The week began with Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez resigning and ended with Senator Larry Craig caught in a toilet tryst.  Cheap jokes and Democratic chortling aside, there are lessons here.

 

Lesson One: Sex sells.  So Craig’s foot-tapping obscures Gonzalez’s alleged sin: perjury.  Perjury, that is, by the Number One law enforcement officer in the United States.  Perjury, as in lying to Congress.

 

Lesson Two: The Bush Administration, like Senator Craig, clearly has something to hide here.  Because Gonzalez allegedly lied about how various U.S. attorneys around the country came to be fired – and why they were fired.  And whether it was all politics from the get-go.

 

Presumably, the Bush administration believes that getting Gonzalez and Karl Rove out of town will minimize the fallout.  But congressional Democrats have other ideas.

 

Lesson Three is a repeat from my blog about our own Coy Privette here in North Carolina: Beware self-proclaimed moral leaders.  Like Privette, Craig’s bathroom adventure is just another sordid story about a sorry political hypocrite.

 

The only human charity extended to Craig, so far as I can see, is from Democrats.  Self-righteous Republicans like Mitt Romney and John McCain have already flushed him away.  The same way Republicans in North Carolina are turning on Privette.

 

The question is, what is going on with these uptight, high-and-mighty Republicans and sex?  As a political consultant, not a psychiatrist, I have no answer.

 

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In 200 years no President has ever had his legal powers taken from him. But, in addition to his legal powers, a President must also have a political mandate to govern, and a case can be made that three of the last seven Presidents lost that mandate before they left office. And George Bush may be about to make it four of eight.

 

The definition of a President’s political mandate is ephemeral. It is never clearly defined. A President does not have to be popular, or successful, or a moral paragon to maintain his mandate. Instead, it seems, after giving (by election) a President the legal power to govern the public continues to respect that right – despite his mistakes – as long as he does not egregiously violate the public trust. However, it is clear at times Presidents have lost that mandate. Richard Nixon is the clearest example. His betrayal of the public trust was so complete he could not continue to govern so he had to resign.

 

Lyndon Johnston lost his mandate (because of his ‘credibility gap’) during the Vietnam War, served to the end of his one term and went home to Texas without seeking reelection. No one questioned Jimmy Carter’s honesty, but, after the Ayatollah Khomeni humiliated his government during the Iran Hostage Crisis, issues of competence lead to his defeat by Reagan after one term.

 

President Bush has entered the same gray era as President Carter. If the surge fails his government faces being humiliated by a third world power. An article in The News and Observer a week ago – “US Out of Fresh Troops for Iraq” – quoting Army Chief-of-Staff General George Casey goes right to the heart of the Bush Administration’s dilemma. A government that starts a war, then runs out of troops has failed a pretty fundamental test of competency.

 

President Bush has staked his Administration’s future on the surge. If it fails there are no more options. There are no more troops. His failure in Iraq will echo President Carter’s in Iran.

 

President Reagan picked up the pieces after Carter and went on to win the Cold War. If the surge fails who can pick up the pieces after Bush?

 

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Developer John Kane’s back, asking the City Council to give him $75 million in public money (tax breaks) to subsidize the expansion of North Hills Mall. (I guess he’s figured out he can undercut his competitors if the city goes along with the county commissioners to allow him not to pay 75% of his property taxes for twenty years. Imagine that. Kane can sell condos, rent shops, etc., and cut the price because he won’t be paying his taxes while the guy selling condo’s down the street does.)

 

But here’s what’s really peculiar. Kane has talked the frugal, tight-fisted, free-enterprise loving Republicans on the City Council into supporting him – while the big-spending, government subsidy loving Democrats have turned thumbs down. In fact, the biggest advocate of government subsidies for private businesses in the history of Raleigh, Mayor Charles Meeker, is leading the charge to stop Kane.

 

Which has Kane puzzled. “I don’t understand why he’s attacking our project,” Kane says. “At some point we’ll have to force the issue.” (News and Observer)

 

Force the issue? Make the Mayor’s day. Charles Meeker would love to have the Republicans on the City Council voting for a $75 million subsidy before the election.

 

Speaking of Mayor Meeker, he’s got a new project. Downtown. After building a Convention Center, an underground parking deck, English style round-abouts and subsidizing restaurants and super-markets he’s going to build a skyscraper. For $90 million. To house city government. (News and Observer)

 

With all respect to the Mayor here’s a suggestion: Wait a couple of years and, if downtown Raleigh doesn’t turn into the tourist Mecca of the Southeast, move city government into the Convention Center.

 

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If you’re a taxpayer in Roanoke Rapids you’re a guarantor on the city’s $21.5 million loan to Randy Parton to build the Randy Parton Theatre. But if you want to know how your investment is doing forgetaboutit.

 

How’s attendance? Is Parton paying his $41,000 per month rent on time? Is their any money left after Parton takes the first $62,000 in revenue each month to pay his artist fee? The city won’t say.

 

But what the acting theatre manager did say about attendance (at Parton’s first show) didn’t sound too encouraging. “You’ve got to crawl before you can walk. We knew from the beginning we wouldn’t have sell-outs every night,” he said.

 

If you think about it it’s all pretty unusual. If you’re a taxpayer you’re on the hook, guaranteeing the loan whether you want to or not. If you try to find out how its doing – so maybe you can head off a disaster – you can’t. And, if it defaults, your taxes could get raised to pay it off.

 

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Say you are a candidate and need to get in step with Republican voters on immigration, because your record wasn’t quite what it should be.

 

There’s one tried and true political strategy: Find an opponent whose record is worse than yours and attack him.

 

That’s what Mitt Romney is doing – accusing Rudy Giuliani of coddling illegal immigrants (by not enforcing deportation laws) as Mayor of New York City.

 

But Romney ran into a classic problem. His past caught up with him. He forgot three cities in Massachusetts had declared themselves sanctuaries for illegal immigrants, just like New York City.

 

Giuliani’s response was swift and simple. He said Romney hadn’t lifted a finger or objected to having three sanctuaries in his own state within about an hour’s drive of Boston.

 

This is the definition of a political disaster: Mitt hits Rudy. Rudy hits back. They both lose votes from people who care about immigration. And where do the votes go? Well, maybe, Romney’s strategy wasn’t such a good one – unless he meant to help Fred Thompson.

 

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A poll last week seemed to support Karl Rove’s argument that Hillary Clinton is a “fatally flawed” candidate.  But the results may say more about how polarized voters are today.

 

The poll, by the Pew Research Center, said:

 

“Among voters of all parties with an opinion, Clinton is viewed favorably by 55 percent, the lowest of all major candidates….That includes a positive rating by just 19 percent of Republicans and 53 percent of independents -- figures that show the challenges that would await her in a general election where swing voters might be crucial.”

 

But the poll also showed that Clinton:

 

“Is viewed favorably by 88 percent of her fellow Democrats, including 38 percent with a very favorable opinion of her -- the highest rating of that intensity for any leading candidate. Such support is good news for her effort to win her party's nomination.”

 

Here’s what those results really mean: No matter who the two parties nominate for President, Democratic voters will end up hating the Republican nominee and Republican voters will hate the Democratic nominee.

 

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Hillary’s ratings have already reached that point of polarization, just because she’s well known.  If either Edwards or Obama win the nomination, they’ll end up the same way.

Rudy Giuliani has done a little lily gilding of his own, declaring in a campaign appearance he’d “been in the ruins of the World Trade Center Towers as often, if not more than the cleanup workers.”

 

Unfortunately for the Mayor that wasn’t how the workers remembered it. They complained. And the New York Times did an analysis that showed the Mayor spent twenty-nine hours at Ground Zero in the three months following 9/11 – while “most of the clean-up workers averaged 400 hours.” (News and Observer)

 

New York City firefighters have already done a video saying Rudy’s record on 9/11 is bunk. Now he’s got the clean-up workers mad at him too. This miscue probably won’t do Giuliani much harm – unless it ends up in Mitt Romney’s next TV ad. But if it does gilding the lily might turn out to be risky. The foundation of Giuliani’s campaign rests on his record on 9/11. Discredit that and his campaign collapses.

 

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It wasn’t too long ago that John Edwards running for Senate as a moderate choirboy was promising to stay above gutter politics and negative smears. By gosh, he said, he was going to keep to the high moral ground.

 

Times change. Nine years later, our choirboy has become a pit-bull attacking Hillary, Rupert Murdoch and calling Ann Coulter a “she-devil” in one breath while saying in the next that ‘people like Ann Coulter engage in hateful language.’

 

Well, it turned out attacking Hillary (for taking millions from special-interests) wasn’t such a good idea. Because someone promptly pointed out Edwards has his own-personal special interest. The Fortress Investment Group. A multi-billion dollar hedge fund. Which, after Edwards ran for Vice-President, paid him a generous $479,000 (as a part-time consultant) and whose executives have already given his campaign $150,000. Worst of all, for Edwards, it turns out his special-interest has been busy foreclosing on victims of Hurricane Katrina, selling their homes at auction.

 

How did Edwards respond to all this bad news? First, about Fortress, he said he’s shocked. Just shocked. But he’s not giving back the six hundred thousand dollars.

 

His attack on media tycoon Rupert Murdoch (who owns Fox News) backfired too. Murdoch’s response was brief. He had one of his newspapers report he had paid Edwards $900,000 – in what publishers say is a cushy deal – for his book “Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives.”

 

Edwards’ response to that wasn’t so adroit. His campaign said, in effect, it thought the agreement with Murdoch was secret and Edwards had given most of the money to charity.

 

Then Edwards’ made one last faux-pas, saying, while Obama and Hillary are only talking about ending the war, he’s ready to “immediately withdraw 40,000 – 50,000 troops from Iraq and finish a complete withdrawal of combat troops within the next year.”

 

Sounds like John Edwards is the true anti-war candidate, right?

 

Wrong. The operative word is combat. Because just withdrawing combat troops will leave up to 60,000 soldiers in Iraq. So if you want to really pull out, Dennis Kucinich is your man.

 

In politics it’s commonplace to find a candidate waving a magic wand – like Cinderella’s fairy Godmother – trying to reinvent himself. But what Mr. Edwards is learning is it matters when and where you do it. In some races, where there is not a lot of scrutiny, it works. But a Presidential election is not the place.

 

The brother of a candidate once described running for President pretty succinctly. He said, ‘First, they stand my brother up in front of the whole world, then they strip off his clothes piece by piece, then they beat the hell out of him and I guess – like trial by ordeal – in a screwball kind of way, maybe, it makes sense because if you’re tough enough to survive all that you’re probably qualified to be President.’

 

It’s hard not to conclude John Edwards’ theory of politics must owe something to the infamous ‘Rubber Man’ in the circus, who could change shapes, tie himself in knots, and bend over backwards – without breaking a sweat.

 

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I confess to not knowing much about Senator Janet Cowell from Raleigh, who wants to run for State Treasurer.

 

But she did something rare for a politician last week.  And my opinion of her immediately went sky-high.

 

She apologized.  She admitted she made a mistake.  She owned up to it.

 

And she did so in remarkably clear language.  Unlike virtually any other politician or public figure, she didn’t weasel-word.  No “mistakes were made.”  No “I regret if anyone took offense, blah, blah, blah.”

 

Instead, she admitted she had not done her homework on a bill that caused a flap about a parking deck in downtown Raleigh.  She acknowledged that she agreed to change the language without understanding what the change meant.

 

In a letter to The News & Observer, Cowell wrote:

 

“I should have insisted on time to research and analyze the genesis, scope and implications of the new bill language.”

 

She added:

 

“No matter how hectic the process, how late the hour or how human the legislator, it is the responsibility of each member of the General Assembly to have an appropriate level of understanding of any piece of legislation that we agree to sponsor. I take full responsibility for having failed to do that in this instance.”

 

Bravo.  Maybe some other public figures will learn from her example.

 

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Richard Moore’s campaign believes the fix is in for Beverly Perdue at the N.C. Association of Educators.

 

Moore sent a letter to the NCAE President asking for a delay in the endorsement in the Democratic governor’s primary.

 

A Moore aide sent me an email suggesting I blog on the matter:

 

“Given NCAE's history of endorsements…I thought you might have some thoughts on whether this is good for their organization or not.  I thought it might make an interesting blog posting given your knowledge of the Wicker endorsement. “

 

Now, that’s a sore subject.  But the writer is correct.  The NCAE endorsed my man Dennis Wicker in the 2000 primary, but Mike Easley beat us like a drum.

 

(Incidentally, I was told later that Senate leaders, who didn’t like Wicker, threatened to retaliate against the NCAE – unless they sat on their hands primary day.  Did that happen?  Well, the teachers made out better in the session than Wicker did in the primary.)

 

The Moore aide attached an analysis of NCAE’s endorsements in eight statewide elections since 1984.  NCAE-backed candidates lost seven of the eight.  Clearly, the NCAE’s support is not the be-all and end-all in an election. 

 

But, in fairness, the list is selective.  It did not, for example, mention the NCAE’s support for Jim Hunt in 1992 and 1996.  And I can tell you that the endorsement can matter.

 

In 1984, the NCAE only half-heartedly supported Jim Hunt against Jesse Helms.  They were mad at Hunt for freezing teacher salaries during a recession.  Their non-action badly hurt Hunt that year.

 

When Hunt came back in 1992, his primary opponent, Lacy Thornburg, was confident he would have the teachers.  But we worked it hard, and we surprised Thornburg and the experts by getting the endorsement.  Hunt routed Thornburg.

 

A key player helping Hunt was John I. Wilson, the North Carolinian who is president of the National Association of Educators.  And he’s supporting Beverly Perdue against Moore.

 

Whether Moore is right or not about the NCAE, I see this as another sign that his campaign is far sharper and more aggressive than Perdue’s.

Moore’s letter says:

 

"If the NCAE interviews an unannounced gubernatorial candidate who refused to participate in public campaign events, it would be a disservice to your membership and stifle open debate on issues critically important to our state's public schools.

 

"Coupled with the unusual nature and timing of this process, continuing in this manner will only give more credence to the notion that this endorsement is more about personal agendas than what best serves NCAE's membership and public education."

 

At the same time, his campaign is raising questions with bloggers like me – and presumably the press – about the political value of the NCAE.

 

All the while, Beverly Perdue seems to be running a classic cautious front-runner campaign.

 

Bottom line: I believe the NCAE endorsement can help a candidate.  But nothing helps a candidate more than a well-organized, aggressive campaign operation.  I score this one for Moore.

 

And I should add one emailed comment from a Republican friend (not Carter): “I hope they pick Perdue so she’ll lose.”

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Coy Privette has joined the dubious ranks of self-proclaimed moral leaders who got caught with their morals and their pants down.

For more than 30 years, Privette has been a blustering, bullying political presence in North Carolina.  He preached – and politicked – against sin, demon rum and the immorality of liberals and Democrats.

I first ran across him in the 70s, when he was running the Christian Action League in a last-ditch battle against liquor by the drink.  (That’s right, boys and girls, there was a time not too long ago when you couldn’t buy a mixed drink in a North Carolina restaurant.  You could take in your own bottle, buy mixers and get plastered, though.)

Oddly enough, Privette and my boss, Jim Hunt, agreed on that issue.  The Governor was never big on drinking.

Privette ran for Governor in the Republican primary in 1976, and he worried us, though he lost.  We could see, even then, the emerging power of politically active fundamentalist ministers and their flocks.  Eventually, Privette and those ministers would help Jesse Helms beat Hunt in 1984.

Personally, Privette was a likeable and friendly guy, not at all stiff and priggish.  But as a legislator and a Cabarrus County commissioner, he was a hard-core foe not only of immorality but also any progressive government programs.

Now, the Charlotte Observer reports that Privette “pleaded guilty to six counts of aiding and abetting prostitution Wednesday morning, as part of a plea arrangement that could eventually allow him to have a clean criminal record.”

The story added:

“Rowan County District Attorney Bill Kenerly said he negotiated a plea deal that will allow Privette's criminal record to be expunged if the commissioner completes 48 hours of community service and serves a year of probation. Kenerly said the deal is part of a program for first-time offenders.”

In other words, Privette is getting some of that soft-on-crime judicial treatment he always opposed.

As for being a first-time offender, Privette must be the unluckiest man on earth to get caught the one and only time he did this.

The lesson here is to be skeptical about the moral authority of self-proclaimed moral leaders.

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There is one thing on which all political consultants of all political stripes agree: the importance of perpetuating the myth of political consultants.

 

And there is one thing on which all political candidates agree: the importance of minimizing the myth of political consultants.

 

As a recovering political consultant, I consider myself an expert on both phenomena.

 

Exhibit One is the continuing commentary on Karl Rove’s legacy.  Rove is largely getting trashed – by both Republicans and Democrats.  For he committed to ultimate Political Consultant Sin in 2006: losing.

 

One of his few defenders was a Democrat, James Carville, no stranger to the ups and downs of consultant reputations.

 

Rove clearly had some skills.  He knew how to raise money.  That’s Job One in politics.  Bush won the nomination in 2000 because his fundraising blew every opponent out of the water.

 

Rove also understood the fundamental communications lesson: Keep it simple.  Rove’s 2000 message was Compassionate Conservatism, just as Carville made his name in 1992 with The Economy, Stupid.

 

In 2002 and 2004, Rove switched to a new message: Terror.  It worked.  So he stuck with it in 2006.  It didn’t work.

 

But he hasn’t completely lost his touch.  His attacks on Hillary Clinton have riled up Democrats.  They’re trying to figure out whether his comments mean that Republicans want to run against her or fear running against her.

 

As the Wizard of Oz says in the movie, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

 

The truth is, we consultants like to think we’re steering the ship. But we’re more like ants riding a log down a raging river, thinking we’re in control.  We’re not.  Events are in control.

 

The politicians we work for believe they must downplay the role of their consultants, so as not to look like manipulated dummies.  Like George W. Bush, in other words.

 

John Edwards, for example, boasts that he no longer listens to consultants.  But he’s still riding an issue today that a bunch of us consultants persuaded him to try 10 years ago, when he started running for the Senate: He pledged then not to take money from lobbyists.  Today, his main attack on Hillary Clinton is that she takes money from lobbyists.  It worked then, and it works today.

 

But, ultimately, politicians are on their own.  They get a lot of advice, and they can take it or not.  Sometimes consultants give great advice, and sometimes they bomb.  All of them do both at one time or another.

 

The best consultant comment I’ve seen came from a good one who died recently.  Michael Deaver said, “I didn’t make Ronald Reagan.  Ronald Reagan made me.”

 

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For thirty years, Republicans have been steadily gaining on Democrats in party registration. But the numbers about who’s raised what in the governor’s race tell a completely different story (News & Observer).  The two Democratic candidates have raised $8.4 million. The three Republicans have raised $500,000. Advantage to Democrats by 17 to 1.

 

The contrast is even starker when you look at the cash on hand in the campaigns: The Democrats enjoy a thirty-three to one advantage.

 

This leaves Republicans facing a harsh reality: Unless one of our candidates writes his campaign a check for, say, ten million dollars, our chances of winning the governor’s race are all but nonexistent.

 

With 35% of registered voters – and more than its share of successful businessmen – how can the candidates of the Republican Party only raise 6% of the money in the governor’s race?

 

It would be nice if it was because the Democrats have hocked, leveraged and promised away most of the assets of state government (in the form of ‘incentives,’ pension fund contracts and so on) in exchange for campaign donations.

 

But the greater question is why the Republicans running for governor have raised less money than, say, a candidate for county commissioner.

 

Raising money is the nuts and bolts of political campaigns and whatever Democrats are doing is working, and not just in the governor’s race. Hillary and Barack Obama have raised more than all eight Republican presidential candidates combined, too.

 

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Back in the days when Ronald Reagan was first running for president, trying to dethrone the Republican Establishment in the primaries in 1976 and 1980, Karl Rove – along with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld – was working the other side of the street.

 

Of course Reagan won and the Establishment, ever practical, promptly changed sides. It embraced Reagan and his platform – not sharing his convictions but adopting his rhetoric out of respect for its success at the ballot box.

 

Fast forward to the second President Bush. George W. Bush entered the Republican 2000 primaries wearing the trappings of Reagan’s rhetoric but, as a columnist noted in The News and Observer last week, Rove Republicanism wasn’t an ideology. It was a series of popular slogans. Worse, the slogans contradicted one another.

 

Reagan had tried but failed to reduce the size of government. Bush and Rove looked at that lost fight and concluded – accurately – that while Americans want lower taxes, they also want more of just about everything government does (from free prescription drugs to freer education). So, they tried to give us both. The contradiction was apparent. But the politics seemed near-perfect. At least until the war in Iraq.

 

In 2003, after 9/11, invading Iraq was popular. But only within limits. If the president had proposed a draft he’d have risked being lynched. So, the politics were simple: Short war. Small war. No pain. So that was the policy. And to limit the pain Rumsfeld whittled the invading force down from 450,000 to 250,000 men. Then the contradictions between the Bush Administration’s policy and what really needed to be done in Iraq flew home to roost. The result: It has taken longer to conquer Iraq than Nazi Germany.

 

Rove’s strong suit, his admirers argue, is politics. But his weakness is realism. He did not grasp that setting conflicting policies in motion (because both were popular) was the same as lighting the fuse to a time bomb.

 

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It’s been 60 years since both parties nominated New Yorkers for President (FDR vs. Dewey). But today, New Yorkers lead the race for both parties (Clinton vs. Giuliani).

 

I already hear the quibbling that Hillary’s no New Yorker. My position is, if they elected her to the Senate twice, she’s a New Yorker.

 

In fact, few New Yorkers have been serious contenders for President in the last six decades. Robert Kennedy? John Lindsay? Nelson Rockefeller? Mario Cuomo? Donald Trump? Too liberal, too elitist, too, well, too New York.

 

Adlai Stevenson seemed like he was from New York. John Kennedy spent a lot of time there. Nixon took refuge there between losing in 60 and winning in 68. But they weren’t the real thing.

 

So the media and political elites in Manhattan are atwitter over a Subway Election.

 

But do they really think the Southern-based Republican Party is going to nominate a pro-gay, pro-abortion, dyed-in-the-wall New Yorker who is on his third wife (and who dresses in drag)? Not unless it’s desperate, it won’t.

 

And they are prematurely awarding the nomination to Hillary.

 

How bad is this Manhattan myopia? Well, one respected North Carolina writer has pitched publishers on a biography of John Edwards. It’s a great concept: How did the son of a millworker become a contender for President of the United States?

 

But the New York literary establishment isn’t interested. They say Hillary has the race sewn up.

 

We’ll see if the New York elite has the same sure political instincts that worked so well for the last 64 years. Fortunately for Hillary, she and Bill have some real-world experience.

 

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Here’s a winner in the Lack of Self-Awareness Contest: Disgraced DA Mike Nifong, forced to give up his law license, complained about the unfairness of the legal system.

 

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Wait ‘til the blogroots get this.

 

The New York Times says:

 

“Even as they call for an end to the war and pledge to bring the troops home, the Democratic presidential candidates are setting out positions that could leave the United States engaged in Iraq for years.”

 

The Times said all three top candidates – Clinton, Obama and Edwards – have essentially said they would keep troops in the country to maintain stability and security.

 

Already, the Internet left has turned against the Democratic Congress for not ending the war today and bringing all the troops home tomorrow.

 

Will the presidential candidates face the same reaction – either now or after one of them is in the White House?

 

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John Edwards might well be the Democratic Party’s strongest candidate against any Republican in 2008. But he can’t make that argument.

 

Some Republican strategists say Edwards is their perfect nightmare: a smart, articulate Southerner who taps into voters’ anger against Bush, overzealous right-wingers and overreaching corporations.

 

But this Edwards strategy dares not speak its name. Because it implies a belief that Americans won’t elect a woman or a black male as President. At least, not Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

 

That’s the argument a respected political reporter made to me last week. Obama can’t win, he said, because he’s black and has a funny name. But a Colin Powell could be elected President. And Hillary can’t win, he said, only in part because she’s a woman. Her bigger negatives are her divisiveness and her husband.

 

But the Edwards campaign is already sensitive over the reaction to Elizabeth Edwards’ comments that – since he’s not female and not black – he’s not getting more media attention. Now they have to tread even more lightly.

 

Plus, is electability ever a winning issue? Republican moderates used to argue that Reagan was too conservative to be elected. In 1992, a lot of Democrats said a draft-dodger and rumored womanizer like Bill Clinton could never get elected.

 

Maybe this is the year when Democratic primary voters calculate electability. Or maybe they go with their hopes instead of their fears.

 

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There’s been a big flap in Washington about wiretaps. The Bush Administration wants to listen in on ‘foreign communications’ it suspects may be tied to terrorism without court orders (The New York Times, 8-4-07).

 

That sounded reasonable even to a fair amount of Democrats (who voted for it). But a lot didn’t and the usual groups, like the ACLU, are up in arms about President Bush taking away our civil liberties.

 

Now, granted when it comes to civil liberties it’s best to err on the side of caution. But in this case it looks like the politicians could have found a solution just about anyone could find reasonable – except, maybe, the ACLU.

 

It doesn’t take much common sense to see how a CIA agent chasing a terrorist – who might vanish in the next ten minutes – might not always have time to trudge over to a federal judge’s office to get a warrant to listen in on a cell phone call.

 

So fine. Let him go ahead and tap the phone. Then, for instance, why not require that the wiretap be reviewed (and a warrant issued) within, say, 48 hours? And, for that matter, why not take a few million from the billions we spend on farm subsidies and create special federal judges to issue the warrants so it can all be done quickly and secretly?

 

Then we’d have a minimal affront to our civil liberties, judicial oversight, and the terrorist’s phone would get tapped.

 

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The Democrats in Washington are thinking long term and they may have found an issue they can ride to victory after they’ve finished milking the war in Iraq.

 

They’re moving to pass retaliatory trade legislation against China.

 

For years, free trade has been a sacred cow for both Democrats and Republicans. No one seemed to be concerned about a billion Chinese, who can do anything we can do, and who’ll do it for fifty cents an hour, taking American jobs.

 

But, now, suddenly, the Democrats have discovered protectionism.

 

Experts are saying (and the Democrats are listening) that since 2000 – as free trade has boomed – American workers “have seen meager income growth” and that only “a small share of workers at the very high end has enjoyed strong growth in incomes.” (I guess they’re talking about hedge fund managers who invest in China.) And a Princeton economist, who’s a long-time free trade advocate, recently warned “modern technology and trade practices will put at risk as many as 40 million American jobs within a decade or two" (McClatchy Newspapers, 8-4-07).

 

Forty million jobs. Imagine that. Democrats may have discovered the next political tidal wave.

 

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To get the debate on the so-called ‘Transfer Tax’ out of the backrooms of the legislature and into public domain – so voters would know about the new tax on homes – the Realtors Association ran TV ads.

 

They got Governor Easley so stirred up he let fly and told legislators they had to decide whether to “stand with the realtors” or “stand with the people” to pass his tax increase (The News and Observer, 8-7-07).

 

But, even with the Governor egging them on, why on earth would  ninety-five state legislators risk voting for an unpopular tax? Because the realtors missed a key point. They told people the tax was bad but they didn’t tell them who was voting for it.

 

And if you’re a state legislature what your constituents know – and don’t know – makes all the difference.

 

The Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU) went much further than the realtors in its ads. SEIU spent $650,000 in 18 legislative races in 2004 and they had no qualms about naming names. They did it again in 2006. And in between dove into Raleigh’s city elections to boost Mayor Meeker and his allies.

 

The SEIU’s wants to increase its membership by representing municipal and state employees in North Carolina and they elected eleven of their allies.

 

Next time the realtors decide to run ads they ought to take a lesson from SEIU.

 

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While John Edwards and Hillary and Barack Obama are running around the nation deploring the greed of corporate CEOs, North Carolina State Senate kingpin Tony ‘The Fixer’ Rand is helping the CEOs.

At the end of the legislative session Senator Rand slipped through a bill to give Goodyear Tire and Rubber $40 million in “incentives” from the state (The News and Observer, 8-4-07).

Now, the state has given hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives to Google and Dell and others to bring jobs to North Carolina. (Or, at least, that’s the theory.)

So how many jobs will Goodyear create for $40 million? None. All it has to do is keep its factory in Senator Rand’s district (after a bit of retooling subsidized by taxpayers courtesy of the Senator).

How did this strike Bridgestone/Firestone, Goodyear’s competitor which employs 2200 people in Wilson?

“We’re disappointed,” their spokesman, Dan McDonald, said.

I guess so. Firestone probably never counted on competing with a $40 million subsidy from North Carolina taxpayers.

 

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Governor Easley’s spokesman said the Governor plans to spend this month reading all the bills enacted by this year’s legislature and deciding whether to sign them or veto them.

 

For which he can thank my old boss Jim Hunt.

 

Jim Hunt first took office as Governor 30 years ago this year – in 1977. Back then, the Governor had no veto power. North Carolina was the only one of the 50 states without the gubernatorial veto. And the Governor could run for only one four-year term.

 

His first year in office, Governor Hunt passed a gubernatorial-succession amendment. How? By not repeating the mistake other Governors made. They all, trying not to look too ambitious, said they supported succession, but only for their successors, not for themselves.

 

Not Hunt. He said it would apply to him. So all of his supporters around the state – who wanted another four years in power – worked for the amendment. And it passed.

 

Hunt didn’t get the veto until his third term. And only after Republicans won a majority in the House. House Democrats had always opposed the veto. Republicans had supported it since Jim Martin, a Republican, had been in office. So when Republicans took the House, Hunt took them up on it. The veto passed in 1997.

 

But Hunt never used the veto as Governor. He didn’t need to. The threat was enough.

 

Governor Easley has used it. And, given his unwillingness to personally lobby legislators, he needs it. He should raise a toast to his predecessor.

 

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I’ve got to – for once – agree with Gary. The most feared name in Democratic politics today is Joe Sinsheimer.

 

There’s no substitute for good research and Mr. Sinsheimer’s carving out a niche all his own. His particular bone of contention is corruption. How effective is he? Ask Jim Black, Rep. Thomas Wright and Rep. Mary McAllister. All are involved in scandals Sinsheimer’s exposed. He’s a one-man clean-up government crusade. And he’s struck again. Filing a new complaint with the State Board of Elections.

 

A few years ago, South Carolina banned video poker which left thousands of video poker machines looking for a new home in North Carolina. Not much later the North Carolina Amusement Machine Association (translation: The Association of Video Poker Operators) gave $30,000 to a national Democratic political committee (the DLCC) led by none other than Jim Black. (The donation came within weeks of video poker lobbyist Don Beason’s $500,000 loan to Black.)

 

Sinsheimer’s question is simple. Why would North Carolina video poker operators spend $30,000 to elect Democrats in other states?

 

His answer is they didn’t. That the national Democratic committee “washed” the corporate contribution and the money ended up in Jim Black’s campaign and the House Democratic Caucus.

 

One more fact from Mr. Sinsheimer: Around the same time a bill was introduced in the State Senate to ban video poker here. It passed in the Senate then died in the House.

 

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Here’s a story about how democracy works that’s a far cry from what they teach in high school civics class.

 

Two years ago, three big waste management corporations decided to build mega-garbage dumps here in North Carolina. Not for garbage from North Carolina. But for garbage from Massachusetts and New York.

 

They promoted their idea by saying garbage from New York and Massachusetts was a golden economic opportunity. Mega-dumps, they said, were just the boost our economy needed. (Environmental groups would later say that what the waste management companies really liked about North Carolina was our environmental regulations, which are more lax than New York’s.)

 

At any rate, the waste companies got off to a strong start and persuaded local politicians in three poor rural counties to give their blessings to huge dumps. Then they applied to the state for permits. And hit a snag. By then word had gotten around about just how big these dumps really were. And legislators got the willies. Not the environmental willies. The political willies. Because they’d started hearing from constituents who didn’t really believe New York trash was going to be a golden economic opportunity.

 

In short order the legislature passed a moratorium and told the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources not to grant any permits for a year.

 

That started a grand brouhaha.

 

The folks at DENHR (who regulate dumps) are polite, well-intentioned, and, more often than not, dyed in the wool environmentalists. They promptly went to work on a new set of regulations for mega-dumps and came up with a bill that was an environmentalist’s dream and a waste management CEO’s worst nightmare. Among other things the environmentalists at DENHR proposed – horror of horrors – to hold investors in the dumps liable for leaks, spills, or other environmental disasters.

 

The waste companies’ response was swift and lethal. They hired a legion of lobbyists to kill the bill.

 

The first shots were fired in the State Senate and the lobbyists were taking no prisoners. They stripped the provisions out of the bill that prohibited building mega-dumps in flood plains. (You have to wonder why anyone would want to build a trash dump in a flood plain but one company did.) Then they threw out restrictions that limited building dumps in wetlands. Then they went to work on getting investors off the hook. They carved the bill to pieces then just when they must have thought there was a light at the end of the tunnel the Democratic leaders in the State Senate threw them a curveball. The Senate leaders said there was one thing they just couldn’t compromise on. They couldn’t let a waste company build a mega-dump beside a wildlife refuge. And no matter what the lobbyists did the Senate leaders wouldn’t budge.

 

Now if it sounds strange that a politician would say it’s okay to build a waste dump in a flood plain but not next to a duck impoundment, well, there turned out to be a reason.

 

Senate Leader Marc Basnight’s cohorts brought the bill to the floor for a vote – and they must not have been able to believe their eyes.

 

The Senate Republicans proceeded to make Democrats – who’d agreed to let waste companies build dumps in flood plains – look like environmental heroes. The Republicans weren’t quite this blunt but, in effect, they threw open their arms and welcomed New York trash to North Carolina and said dumps ought to be built in flood plains and next to wildlife refuges and just about anywhere else.

 

The Democrats didn’t waste time looking a gift horse in the mouth. In about five minutes they rolled over Republicans and passed their bill.

 

Then the dump lobbyists left the Senate and paraded over to the House to, essentially, get House Democrats to do what Senate Republicans had failed to do. Get rid of those pesky wildlife refuges.

 

Democratic Rep. Pryor Gibson (who got into a spot of trouble last year for accepting contributions from waste management executives while pushing a bill to help build dumps) lead the charge. The House Democrats gutted the Senate bill so completely one stunned State Senator said, “Is there anything left besides the title?” About the only thing in that bill environmentalists liked was the House agreed to extend the moratorium one more year.

 

But that didn’t last long. Next the House proposed to do away with the moratorium too. (Later, they put it back in a third bill.)

 

By then North Carolina’s environmental groups were scratching their heads, wondering what had happened to the leading environmentalist in the State House, Joe Hackney. Speaker Hackney didn’t seem concerned at all that the House had gutted the Senate bill.

 

As it turned out he had a plan of his own.

 

Then when the “Conferees” from the two chambers sat down to reconcile the House and Senate bills and hammer out a compromise a strange thing happened.

 

The House “Conferees” – appointed by Speaker Hackney – decided they preferred the Senate bill to the House bill. In the blink of an eye they sent the Senate version back to the House for a final vote, where – for technical reasons – it could not be amended. That left House Democrats a harsh choice: They could vote for the Senate bill or they could vote against it (and give the waste management companies free reign to build dumps just about anywhere they wanted). There wasn’t much doubt how Democrats would vote on that. The House passed the Senate bill.