VA problems a political issue in military-rich North Carolina

Featured at The Washington Post

Very few issues can bring contentious Democrats and Republicans in the North Carolina general assembly together. But this week, marking national military appreciation month, a joint resolution expressing gratitude and appreciation for “the men and women of the United States armed forces” won unanimous support.

Those men and women and their families are important constituents and the military ranks as a major economic driver in a state with, as the resolution mentioned, six major military bases, nearly 800,000 veterans, and the third largest military force in the country, with close to 120,000 active duty personnel and another 12,000 members of the North Carolina National Guard.

So the current investigation of allegations of slow wait times and false record-keeping at the VA that is being closely watched all over is of special interest in North Carolina. In the midst of a tight U.S. Senate race, it’s inevitable politics as well as concern would be part of the reaction.

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May232014 TAGS: , , , , , , ,

Insight in the Race Between Hagan and Tillis

Featured at WCCB Rising


 

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — WCCB’s political contributor, Mary C. Curtis, has been watching the race develop between Senator Kay Hagan and State House Speaker Thom Tills.

The Republican effort to unseat Senator Hagan will kick into overdrive leading up to the November election.

Tillis is the man the party hopes can make it happen. Curtis gives us some insight on the race.

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May072014 TAGS: , , , ,

Breaking Down Tuesday’s U.S. Senate Seat Competition

Featured at WCCB Rising

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Political Contributor, Mary C. Curtis, sets the stage for Tuesday’s U.S. Senate Seat competition.

Republicans across the country are keeping a close eye on North Carolina’s Republican Primary for the U.S. Senate.

Eight candidates in the race could make it tough for Kay Hagan to get the 40 percent plus one amount of the vote needed to win the race and avoid a runoff.

Curtis helps us understand and breaks down the race.

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May062014 TAGS: , , ,

Will more ‘Moral Monday’ protests affect the North Carolina Senate race?

Featured at The Washington Post

an anything upset the script of the 2014 U.S. Senate election in North Carolina, as it’s now being written? It may depend on whether a 2014 renewal of the “Moral Monday” coalition and an accompanying voter registration effort will increase dissatisfaction with the state’s rightward legislative shift and motivate enthusiasm for the Democratic incumbent.

Because of diverse opposition to issues that range from a refusal of the Medicaid expansion to education cuts to limits on unemployment benefits to new voting rules now being fought in the courts, the nationalized partisan voting trends hardening in a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll may not be as firm in North Carolina.

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May022014 TAGS: , , , , ,

Olympia Snowe, on compromise, Citizens United and former colleague Kay Hagan

Featured at The Washington Post

CHARLOTTE – Olympia Snowe made her case for a return to governing from the “sensible center,” and she did it with conviction. But while the audience was both loud and supportive at a women’s summit in Charlotte, no one – and that includes the former Republican U.S. senator from Maine — thought it would be easy.

Snowe was considered moderate in her approach and her politics when she decided not to run for a fourth term in the Senate in 2012. How bad had it gotten? Republicans and Democrats honored her at separate celebrations, a departure from the past. “It’s not even bipartisan today to say goodbye,” she said. Snowe lamented as a “tragedy” elected officials “surrounded by all this history but not inspired by it.”

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Apr142014 TAGS: , , , ,

A bipartisan time-out? Women honor women in North Carolina

Featured at The Washington Post

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Perhaps it was the spirit of Liz Hair presiding over the mix of good will and determination Wednesday evening at the annual A Woman’s Place program that has honored the achievements of Charlotte women since 1955. Hair, a pioneer for women in politics and community activism, died at her home earlier that day at the age of 94, and her life – as well as her mantra “let’s make policy, not coffee” — was mentioned as inspiration by many in the bipartisan group of women.

Honored as 2013 Charlotte Woman of the Year was Patsy Kinsey, a Democratic city council member elected by her colleagues to complete the term of Anthony Foxx when he became U.S secretary of transportation. Delivering the keynote was Sharon Allred Decker – a 1998 Woman of the Year – the state’s secretary of commerce for Republican Gov. Pat McCrory. Hair was honored in 1975.

Problem solving, not party difference, was the evening’s theme — not that you can take politics completely out of the conversation. This is North Carolina, where incumbent U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, a Democrat, is working on a variety of economic, military and other issues, while shoring up a coalition that will need to include women of all parties if she is to win re-election.

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Mar222014 TAGS: , , , , , , ,

Will rightward moves by GOP prove tricky or do the trick in North Carolina?

Featured at The Washington Post

The 2014 midterm election is already shaping up as a litmus test for the political state of the state. With voters angry at different faction for different reasons, politicians from both parties calibrate their messages with care.

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Mar122014 TAGS: , , , , , , ,

Clay Aiken is officially a candidate. And he thought ‘American Idol’ was rough

Featured at The Washington Post

“I’m not a politician,” says Clay Aiken in the video announcing his candidacy for a U.S. House seat. “I don’t ever want to be one. But I do want to help bring back, at least to my corner of North Carolina, the idea that someone can go to Washington to represent all the people, whether they voted for you or not.”

What is very clear in the compelling, nearly five-minute video released Wednesday, is that Aiken seriously wants to be the Democrat on the fall ballot facing Republican Rep. Renee Ellmers in North Carolina’s 2nd District. And though an Aiken win in the conservative district has to be considered a long shot, and he hasn’t even made it past the primary, the 35-year-old reintroducing himself and making his case wants you to know that he’s more than an “American Idol” runner-up.

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Feb052014 TAGS: , , , , ,

Could NAACP leader and black GOP senator find common ground?

Featured at The Washington Post

In the bipartisan effort to strengthen the Voting Rights Act of 1965, key parts of which were eliminated by the Supreme Court last year,  Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and the Rev. William Barber, head of the North Carolina NAACP, would likely find themselves on opposite sides.

And that’s just if the debate were strictly political. Now, it has gotten personal, with Barber’s recent remarks about the tea party-backed Scott, the only black Republican in Congress, causing both sides to retreat to established positions and preconceptions.

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Jan272014 TAGS: , , , , ,

President Obama may hit political turbulence in North Carolina visit

Featured at The Washington Post

When President Obama visits North Carolina in a planned stop in the Research Triangle on Wednesday, it won’t be the first time a trip to the state coincided with his State of the Union address. Last year, a visit to the Asheville area followed the event; Wednesday, the president is expected to preview economic policy at N.C. State University in Raleigh before his Jan. 28 speech. Are there politics involved? The answer, as always, would be yes.

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Jan132014 TAGS: , , , , ,
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