In Praise of the Rays
Gary Pearce posted on September 30, 2011 10:03
Today this blog is Talking About Baseball. My son James and I are Tampa Bay Rays fans. We saw a lot of their players come up with the Durham Bulls. We’ve been to a couple of spring training games.
So I forgive him for calling me after midnight the other night. (One day he’ll learn why parents dread nothing more than a phone ringing after midnight.)
But it was good news. In two dramatic, last-second games – ending within minutes of each other – the Red Sox lost, the Rays won and the Rays were in the playoffs.
James figured I’d given up and gone to bed when the Rays fell behind 7-0 in the eighth inning. He was right.
How was I to know the Rays would come back to tie the game on a pinch-hit home run by a .108 hitter? With two outs and two strikes in the bottom of the ninth. And win in the 12th with a walk-off home run that hooked just inside the left-field foul pole. Or that the Red Sox – leading 3-2 in the bottom of the ninth, within one strike of a win – would lose when former Ray Carl Crawford couldn’t prevent a single.
The AP had a great account of “baseball's night to remember.” Read it here.
Baseball may not have the constant action of basketball and football. But it’s a lot like politics: endless tedium interspersed with teeth-gnashing tension, epic collapses and heart-stopping endings – the agony of defeat and the ecstasy of victory. [Click to read and post comments...]
Suspending Sanity
Gary Pearce posted on September 29, 2011 13:46
The logical reaction to Governor Perdue’s statement about suspending elections is “what was she thinking?” Fair enough.
But the really nutty statements came from what one reporter called “the black helicopter crowd.” Like:
Fox News: “NC Governor Recommends Suspending Democracy to Focus on Jobs.”
Think Progress: “North Carolina Governor Proposes Ignoring Constitution.”
Powerline: “Democrats Emerge From Closet, Oppose Democracy.” Then the lead: “How many Democrats are National Socialists at heart? Quite a few, I suspect, and every now and then the Democrats’ totalitarian urges break through to the surface.”
Of course, Fox and the right-wing websites are in the business of inflaming people. Politicians, on the other hand, need a scalpel rather than a meat cleaver in situations like this. To switch metaphors, when your opponent is shooting herself in the foot, you should stay out of the line of fire.
Pat McCrory demonstrated a certain clunkiness:
"Not only does this bizarre commentary suggest ignoring the Constitution, but does Governor Perdue forget her own inability to work with the Legislature, regardless if controlled by Democrats or Republicans? Governor, those in glass houses should not throw stones. We look forward to all of the upcoming elections in North Carolina in 2012."
Senator Phil Berger got the tone right with what seemed to be tongue-in-cheek statement: ““In light of Gov. Perdue’s support for suspending Congressional elections, I want to state clearly, on the record, that I do NOT support suspending our next gubernatorial election.”
Redistricting Karma
Gary Pearce posted on September 27, 2011 09:47
A friend who watches politics for a trade association makes an apt observation: Voters don’t always behave the way the experts expect them to.
Republicans are still celebrating their 2010 victory in North Carolina. They’re certain their redistricting schemes will give them a lock on the state for the decade – or maybe the rest of the century.
Tweet! That’s a 15-yard penalty for excessive celebration!
My friend notes that the GOP won its big majorities in districts drawn by Democrats. And a reversal could happen again – in 2012 or 2014.
Two reasons. First, North Carolina is a dynamic state. It’s growing fast, and population patterns are changing fast. Most important is the transition from a rural to urban state. Second, politics is inherently unstable and unpredictable.
Winners always assume the last election means that the voters finally have come around to their way of thinking – and will stay there forever, head over heels in love with the incumbents.
No. Instead, the politicians in power inevitably do something that makes voters mad. That’s what happened to Republicans in 2008 and to Democrats in 2010.
My guess – and it’s only that – is that the 2010 Republican wave will roll on into 2012. Republicans may win the White House, the U.S. Senate and the governor’s office.
They’ll truly be convinced then that the Millennium has arrived. They will stand like giants astride the political universe, hurling thunderbolts and indulging their every whim.
It’s the law of political karma: Every victory sows the seeds of its own defeat.
Carter Wrenn posted on September 26, 2011 17:18
Free Trade, he said, was supposed to make everyone rich. Us, the Chinese, everyone. Then Free Trade gave birth to Globalism which was to make everyone richer. But then the Greeks turned out to be spendthrifts and whoosh-bang the bottom fell out of their economy and, suddenly, instead of making us richer ‘Globalism’ had landed us on the hook for the Greeks’ debts. Because if a mob takes to the streets in Athens the shock waves rumble across the webs of Globalism to Topeka and to save some ‘global’ bank in New York or Frankfort or Paris we have to bail out Greece. Maybe, Richard said, next time some Wall Street genius says, This is a win-win, everybody gets rich – we ought to shoot him before he does any real damage.
Gary Pearce posted on September 26, 2011 09:38
Something about the combination of barbeque and politics makes political reporters salivate over writing a down-home story about how we’uns in Nawth Ca’lina don’t cotton to outsiders insulting our proud pork product.
There has been a run of these stories since news broke that Rick Perry once dismissed North Carolina barbeque as tasting like roadkill.
An interviewer asked me – in all seriousness, I think – whether that would hurt Perry in the North Carolina presidential primary.
No. If Perry gets that far, he’ll turn it into plus by eating barbeque all over the state and gushing about how he loves it now.
The real story is that we’ve identified the biggest threat to Perry’s campaign: his mouth. Every time he opens it, his poll numbers go down. I’ve heard of candidates shooting themselves in the foot, but Perry has a machine gun.
Unfortunately for Democrats, the odds are going up that the Republicans will nominate Mitt Romney, the one candidate who won’t scare the bejeesus out of voters and usher them back into the arms of President Obama.
As for barbeque and politics, we haven’t yet seen the obligatory quote from Rufus Edmisten that he would have been elected governor in 1984 if only he hadn’t said he was tired of eating barbeque.
Media alert: There are many reasons that Rufus didn’t win that year. Barbeque was the least of it.
The greatest all-time barbeque quote came from that quintessential New Yorker Jim Valvano after he was hired as N.C. State’s basketball coach and immediately hit the statewide Wolfpack Club tour. Valvano said later: “I spent my first month here going to pig-pickings. I spent the second month going to the bathroom.”
Posted in: General, North Carolina - Democrats , National Republicans , Issues Actions: E-mail | Permalink | Comments (0) | Share
Carter Wrenn posted on September 22, 2011 10:42
We’re $14 going on $16 trillion in debt, the economy’s in the tank and the only way out is to cut government spending – so it didn’t seem unreasonable to save $2.8 million by closing the 134 year old Post Office downtown (when there’s a newer Post Office a few blocks away). But not everyone agrees.
Posted in: Raleigh , Issues Actions: E-mail | Permalink | Comments (2) | Share
Gary Pearce posted on September 22, 2011 09:55
Rep. Bill Faison said out loud what Raleigh is whispering when he told WRAL’s Laura Leslie: “I certainly am aware that Perdue has her own problems, including the possibility of imminent indictments against some of her very close associates."
In Praise of the Rays
Gary Pearce posted on September 30, 2011 10:03
Today this blog is Talking About Baseball. My son James and I are Tampa Bay Rays fans. We saw a lot of their players come up with the Durham Bulls. We’ve been to a couple of spring training games.
So I forgive him for calling me after midnight the other night. (One day he’ll learn why parents dread nothing more than a phone ringing after midnight.)
But it was good news. In two dramatic, last-second games – ending within minutes of each other – the Red Sox lost, the Rays won and the Rays were in the playoffs.
James figured I’d given up and gone to bed when the Rays fell behind 7-0 in the eighth inning. He was right.
How was I to know the Rays would come back to tie the game on a pinch-hit home run by a .108 hitter? With two outs and two strikes in the bottom of the ninth. And win in the 12th with a walk-off home run that hooked just inside the left-field foul pole. Or that the Red Sox – leading 3-2 in the bottom of the ninth, within one strike of a win – would lose when former Ray Carl Crawford couldn’t prevent a single.
The AP had a great account of “baseball's night to remember.” Read it here.
Baseball may not have the constant action of basketball and football. But it’s a lot like politics: endless tedium interspersed with teeth-gnashing tension, epic collapses and heart-stopping endings – the agony of defeat and the ecstasy of victory. [Click to read and post comments...]
Suspending Sanity
Gary Pearce posted on September 29, 2011 13:46
The logical reaction to Governor Perdue’s statement about suspending elections is “what was she thinking?” Fair enough.
But the really nutty statements came from what one reporter called “the black helicopter crowd.” Like:
Fox News: “NC Governor Recommends Suspending Democracy to Focus on Jobs.”
Think Progress: “North Carolina Governor Proposes Ignoring Constitution.”
Powerline: “Democrats Emerge From Closet, Oppose Democracy.” Then the lead: “How many Democrats are National Socialists at heart? Quite a few, I suspect, and every now and then the Democrats’ totalitarian urges break through to the surface.”
Of course, Fox and the right-wing websites are in the business of inflaming people. Politicians, on the other hand, need a scalpel rather than a meat cleaver in situations like this. To switch metaphors, when your opponent is shooting herself in the foot, you should stay out of the line of fire.
Pat McCrory demonstrated a certain clunkiness:
"Not only does this bizarre commentary suggest ignoring the Constitution, but does Governor Perdue forget her own inability to work with the Legislature, regardless if controlled by Democrats or Republicans? Governor, those in glass houses should not throw stones. We look forward to all of the upcoming elections in North Carolina in 2012."
Senator Phil Berger got the tone right with what seemed to be tongue-in-cheek statement: ““In light of Gov. Perdue’s support for suspending Congressional elections, I want to state clearly, on the record, that I do NOT support suspending our next gubernatorial election.”
Redistricting Karma
Gary Pearce posted on September 27, 2011 09:47
A friend who watches politics for a trade association makes an apt observation: Voters don’t always behave the way the experts expect them to.
Republicans are still celebrating their 2010 victory in North Carolina. They’re certain their redistricting schemes will give them a lock on the state for the decade – or maybe the rest of the century.
Tweet! That’s a 15-yard penalty for excessive celebration!
My friend notes that the GOP won its big majorities in districts drawn by Democrats. And a reversal could happen again – in 2012 or 2014.
Two reasons. First, North Carolina is a dynamic state. It’s growing fast, and population patterns are changing fast. Most important is the transition from a rural to urban state. Second, politics is inherently unstable and unpredictable.
Winners always assume the last election means that the voters finally have c
ome around to their way of thinking – and will stay there forever, head over heels in love with the incumbents.
No. Instead, the politicians in power inevitably do something that makes voters mad. That’s what happened to Republicans in 2008 and to Democrats in 2010.
My guess – and it’s only that – is that the 2010 Republican wave will roll on into 2012. Republicans may win the White House, the U.S. Senate and the governor’s office.
They’ll truly be convinced then that the Millennium has arrived. They will stand like giants astride the political universe, hurling thunderbolts and indulging their every whim.
It’s the law of political karma: Every victory sows the seeds of its own defeat.
Carter Wrenn posted on September 26, 2011 17:18
Free Trade, he said, was supposed to make everyone rich. Us, the Chinese, everyone. Then Free Trade gave birth to Globalism which was to make everyone richer. But then the Greeks turned out to be spendthrifts and whoosh-bang the bottom fell out of their economy and, suddenly, instead of making us richer ‘Globalism’ had landed us on the hook for the Greeks’ debts. Because if a mob takes to the streets in Athens the shock waves rumble across the webs of Globalism to Topeka and to save some ‘global’ bank in New York or Frankfort or Paris we have to bail out Greece. Maybe, Richard said, next time some Wall Street genius says, This is a win-win, everybody gets rich – we ought to shoot him before he does any real damage.
Gary Pearce posted on September 26, 2011 09:38
Something about the combination of barbeque and politics makes political reporters salivate over writing a down-home story about how we’uns in Nawth Ca’lina don’t cotton to outsiders insulting our proud pork product.
There has been a run of these stories since news broke that Rick Perry once dismissed North Carolina barbeque as tasting like roadkill.
An interviewer asked me – in all seriousness, I think – whether that would hurt Perry in the North Carolina presidential primary.
No. If Perry gets that far, he’ll turn it into plus by eating barbeque all over the state and gushing about how he loves it now.
The real story is that we’ve identified the biggest threat to Perry’s campaign: his mouth. Every time he opens it, his poll numbers go down. I’ve heard of candidates shooting themselves in the foot, but Perry has a machine gun.
Unfortunately for Democrats, the odds are going up that the Republicans will nominate Mitt Romney, the one candidate who won’t scare the bejeesus out of voters and usher them back into the arms of President Obama.
As for barbeque and politics, we haven’t yet seen the obligatory quote from Rufus Edmisten that he would have been elected governor in 1984 if only he hadn’t said he was tired of eating barbeque.
Media alert: There are many reasons that Rufus didn’t win that year. Barbeque was the least of it.
The greatest all-time barbeque quote came from that quintessential New Yorker Jim Valvano after he was hired as N.C. State’s basketball coach and immediately hit the statewide Wolfpack Club tour. Valvano said later: “I spent my first month here going to pig-pickings. I spent the second month going to the bathroom.”
Posted in: General, North Carolina - Democrats , National Republicans , Issues Actions: E-mail | Permalink | Comments (0) | Share
Carter Wrenn posted on September 22, 2011 10:42
We’re $14 going on $16 trillion in debt, the economy’s in the tank and the only way out is to cut government spending – so it didn’t seem unreasonable to save $2.8 million by closing the 134 year old Post Office downtown (when there’s a newer Post Office a few blocks away). But not everyone agrees.
Posted in: Raleigh , Issues Actions: E-mail | Permalink | Comments (2) | Share
Gary Pearce posted on September 22, 2011 09:55
Rep. Bill Faison said out loud what Raleigh is whispering when he told WRAL’s Laura Leslie: “I certainly am aware that Perdue has her own problems, including the possibility of imminent indictments against some of her very close associates."