Speaker 1: What's going on?
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It
is heard live every day from noon to three on
WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content
like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily
show prep with all the links, become a patron, go
to dpeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button.
Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet.
And again, thank you so much for your support. Want
to welcome back to the program Andrew Dunn. He is
the publisher of long Leaf Politics. Longleafpol dot com.
Speaker 1: Is the website.
Speaker 2: He's also a newly minted contributing columnist to The Charlotte
Observer and The News and Observer. I have no idea
how he landed that. Andrew, Welcome to the program, Sarah,
how are you doing today?
Speaker 3: I'm doing great. It's fantastic to be back here with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, congrats on the contributing columnist position with McClatchy.
Speaker 1: Is that the first?
Speaker 2: Are you the first conservative columnist or the only on
as a contributor over there?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: I'm definitely not the first, but I might be the
first to kind of have a long term, steady gig
over there. They've gone kind of back and forth. I know,
you know Matthew rd Noower, former county commissioner, used to
write some stuff for him. But no, I'm loving it.
It's great to be able to add some sanity to
those pages.
Speaker 2: So, and it's how have you been received? As far
as you can tell over there, Like by the readership.
Speaker 3: I think it's gone really well. Everything they're telling me
is that it's well read. I think there's a hunger
in this community. There's a lot more conservatives around here
than people think, and so there's a hunger for that
type of writing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and look, I've said for years, unchallenged ideas are
easy to hold, and I feel like a lot of
publications that lean left and they don't allow this kind
of examination of ideas, they get intellectually flabby. And then
they are actually doing themselves and their readers of disservice
because they don't know the arguments anymore, they don't have
to make the arguments, and they're not even aware of
what any kind of counter argument might be.
Speaker 1: So god speed to you, sir.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree one hundred percent with that.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, it's so easy to get into your bubble
where you're only reading one particular viewpoint, So it's good
to wake people up sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you had an interesting piece the other day.
Speaker 2: I want to start with Jeff Jackson aka Baby Jesus,
which I'm glad you made reference to that in your
piece as well. It's still the most hilarious nickname that
I've heard for a politician. But you talk about Jeff
Jackson treating the Attorney General's office in the state like
a networking event. So what do you mean by that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, what I mean by that is is I think
going into the race, everyone assumes that Attorney General Jeff
Jackson that that wouldn't be his final stop, that he
is going to run for governor one day or Senate,
because he's certainly made it clear that those are his aspirations.
But there's kind of a unspoken agreement that when somebody
gets elected to a new new office, that they need
to at least pretend to take the new job seriously.
And what I'm seeing from Attorney General Jackson is he's
he seems to be spending a lot more of his time,
or at least a lot more of what he's putting
out into the public on some of these hot button
national issues, especially you know, the consortiums of Democrats attorneys
general around the country who are suing to block the
Trump administration. I mean, I think in the first month
and a half, two months of office, you've seen one
press release from the AG's office on you know, keep
being a bad guy in jail and seven eight, nine
ten about Doge.
Speaker 2: Right, and the North Carolina GOP actually sent out a
tweet along a similar line talking about how Jackson has
made only one announcement relating to violent crime, and that
was that a plea deal was reached in an Ashville
murder from twenty twenty two.
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, so yeah, that's exactly I think that
you've probably had it in front of you.
Speaker 3: That's exactly what I'm talking about. I mean, that's what
you want an Attorney General's office to be focused on.
There's plenty of actual important needs right here at home
in North Carolina. It's really not useful to have an
Attorney general who's focused on these national, national issues.
Speaker 2: You said in one part of this piece that North
Carolina voters didn't elect an Attorney general to be a
national Democratic surrogate. But did they Maybe maybe that is why,
like particularly Democrat voters may have you know, gone in
with eyes wide open. This is what they want their
you know, TikTok star to do, perhaps.
Speaker 3: And I think there is some segment of the population
that wants that. But you know, a lot of these
statewide races are one on the margin, they're won by
unaffiliated voters. And I don't want to take anything away
from from Jeff Jackson. I mean, he's a very talented politician.
He's by far, in my estimation, the best communicator in
North Carolina politics. He does a great job of laying
out the issues and what he's working on. But I
think the segment of voters who put him over the
top were folks that were that were hoping that he
would apply that to the actual Attorney general's job.
Speaker 2: You also offer some advice on how Republicans can can
combat him basically and hold him accountable. What's your what's
your advice your strategy advice there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean my main point is Republicans in North Carolina,
in my view, kind of have the bad habit of
if they lose a race or if they see something
they don't like, then to immediately start trying to pass
the bill to take back that power. And I think
it's short sighted. I think it relies on the assumption
that Republicans will never win these offices ever again, and
I think that's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy. What
I would recommend is assume in four years that you're
going to have a Republican in that office, and give
the office the resources and the powers that it needs
to have, you know, in the meantime, while while we
have a Democrat in the office, I think that Republicans
should focus on just consistently making the case, you know,
as you are seeing them do, that he has the
wrong priorities.
Speaker 2: Let me shift to a piece I guess this was
published today right North Carolina's fiscal cliff. You say it's
a scare tactic, and anybody who's paid attention to North
Carolina General Assembly budget politics for you know, the anytime
within the last I don't know what fifteen years, it's
it's the same old refrain, you know, predictions of doom
and gloom and catastrophe if the Republicans you know, do
whatever you know they want to do or have planned
to do, and then it never materializes. And so yet
again here we have, you know, Governor Josh Stein warning
of a looming fiscal cliff in twenty twenty six, and
I thought this was interesting. You say, this isn't a
budget crisis, it's a spending debate.
Speaker 1: So what did you mean by that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, fiscal cliff is kind
of a misnomer. That's the talking point that's been going
around in democratic circles, and I don't think it comes
anywhere close to describing what's actually going on. You know,
just to step back briefly, you know, ahead of every
budget cycle, the you know, the governor's administration and the
general assemblies experts, they come together and they put together
a prediction of what they think state tax revenues are
going to look like over the next couple of years.
And what they're saying this year is that, you know,
this year, we're running a five hundred million dollars surplus.
Next year revenue will still go up again. But then
the following year, so this is two years from now,
they're predicting that overall revenue will go down a little bit. Now,
this isn't a shortfall or anything. Like that because that
year hasn't even come close to being budgeted yet. But
you know, it does make things a little bit more
challenging if you are dealing with an actual revenue decline.
I means you have to make some cuts or change
some of your assumptions related to your baseline budget. I'm
skeptical that that's actually going to come to pass. I
looked at the two year out predictions for the last decades,
and they have never come anywhere close to what the
reality was two years later when that year actually came around.
And in one case, it was almost a twenty percent difference.
That North Carolina brought in twenty percent more tax revenue
than was initially predicted. And you know, while that doesn't
sound like a lot when you're talking about a you know,
a thirty five billion dollar budget, twenty percent of that
I can't do math live on the radio, but it's
a lot of money. It's billions and billions of dollars.
So one, it's very premature for Governor Stein and other
Democrats to go out and say, hey, we need to
you know, this is an emergency, we need to do
something about it. You know, what they're really doing is
a political game to try to get Republicans to go
back on the tax rate decreases that are scheduled to
go into effect. And I think it's shortsighted. I think
the General Assembly has done a really good job of
planning for these tax rate decreases. They've always been predicated
on hitting certain targets and tax revenue with the understanding
that government does have a role and it does need
some money. And so they've crafted these tax decreases to
make sure that we're still able to do what we
need to do for that.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: And so while Andrew does not do math live on
the radio, he does it in the piece at the
Charlotte Observer.
Speaker 1: You can read it.
Speaker 2: It's called North Carolina's fiscal cliff is just a scare
tactic from Democrats. And we'll talk with you next week. Andrew,
thanks a lot. I appreciate it, and we'll talk next week.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: All right. So, yeah, that's Andrew Dunn.
Speaker 2: He is also the publisher of long Leave Politics, formerly
of the Dan Forrest Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest campaign and administration.
So we'll have him back on next Tuesday in a
regular segment. Here's a great idea How about making an
escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western
North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and
Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary,
a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal,
or get family in friends together for a big old reunion.
Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where
you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things
that truly matter. Nestled within the breath taking fourteen thousand
acres of the Pisga National Forest, their cabins offer a
serene escape in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Centrally located between Ashville and the entrance of the Great
Smoky Mountain National Park. It's the perfect balance of seclusion
and proximity to all the local attractions with hot tubs, fireplaces,
air conditioning, smart TVs, Wi Fi, grills, outdoor tables and
your own private covered porch. Choose from thirteen.
Speaker 5: Cabins, six cottages, two villas, and a great lodge with
eleven king sized bedrooms. Cabins of Ashville has the ideal
spot for you for any occasion, and they have pet
friendly accommodations. Call or text eight two eight three six
seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is
to offer at cabins Offashville dot com and make memories
that'll last a lifetime.
Speaker 2: Let me go back to this North Caroline on a
Republican Party tweet that they sent out. This was I
think yesterday they sent this out. And Andrew wrote the
piece about Jeff Jackson, our attorney general, using his office
as a networking event. So the GOP says that Attorney
General Jackson was sworn into office nearly two months ago.
He has made just one announcement relating to violent crime,
which was a plea deal in a twenty twenty two
Ashville murder. By contrast, he has made five separate announcements
criticizing President Trump and Doge. It's clear Jeff Jackson cares
more about preening for the liberal media and bolstering his
out of state liberal donor network than doing his job
and keeping North Carolina family safe. He should just be
honest about it. This is something also that Andrew Dunn
in his column touches on as well. He says the
Attorney general's role in theory is to run the state's
Department of Justice, prosecuting criminals, managing the state crime lab,
training law enforcement. But in practice, attorneys general can take
different approaches. They can focus on protecting state interests, or
they can they can go looking for fights, and Jackson
has chosen the latter. And this actual this actually prompted
a North Carolina state representative named Mike Sheetzelt, who said, uh,
he said, he agrees with everything in this column that
Andrew wrote, but he says he quibbles over one point,
which is that Jackson doesn't go looking for fights. He
signs on to other people's work to raise his national profile,
which I think is I think that's accurate, right, because
he didn't like, he's not taking the lead on this
with all of these other Democrat states attorney general states
attorneys general, right, he just is piggybacking onto their work
like they're already doing something, and he'll be like, yeah,
sign me up for that, and then he can put
out TikTok videos about it and stand next to people
at press conferences. And by the way, that is also
a tactic that was used quite effectively by Barack Obama
when he was a US Senator. I covered this at
the time when he was running in two thousand and eight,
which was he had a bit of a reputation as
like the new guy who shows up. And the one
story was that he literally joined some US senators on
their way to a news conference and he just kind
of tagged along with them and stood next to them,
and then you know, was claiming all sorts of credit
for some bill and that's it. And he got the
reputation in the state, I believe it was in the
state legislature where he was like a one termer there,
and there were some other longtime, you know, veteran Democrat
lawmakers who said they didn't appreciate the fact that he
would come in and after you know, the team had
driven the ball ninety nine yards to the other side
of the field, they would, you know, hand it off
to Obama and he would you know, get the one
yard and spike the ball and get all the credit.
They weren't very happy with them doing that either, And
I wonder if that's kind of the model that Jackson
is using now. Jackson, as Andrew Dunn says, is not
the first to use this office in this way. Josh
Stein did it, and before Josh Stein, Roy Cooper did
it right. Cooper spent twenty years as Attorney general. Stein
lasted two terms, so four year terms, so two of
those eight years. Jackson might not make it through two
years before running for US Senate and maybe even president.
But this is how Democrats in North Carolina have maintained
control over this office and the governor's office. All right,
if you're listening to this show, you know I try
to keep up with all sorts of current events, and
I know you do too, And you've probably heard me
say get your news from multiple sources. Why well, because
it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've
been so impressed with ground News. It's an app, and
it's a website, and it combines news from around the
world in one place so you can compare coverage and
verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground,
dot news slash pete. I put the link in the
podcast description too. I started using ground News a few
months ago and more recently chose to work with them
as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how
stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature
shows you which stories get ignored by the left and
the right.
Speaker 1: See for yourself.
Speaker 2: Check dot Ground, dot news us slash pete. Subscribe through
that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription.
I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to
every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast,
but it also supports Ground News as they make the
media landscape more transparent. Andrew Dunn and his piece over
at the Charlotte Observer. In his op ed the other day,
he says North Carolina Democrats have maintained control of the
Attorney General office and the Governor's office in the manner
in the way, employing a strategy that Jeff Jackson is
now obviously using. Even as Republicans have built legislative supermajorities.
Candidates with star power do not just emerge. They methodically
build name recognition, fundraising networks, and relationships within the party
right and that goes for both parties. We covered last week.
I believe it was data that was compiled by the
Carolina Journal that found somewhere in the neighborhood of like
seventy or eighty percent of all of the donations that
went to Josh Stein in his run for governor came
from out of state. And that's how Democrats have been winning.
They've been raising boatloads of money from predominantly out of
state donors. And this is why same thing with the
attorney general, right, you raise all of this money from
out of state, and this is why we are seeing
Jeff Jackson's focus on these national lawsuits against Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think these dots are pretty close together
and pretty easily connected with a straight line, right, as
two dots usually are. I mean, if you're trying to
be the most direct. So it's clear to me, like
this is the payoff. This is the reason why they
gave him all the money, and this is him making
good on that promise. Whether he made it, you know,
explicitly or not, does not matter one wit to me.
The point of having a Democrat attorney general is to
get another state to sign on to your lawsuits against
Donald Trump. If Republicans want to hold him accountable, they
need a better strategy than simply trying to strip.
Speaker 1: Power away from the office.
Speaker 2: And Andrew went over the details on how he thinks
they should do that. Just you know, keep calling attention
to what Jackson is doing. And you know, I certainly do.
And you know, every time Jackson signs on to one
of these lawsuits, I make a point of noting it.
I wasn't even aware that he did a press release
that actually had to deal with crime. You know, it's
it's all just Orange Man bad. But again, that's what
the donors gave him the money to win for, so
he is fulfilling the wishes of his donors. Done also
had the second piece here that that we covered a
little bit called the North Carolina fiscal cliff, is a
scare tactic that Josh Stein is using, and I do
have some of the math here, so he's Andrew talked
about how you know they do these budget projections, these
revenue projections, I should say, and you know, the legislature
does its budgeting on two year cycles.
Speaker 1: They call them a biennium.
Speaker 2: And so the first year, which is the long session,
the second year is a short session for the legislature.
And we're in the long session right now, so they're
going to be doing their budget and once they lock
in that budget, then that's the two year budget and
then they'll come back next year on the short session
and just make any adjustments that may need to be
made so this projection of revenue in another two years, right,
So getting through this budget cycle and then projecting out
what the revenue is going to look like in twenty
twenty seven, that's a difficult thing to do. And as
Andrew noted, and as he did in his math here,
he says, every time the forecasts of disaster, or every
time the forecasts of disaster have failed to materialize, And
he says, I sorted through the last decade's worth of
forecasts that came from the Office of State Budget and
Management and paired them with the actual result. It showed
that nearly every early revenue forecast, every early revenue forecast
in the past decade, has come in short. It underestimated
the actual collections, sometimes by as much as eighteen percent.
But all along, every year, every time, the Democrat narrative,
which is always amplified by the media, is always the same,
the same doomsday warnings, right, the same predictions of catastrophe,
and they never materialize. Yet they keep making the argument.
I guess maybe at some point the stopped clock will
be correct. And maybe at that point they'll say say,
we told you, you know, I don't know. They haven't been
correct yet but they still get treated as if their
predictions have value. It is the most infuriating thing for
me every single budget cycle. You will see it again
this cycle too. I have no doubt they will quote
some quote expert from the North Carolina Budget and Tax
Center I think is what they're called.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think they changed their name at some point over
the last decade. And every year, this leftist think tank,
funded by the usual suspects in our North Carolina left
wing funding apparatus, right the Blueprint and Sea crowd. Every
year they make the same prediction that we're gonna go,
you know, to this catastrophe. We're gonna go bankrupt. We're
not gonna have any money for anything. And he points
out and correctly so Roy Cooper, my good friend Ray.
The entire eight years he was governor, he was always
trying to raid the reserve funds. Right, the Republicans have
been funding money, putting it aside in the rainy day
fund for emergencies. And you put it in there and
you don't touch it, particularly you don't touch it for
ongoing expenses. That is a recipe for bankruptcy. The point
of the reserves is to put it aside, so it
doesn't get touched unless something catastrophic happens, and then you've
got the money to shore up something or to respond
to a disaster, for example. And Roy Cooper has constantly
tried to raid that fund. And then, of course, after
Hurricane Helene, what does he say, we need to take
the money from the fund and use it for Helene
recovery because that's what it's for. Well, yes, that's what
it's for. But you have been trying to raid it,
and if you had your way, there'd be no money
in it whatsoever. Right, a decade later, after Republicans got
into power and they began implementing their tax reform, which
was supposed to lead to catastrophe, we have seen the
most successful economic stretch in the state's history. Andrew Dunn continues,
the real disagreement here is about political philosophy. Democrats don't
seem to get this, but budget surpluses are not actually good.
They're not good. I mean, it's preferable than a deficit,
don't get me wrong, but it means you took too
much money than what you had budgeted for. You took
too much money from your citizens. That's why Republicans when
they end up with the surpluses, they try to give
them back. Actually, at the beginning they were cutting checks
and then they put it into the Rainy Day Fund.
So Andrew says, instead of debating whether the state collects enough,
the focus should be on whether the money is used strategically.
He talks about teacher pay, talks about state infrastructure, roads
and bridges and such as well as court system backlogs.
I think that is a key. I think Republicans are
missing a real opportunity here to put more money into
the court system that will help to make communities safer.
Speaker 1: But we'll see.
Speaker 2: You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense
of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the
people of our past while transcending generations. They help us
process the meaning of life. And our stories are told
through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video
started in nineteen ninety seven and Mint Hill, North Carolina.
It was the first company to provide this valuable service,
converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows,
videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at
Creative Video will go over all of the details with
you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them
off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in
a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones,
videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays,
or just your family stories, all told through images. That's
what your photos and videos are. They are your life
told through the eyes of everyone around you and all
who came before you, and they will tell others to
come who you are. Visit creative video dot com. So
one other piece though, it's over at Longleaf Politics again
the website Longleaf Pol longleafpol dot com. And that's Andrew
Dunn's website, and he talks a little bit about some
of the people behind the scenes and some of these
names you may know or have heard, but they're these
are important names to keep in mind when you're talking
or thinking about North Carolina politics. Obviously, over on the left,
you've got Morgan Jackson Nexus Strategies. That's his firm, and
he has been as Done calls him the undisputed king
of Democrat consultants in North Carolina. He has advised former
Governor Roy Cooper. Josh Stein, attorney General, Jeff Jackson, numerous others.
So if you are serious about winning high office in
North Carolina, you go to Morgan Jackson, you go to
Nexus Strategies. On the Republican side, he says, it gets
a little murkier. But if you got to pick a
leader right now, it's Paul Schumaker of Capital Communications. And
over his political career he was an advisor for Governor
Jim Martin, did campaigns for or Richard Burr, Pat McCrory,
Sherry Berry, Tim Moore, and Tom Tillis. One of the
other guys on Tillis's campaign Jordan's Shaw. That's another Tillis advisor. Uh,
that's listed here. But you know, Tillis is up for
reelection right now, and it's probably gonna be a you know,
tough campaign for him. That's what everybody expects it to be.
And if Tillis loses, then you know, the questions start
going around about, well, you know, do you hire on
Shoemaker or Shaw? Do you bring those guys on if
Tillis loses? And and Dounn says, if he does lose,
then the torch will pass outside of the Tillis orbit.
And then he offers up a couple of people who
he says, you know, could be the sort of heir
apparent for the Republican Party. First up, he lists Jonathan Felts,
who served briefly in the McCrory administration, then went and
set up his own shop. It's called the Indie Group.
And it took a while for him to land a
major candidate, but when he did, he landed a big one.
That was Ted budd And there's also a fellow named
David capin Capin Consulting. Actually, he actually has more clients
than anybody else in North Carolina politics, according to Andrew
Dunn at Long Leave Politics. Most of them are on
the smaller side, but that's kind of how that business
model works. If becoming the king of consulting is like
winning the lottery, Capain has the most tickets, right, because
he's got the most candidates. The one most likely to
pay off quickly is Labor Commissioner Luke Farley, who Done
says is an impressive politico and quickly becoming a leader
on the Council of State. And then there is the
number three is Jim Blaine. Jim Blaine, former chief of
staff for the North Carolina Senate Leader President pro tem
Phil Berger, and he set up I think Ray Martin,
I think was his partner at the They call themselves
the Differentiators Differentiator Data. It's a huge asset. And the
company's fleece vest is a status symbol in Raleigh, which
I was not aware they apparently they got fleece vests
and that's like, that's the uniform. Six months ago. Blaine
would have been higher on the list. But Dan Bishop's
loss was Jim Blaine was repping or worked on the
Dan Bishop campaign and he lost that Attorney General race
and that was a major setback. And that's the nature
of the beast when it comes to this kind of
line of work. His other clients on the Council of
State did win. However, he had Dave Bollock the state auditor,
and he had Brad Briner for State Treasurer. Blaine can
maintain a successful and lucrative business serving as the powerhouse
behind the Republican majority in the General Assembly, which I
would probably do if I were him, rather than trying
to become the new consulting king. The white whale for
North Carolina consultants is obviously the governorship. The state's top
executive position has been largely out of reach, but it
provides an incredible platform for building a movement as well
as a consulting business. Whoever gets there first is bound
to win the crown. So one of the things to
keep in mind people maybe asking, well, how did in
Correy get there without any of these.
Speaker 1: These king makers.
Speaker 2: And I believe the guy that he used was Jack Hawk,
if memory serves, and he passed away and so and
Shoemaker's been around for you know, I think he worked
for Yeah, he worked for Jesse Helms, I think too
or no, hang on a second, Brad Hayes, Tom Ellison,
Carter wren That was who I was thinking of.
Speaker 1: Carter Wrenn, who does.
Speaker 2: Talking about politics website. He worked for Helms, but Shoemaker
came along and sort of took their place. So it's
how this stuff goes. But those are the names the background.
Like I said, if you want this kind of background,
peak behind the curtain on North Carolina politics. Andrew Dunn
is a must follow on Twitter and I must follow
on his website long leafpol dot com.
Speaker 1: All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you
so much for listening.
Speaker 2: I could not do the show without yours and the
support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so
if you'd like, please support them too and tell them
you heard it here. You can also become a patron
at my Patreon page or go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Again,
thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything
while I'm gone.