Bob Geary

Start spreadin’ the news, I’m leaving for New York and the Republican National Convention. Not to cover Bush & Company, whose television show from inside Madison Square Garden will be interesting only as farce. No, I want to see what happens on the streets of the greatest city in the world. Strike that. I need […]

When John Kerry says, “Let me be clear,” sensible people reach for the nearest smudge-removal product. Case in point: Oct. 9, 2002, the day Kerry voted to authorize President Bush to invade Iraq. “Let me be clear,” Kerry said on the Senate floor. “The vote I will give to the President is for one reason […]

If ever there was an election that cried out for Instant Runoff Voting, the Democratic primary for N.C. Superintendent of Public Instruction is it. Without it, we, the taxpayers, are forced to spend $3 million next Tuesday to conduct a single statewide runoff–$3 million to nominate one party’s candidate for the one, minor office not […]

Could independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader be on the North Carolina ballot this year? Even as the Kerry-Edwards ticket works to turn us into a “battleground” state–one the Bush-Cheney side can no longer take for granted, in other words–along comes a federal district court decision that could, maybe, open the door to a Nader alternative […]

Post-convention, progressive Democrats are entitled to feel that the four-day coronation of John Kerry in Boston was either the start of something great–or a failure to really address the issues that matter. Because, as our delegate-correspondents make clear, it was both. The convention itself, says Cary’s Aimee Schmidt, “was a $90 million sham.” Elected as […]

So many things about the way we vote are out of date. For example, why do we vote on a Tuesday? Why do we let the legislators draw their own districts? But there’s one oldie-but-goldie voting method that’s never been improved upon: the paper ballot. You mark it yourself, you put it in the box, […]

David Miner is still a Republican. But the Cary legislator, beaten in a primary a week ago as he sought a seventh term in the state House of Representatives, thinks the GOP’s intolerance of different views–and different folks–is a mistake of historic proportions. “I think the Republican party in North Carolina is heading down a […]

When the Democratic dream team of John Kerry and John Edwards came to Raleigh on July 10, peace activist Bill Towe of Cary was among the many who used his e-mail list to help drum up attendance. Then he joined the 20,000 heading for the N.C. State campus, his trusty “War Is Not The Answer” […]

A week ago Wednesday, when I persuaded myself I ought to be up in North Raleigh with the protesters as President Bush’s motorcade went by, I thought maybe 100 people would show up. Nope, 200. And on Saturday, after I’d predicted a turnout for John & Johnny at N.C. State of 10,000, it dawned very […]