead, require instant reporting – on the Internet – of every dollar given and received.

Let the money flow.  And let the voters know who it’s flowing from and who it’s flowing to.

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Gary and John Hood of the Locke Foundation are having a little debate about the Blue Ribbon Commission. I recently read the Commission’s report. It says Wake County’s population is going to double in twenty-five years and, as a result, we’re going to have to spend a whole lot of money on schools, streets, sewers and so on. The committee suggested property tax increases, sales tax increases, toll roads and borrowing as ways to pay the costs.

But here’s what I don’t understand: Are those of us who live in Raleigh, now, going to have to pay for the new schools, sewers, and roads for the 634,000 people who are going to move here by 2030? Won’t those people be paying taxes like the rest of us? If the population doubles, doesn’t that mean tax revenues will more or less double too? And won’t that help pay for new roads and schools?

Back in the 1990’s, when Raleigh had Republican Mayors, growth was seen as a key to holding down taxes. Tens of thousands of people moved to Raleigh back then and taxes didn’t go up. Now, suddenly, in the 2000’s, Raleigh has a Democratic Mayor and growth has become a reason for raising taxes. Yes, more people mean more roads. But they also mean more taxpayers. So, growth doesn’t automatically mean taxes have to go up.

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The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee knows how to fight back.

Its new web ad blasts the Bush record on protecting America:

“Not enough troops…

“Four times as many terror attacks in 2005…

“Iran developing nuclear weapons…

“North Korea quadrupling its nuclear arsenal…

“Millions more illegal immigrants…

“Feel safer? Vote for change.”

Click here to see the ad: http://www.dscc.org/

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I’m not the only one suspicious of the timing of last week’s airport-terror scare.

As Keith Olderman pointed out on MSMBC’s Countdown Monday night, the Bush administration for years has conveniently announced terror threats at politically-advantageous times.

Like right after the Connecticut Senate primary.

Has the act worn thin?  We’ll see in November.

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Is the dingus Spanish impresario Jaume Plensa wants to build in the middle of Fayetteville Street the most brilliant work of modern art in the twenty-first century – or is it a good old-fashioned flim-flam? Is Mr. Plensa Picasso – or P.T. Barnum?

The leaders of Raleigh’s art circles say Plensa has woven aircraft cables, flashing lights, and a rectangle of grass together into a work of sheer genius. Others, who are less kind, say we are about to buy some chicken wire, Christmas tree lights and a putting green (which the city manager says is never going to grow grass) for $4.25 million.

Who’s right? Is Plensa’s “Putting Green” a brilliant, inconceivable, spectacular work of abstract art by a modern-day Michelangelo – or a hustle? It sounds a bit like a hustle for one reason: the price soared from $2.5 to $4.25 million as quick as you can say “abstract art.”

Maybe we ought to take a deep breath and pause before we start telling ourselves Plensa’s “Putting Green” is high art like the Sistine Chapel and that we have one-upped Richmond and Charlotte in the abstract art category. After all, if Mr. Plensa turns out to be Professor Harold Hill instead of Rodin – we might end up looking downright foolish.

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Since I got my first job as a copyboy at The News & Observer 41 years ago this summer, my life has been inextricably intertwined with that paper.

But I’ve never seen the N&O do more damage to itself than with the front-page mistake on the Duke-lacrosse investigation.

Public Editor Ted Vaden described it this way Sunday:

The opening paragraphs of the story said Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong had proceeded with rape indictments against two lacrosse players the same day he asked a police investigator to look into whether the accuser's injuries might have had causes other than the alleged rape.

That information was wrong. Nifong actually had asked investigator Michele Soucie for background information about the accuser on April 4, nearly two weeks before the indictments, not on April 17, as the story said. The N&O ran a front-page correction Tuesday that said, in part, "This error changes the implications of the first five paragraphs of the story: that the conversation between Nifong and Soucie was an example of the words and actions of police and investigators outpacing the facts in the file."

(You can read Vaden’s column here: http://www.newsobserver.com/691/story/470260.html)

In other words, the lead of a major N&O expose – blared across the front-page – was wrong.

Let’s put another shoe on this foot.

Suppose a public official had made a mistake of this caliber.  Say, for example, basing a major decision on information that turned out to be flat wrong – and sloppily obtained.

Would the N&O demand a resignation?  Editorialize that the public official should in the future turn those matters over to someone else?

Probably.

But what did the N&O do here?

No resignations.  No firings.  No dramatic action to reassure readers that the paper is serious about accuracy.

In fact, Vaden concludes that the reporter, Joe Neff, should stay on the story:

I think Neff should remain on the case. His mistake was one of carelessness, not of malice. Removing him would be a form of scapegoating, in the sense of blaming one person for an error that was allowed by a team of professionals. And it would be depriving the paper, and readers, of The N&O's best journalism.

The N&O’s “best journalism”?

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Everybody’s piling on Jim Black.  So I’ll dissent.

First of all, enough with Republicans decrying a pay-to-play system in Raleigh.  It’s a pale imitation of the pay-to-play system Republicans installed in Washington – and in Raleigh, when they had the House majority.

Second, enough with politicians and reporters who are shocked – shocked, mind you – that this sort of thing goes on.  From time immemorial, there has always been just a wink and a nod between campaign contributions and government actions.

Third, Jim Black is a smart man.  He knew the law.  He knew – and often said – that he could never promise any official action in exchange for a campaign contribution.

I would bet he said that to Michael Decker.  And I suspect it went right over Decker’s head, because Decker was selling himself as hard as he could.

So it’s Decker’s word against Black’s.

The U.S. attorney will have to judge whether he can win that fight before a jury.

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Republicans are airing their first TV ad about the pay to play scandals. State Senator Andrew Brock’s ad calls on “embattled House Speaker Jim Black to resign…” (WRAL-TV, 8/7/06). Brock also says the beneficiaries of the ‘pay to play’ scandals are Democrat House members who received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Black.

A State judge just ruled Black’s campaign has to return $6800 in illegal contributions, and virtually every major newspaper has called on Black to resign. And, at last, Republicans are holding Speaker Black and his fellow Democrats accountable in a way politicians understand – in the court of public opinion before an election.

Democrat legislators, who have remained united in lockstep behind Black, may look at the pay to play scandals differently when Republicans start running their ads in their districts – where their constituents will see them. But Black’s allies can’t very well pass the buck now by saying, Well, it was Jim Black, and not us – because they’ve been defending Black tooth and toenail for months. Instead, Democrat legislators are going to have to defend the scandals, just like Black is doing.

Stay tuned. It may be interesting to see how they do that.

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According to the News and Observer (7/24/06), since Mayor Meeker took office Raleigh’s debt has tripled. In a few weeks, on September 30, for the first time the City’s debt will pass $1 billion. Five years ago it was $294 million.

That puts the spending spree the Mayor has been on in perspective.

Granted, some of the new debt is necessary, like for a new water treatment plant. But a lot of it wasn’t and adding $700 million in new debt in five years is troubling. City Manager Russell Allen says there is no need to worry. He says Raleigh has just moved from the low debt to the moderate debt category. But after Allen said the new debt was fine, he turned around and said he opposed developer John Kane’s request for $75 million in public financing for a parking deck at North Hills. Why? Because, he said, he is worried taking on new debt for projects like Kane’s may jeopardize Raleigh’s bond rating.

The problem, when the Mayor borrows $243,000,000 to build a Convention Center, is part of the debt has to be repaid each year and those debt repayments add a new expense to the city budget. Spending goes up.

And it doesn’t stop there. Owning a Convention Center costs money. The city has to pay for new employees, for maintenance, for electricity, for dozens of other expenses and most – almost all – Convention Centers lose money. That loss becomes a new expense for the City. Spending goes up, again. And while the Mayor’s adding all these new expenses the cost of the other necessary services the city provides – like water, policemen, and firemen – keep going up, too.

So, borrowing can end up being pretty painful for taxpayers. Mayor Meeker’s been on a red hot spending spree for five years; he’s spent all the city budget of $500 million each year and added $700 million in debt. That’s one reason this year Raleigh raised property taxes 9%.

Next month the City is going to borrow another $265 million and that debt will have to be repaid too. Will it mean taxes and fees will go up, again, next year? Maybe next election the Republicans will do what they didn’t do last year – make Mayor Meeker’s philosophy of Borrow, Spend and Tax an issue in the Mayor’s race.

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It didn’t take Bush and the Republicans long to turn the airline-terror plot against Democrats.

“Defeatocrats,” one blared.

Cheney didn’t even wait for the arrests.  The day before, he said Ned Lamont’s victory in Connecticut emboldened “al Qaeda types.”

So what do Democrats do?  Two relatively new Democrats – with impeccable military credentials – show the way:

James Webb, Virginia Senate candidate, said:

“The war in Iraq had nothing to do with the war against international terrorism.”

Wesley Clark said:

“Invading Iraq and diverting our attention away from Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden is not being strong on national security.”

That’s the way you do it.

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         Joe Lieberman went even farther than the Republicans:

“If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England.  It will strengthen them, and they will strike again.”

Lamont obviously needs training from Clark and Webb.  His weak sound-bite response:

         “That’s a false premise.”

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Two politicians, a Republican, Mike Decker, and a Democrat, Jim Black, sat down at an IHOP in Salisbury. Black was there to convince Decker to switch parties and give him a key vote he needed to hold onto the House Speakership – and Decker was listening. And, in all likelihood both men probably suspected, one way or another, before the deal was made there was going to be an agreement for some money to change hands.

Now, as Gary says in his blog, Jim Black is too smart to say to Mike Decker, ‘Okay, Mike, name your price, we’ll dicker a bit and I’ll send you a bag full of cash for your vote.’ Black knows that’s illegal. So, here’s how I imagine that conversation may have gone:

Black:  Mike, I need your vote for Speaker. And I know if you vote for me you’ll be in hot water with the Republicans. I know you’ll face a tough reelection campaign. And I know that costs money. Now, we both know I can’t pay you anything for your vote. That would be illegal. But I do – and this has nothing to do with your vote – want to help you get reelected.

Then, I imagine, after a little hemming and hawing someone got around to putting a dollar amount on the table. Since Decker pled guilty to taking a fifty thousand dollar bribe, let’s say it was fifty thousand dollars.

In January of 2003 Decker switched parties and voted for Black and, according to the US Attorney, an unnamed Democrat – the newspapers speculate it was Black – delivered thirty-eight thousand dollars in checks and twelve thousand dollars in cash to Decker. (Decker’s son also got a $46,000 state job in the legislature, thanks to Black).

So, did Jim Black bribe Mike Decker or not? In Black’s view he absolutely did not. He says adamantly there was no quid pro quo – he didn’t give Decker $50,000 to vote for him. He gave him $50,000 to help him get re-elected. It wasn’t a bribe it was a campaign contribution. And that’s Gary’s point. No matter how much Black wanted to get reelected Speaker he was too smart to break the law by trying to bribe Decker.

But there’s one big problem. Alongside the $38,000 in checks in the envelope a Democrat gave Decker there was $12,000 in cash – and you can’t just blithely wave a magic wand and say that cash doesn’t matter – or that it was a campaign contribution.

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The same week former State Rep. Michael Decker pled guilty to taking a $50,000 bribe to switch parties and vote for Democrat Jim Black for Speaker of the House – Governor Easley signed the legislature’s new ethics bill into law. Easley said this bill “is a powerful first step at establishing clear ethical standards…” (The News and Observer, 8/5/06).

Sounds encouraging? However, remember, this bill is not much different from the bill the head of Easley’s Ethics Commission, retired Judge Robert Farmer, described as “just pretend ethics.”

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Joe Lieberman’s supporters suggested it was wrong for Ned Lamont to even challenge a sitting Senator.  Bad for the party, they said.

Lamont’s supporters said they had every right to challenge an incumbent.  They said a cause was at stake.  And that’s what democracy is all about.  They were right.

Now, some Lamont supporters suggest it’s wrong for Lieberman to run as an Independent.  Bad for the party, they say.

But democracy cuts both ways.  Lieberman has a right to take his cause to the voters.

Lieberman says the Democratic Party can’t afford to be seen as a knee-jerk anti-war, leftist party.  He’ll give voters a choice.

That will be the Democrats’ debate – this year and in 2008.

One question Democrats are already asking after watching Lamont’s victory speech: Do we want to be seen as the party of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who were upfront on camera?

Irony: Suppose Lieberman wins reelection.  Democrats do well in other Senate races.  The balance of power is 50 Democrats, 49 Republicans (or vice versa) and one Independent: Joe Lieberman.

What will Joe’s revenge be?

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If nothing else, North Hills developer John Kane has put Mayor Meeker over a political barrel.

Mr. Kane has asked the City Council to agree to provide $75 million in public financing to help him build a parking deck at North Hills. Mayor Meeker, apparently, doesn’t want to do that. But he has a problem. He’s already supported millions in subsidies for businesses downtown, so how can he turn Kane down without it looking like he has a double standard. That he’s for subsidies downtown but no where else.

At first, the Mayor’s allies on the Council tried to get out of the corner Mr. Kane put them in by arguing that public subsidies – like Mr. Kane’s – ought only to go to businesses in blighted areas. But that won’t fly because, after all, how did subsidizing a new Marriott Hotel downtown help the poor?

Next the City Council said that before it decides on Mr. Kane’s proposal it needs to conduct a study to establish a new set of rules and policies to govern public financing of private businesses.

But, the Mayor and his allies on the City Council didn’t feel the need for a study, or new policies, when they subsidized a hotel, supermarket and restaurant downtown. The Mayor’s study is a political dodge. A nice long study gets Mayor Meeker and company off the hook. It’s a way for them to tell John Kane no without, well, really telling him no.

The bottom line for Mr. Kane is simple: He might as well give up. That study is as good as a no. For Mayor Meeker it’s better than a no. It’s a way for him to turn Kane down without having to explain why he supports subsidies for businesses downtown – but not a few miles away at North Hills.

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Mayor Meeker’s spending a billion dollars on renovations downtown, building convention centers and parking decks, subsidizing hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, and turning Fayetteville Street…back into a street. What will be the  result when he’s done?

Well, based on a story in the News and Observer, it looks like the Mayor may be creating a pretty exclusive enclave. A place most people in Raleigh can’t afford to live. The average price of a condominium – not a house, but a condominium – downtown is $345,000. There are dozens of condo’s, the newspaper reports, being built that are expected to sell for more than a million dollars.

Over 300,000 people live in Raleigh. Just 6,000 of them live downtown but they must be tickled to death with the Mayor. But the rest of the taxpayers must be asking themselves: Is Charlie Meeker the Mayor of all of Raleigh – or just downtown?

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I’m sure Carter will be fulminating here soon about the proposed public art in downtown Raleigh.

After all, he got Tom Fetzer elected mayor in 1993 partly by attacking the Time+Light Tower on Capital Boulevard.  Think what he could do with this.

But I have a different question: Why is City Manager Russell Allen suddenly making these public pronouncements about what the city should or should not do?

He did it to John Kane’s parking-bonds project.  Now he’s done it to this art brainchild of Larry Wheeler, the Art Museum Director, and Jim Goodmon, CEO of Capital Broadcasting (WRAL-TV).

Allen may be right.  But don’t Kane, Wheeler and Goodmon deserve a chance to make their case before the City Council – before Allen knifes them in the media?

I’ve seen many an unelected bureaucrat start thinking he’s the Big Shot.  Usually, some elected officer sets him or her straight. 

Will the Mayor and City Council do it here?

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Last night, I turned on the television to see what was happening in Joe Lieberman’s Senate race in Connecticut. What I ran into was a pair of talking heads: A Republican and a Democrat. The Republican said: Lieberman’s defeat proves the Democrats support terrorism. And the Democrat retorted: The war in Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism.

Now, neither of those statements is exactly true, but there is nothing new about a little hyperbole on an election night. Still, the banter demonstrates a point. Neither party is really debating its solution to the war on terrorism.

The Democrats want to run against the war in Iraq but they’re hardly saying a word about how – after they pull us out of Iraq – they will win the war on terrorism.

The Republican mantra, “stay the course,” isn’t flying too well with voters either. So they’d just as soon not mention it.

The problem is we are in a war with the terrorists and we either have to win it or make a peace that is acceptable without winning it.

But that doesn’t seem to be a debate either party wants – probably because it involves taking a big step into dangerous political waters. The shame is no leader in either party has demonstrated the courage to take that risk.

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Which will greatly dismay the political establishment.

They ask: Is it right for Connecticut Democrats to vote out a Loyal Democrat like Joe just because he voted for the war in Iraq?  Can one issue justify that?

Well, yes.

That’s what elections are supposed to be about: voters expressing their opinion.

And if Connecticut Democrats feel that strongly about the war, they ought to make that feeling known.

My guess is that they will.  Not that I have any insight into Connecticut Democrats. 

It’s just that I suspect most Democratic primary voters – like most American voters everywhere – have one big overwhelming concern now: the war.

They believe it’s a waste of American blood and American money.  And they want it stopped.

It may not be in the best long-term political interest of the party, which may suffer from being seen as an anti-war party.

But it may be in the best long-term interest of the country.

And – as the father of a 17-year-old son – I’m for doing whatever it takes to get the message to the politicians: Get out of Iraq.

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Waste management companies were well on their way to building the four largest trash dumps ever in North Carolina – mostly to hold trash from the northeast – when the State Senate passed a ‘moratorium’ to stop them dead in their tracks.

The waste companies responded with a passion after. After the bill passed the Senate, they sent a legion of lobbyists into the House to kill it before it became law. Under a sudden, unexpected, barrage of lobbying House Democrats split into three groups.

The Black Caucus, whose leaders have been supporting a dump in Brunswick County, opposed the moratorium outright. Officially, the reason given in the press is the dump is going to be built in the small town of Nevassa, which is so desperate for new revenue and jobs even becoming a dump site is appealing. Unofficially, it smells like a little ‘pay to play’ – but that is speculation. There is no proof of it.

A second group of House Democrats, led by Representatives Bill Owens and Prior Gibson (who has received contributions from waste management companies’ political committees) also supported building the dumps.

But a third group of Democrats joined with environmentalists to oppose them.

As a result, House Democrats gridlocked. After the Senate passed the moratorium, nothing happened. House Speaker Jim Black, who has his hands full with Mike Decker and his own ‘pay to play’ scandals, probably didn’t relish a fight that was going to split House Democrats. And from Black’s point of view, no matter what he did, he was going to make at least some of his Democratic allies angry. So, one way or the other, after the moratorium bill passed the Senate it was buried in the House.

What happened to break the deadlock?

First, Senate leader Marc Basnight put a lot of pressure on the House Democrats. Two of the dumps are in Basnight’s District and he was determined to get the House to pass his moratorium.

Second, days before the session ended, House Republicans met and informally agreed to support the moratorium. To Republicans, politically, it must have looked too good to be true. This fall they were gong to get to run against Democrats who had killed the moratorium and, consequently, supported turning North Carolina into a receiving ground for out-of-state trash.

After the Republicans informally endorsed the moratorium, House Democrats got the point pretty quick. They decided being the poster boys for mammoth landfills wasn’t such a good idea after all, Just before they adjourned they passed the moratorium.

This is a pretty good example of how democracy works. As long as the fight over the four waste dumps was confined to the backrooms of the State House – as long as it didn’t become a political issue outside the walls of the legislature – House leaders were free to do pretty much whatever they wanted. But once the debate became public, when the newspapers started writing about the dumps, and when it looked like Republicans might make political ‘hay’ out of them – at Democrats’ expense – this fall, everything changed. Suddenly, saving those dumps was a risk House Democrats weren’t willing to face this fall.

Environmentalists should go ahead and make the dumps an issue in the election. Eleven House members voted No to the moratorium. If voters really don’t want those dumps – and they probably don’t – they can send those legislators a message on election day.

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How’s this for a flim-flam? Roads that are paid for with gas taxes are supposed to be free. While roads that are paid for with tolls are, well, paid for at toll booths.

That’s the way it’s supposed to be. No tolls are charged on existing roads.

But it turns out the N.C. Turnpike Authority thinks taxpayers shouldn’t mind paying for the same road twice: once with their gas tax dollars and a second time at toll booths. And that’s what’s about to happen on a part of I-540 right here in Wake County.

The latest strip of I-540 to be built is paid for with gas tax dollars. But just before the Legislature adjourned the Turnpike Authority slipped a provision into a bill to make a part of that highway the only existing road in North Carolina that charges tolls. Turnpike Director David Joyner says, “This little section of I-540 brings $125 million to the table…”

All the Authority is waiting for to put up its first booth is approval from Wake County’s mayors. How much is the toll? It isn’t a quarter. It’s two dollars. Every time you drive down a highway you already paid for.

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According to an article in the News and Observer (7/19/06) big retailers – like GAP or Banana Republic – are not likely to rush to open stores downtown. Why? There are not enough people living downtown to make the stores profitable.

But the Downtown Raleigh Alliance – which serves as downtown Raleigh’s unofficial booster club – has proposed a solution. It wants banks to offer special low interest loans to businesses that open stores downtown.

Of course, if banks want to do that it’s their business. But, generally, stockholders prefer banks to make loans where they earn the best return. So is there a catch? Maybe.

The head of the Downtown Alliance, Nancy Hormann, helped organize a similar loan program in Dallas several years ago. She told the News and Observer “that program received public funding, which would greatly enhance a similar effort in Raleigh.” And, in fact, her group already has city officials studying subsidizing loans to businesses downtown.

Let’s forget, for a moment, the wisdom of the city subsidizing a store that might lose money without a low interest loan; and, let’s overlook the fairness of the City subsidizing businesses downtown to give them an advantage over their competitors at North Hills or Triangle Town Center. Instead, let’s ask a practical question:

These loans are based on a simple theory:  that downtown’s population will grow. And if it grows, in time those businesses will become more profitable. But what if downtown doesn’t grow? What if the businesses subsidized by the city don’t survive? Who gets stuck with the bill? The taxpayers ?

The Downtown Alliance ‘projects’ the population downtown is going to almost double – to 10,000 people – in just three years. Maybe, before the Mayor and the City Council start subsidizing loans, they should wait to see if that really happens.

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The State Ports Authority just took elected officials and selected ‘VIP’s’ on a cruise on a state ferry so they could watch the tall ships sail into Beaufort harbor on July 1^st. The cost to taxpayers: $28,000. (News and Observer, 7/18/06; 7/27/06)

North Carolina’s Eastern Region, an economic development group funded by taxpayers, chipped in another $2,700 to pay for liquor.

Three of Governor Easley’s Cabinet Secretaries, his chairman of the Board of Transportation and a bevy legislators went on the cruise. DOT released photographs showing the VIP’s “gazing at the tall ships, sipping beer, wine and lemonade, listening to a steel drum band” and eating “shrimp, scallops, mussels and salmon.” The photographs, the Ports Authority says, were to give to their VIP guests “as a souvenir of their once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

What was Governor Easley’s reaction? Did he remove the head of the Ports Authority, or the Secretary of Transportation, or anyone else for wasting taxpayers’ money? No. He gave them a “scolding.”

This is par for the course for Governor Easley when something goes wrong. He puts his  PR machine into high gear, dodges the fallout and does nothing. The Governor’s appointees waste thirty thousand dollars and the Governor, in effect, says, Boys, that was  real bad… don’t do it again.

This is a triumph of politics over responsibility. What matters to the Governor is dodging the political consequences, and he’s done that – instead of holding those responsible for wasting state money to a strict standard of accountability.

Ethics in state Government starts at the top and the Governor sets the standard. Is a ‘scolding’ and a public wrist slap enough for wasting $30,000 of taxpayers’ money?

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Former Republican State Representative Michael Decker says three years ago, at the IHOP in Salisbury, he made this deal with a Democratic legislator: Decker switched parties and voted for Democrat Jim Black for Speaker of the House – in return he got $50,000 and a job for his son.

Later, Decker also says, he got an envelope containing $38,000 in checks made out to his campaign and $12,000 in cash and his son got a $46,000-a-year job.

Who was the ‘unidentified Democratic legislator’ Mike Decker says he sold his vote to at IHOP?

The newspapers are making a pretty good case it was Jim Black.

Decker just pled guilty to corruption charges in federal court. He faces a five-year sentence and a $250,000 fine. The day his guilty plea was announced, a lot of Democrats in Raleigh took a big gulp and asked themselves something like this, Well, if it was illegal for Mike Decker to take $50,000 in exchange for his vote for Jim Black – does that mean whoever gave him that $50,000 broke the law too?

During the Watergate scandal, first, President Nixon dissembled, then he got caught, then the roof fell in on Republican candidates in the 1974 elections. When the smoke cleared there were a mere handful of Republicans left standing in the State House and there was only one Republican legislator left standing in the State Senate.

House Democrats have had their chance to clean up the scandals in Raleigh but they squandered it.

Last Spring, when the ‘pay to play’ scandals hit the front pages of the newspapers, House Democrats chose to turn a blind eye. Instead of cleaning up the mess, the House Democratic Caucus said everything was fine and gave Black an overwhelming vote of confidence to keep on keeping on. They must be having second thoughts now.

Since last spring, the House Democrats have been like ostriches, telling themselves the ‘pay to play’ scandals wouldn’t amount to much, that they’d blow over and go away before the election. With their campaign war chest bulging, and dwarfing anything the Republicans can spend this fall, they thought that after the storm passed they’d have more than enough money to overcome any little bit of fallout left before the election.

So, instead of real ethics reform House Democrats passed a fig-leaf bill with a high-sounding name, figuring it would give them all the political cover they needed. After Decker’s guilty plea, their fig-leaf is in tatters.

More often than not politicians deftly skirt past political quagmires like ‘pay to play’ with a clever turn of phrase or sleight-of-hand. But one of the characteristics of politics is sometimes the unexpected happens and they get caught.

The Democrats in the House are now caught. This isn’t a little scandal. It’s not going to blow over. It just exploded. And it looks like it may explode again.

This election, at least nationally, has been looking like a shoo-in for Democrats. But, by refusing to do one thing to stop the corruption in the State Legislature, the Democrats in the North Carolina House have handed Republicans a way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

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