Category: Philanthropy

In this article dated October 10, 2011 in The New Yorker Jane Mayer criticizes Art Pope. “In the spring of 2010, the conservative political strategist Ed Gillespie flew from Washington, D.C., to Raleigh, North Carolina, to spend a day laying the groundwork for REDMAP, a new project aimed at engineering a Republican takeover of state legislatures. Gillespie hoped to help his party get control of statehouses where congressional redistricting was pending, thereby leveraging victories in cheap local races into a means of shifting the balance of power in Washington. It was an ingenious plan, and Gillespie is a skilled tactician—he once ran the Republican National Committee—but REDMAP seemed like a long shot in North Carolina. Barack Obama carried the state in 2008 and remained popular. The Republicans hadn’t controlled both houses of the North Carolina General Assembly for more than a century. (‘Not since General Sherman,’ a state politico joked to me.) That day in Raleigh, though, Gillespie had lunch with an ideal ally: James Arthur (Art) Pope, the chairman and C.E.O. of Variety Wholesalers, a discount-store conglomerate. Read More Source: The New Yorker

Mark Bauerlein, an English professor at Emory University, dissects The New Yorker profile of Art Pope, concluding that it “isn’t a good essay and isn’t good journalism.” Read more Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education

J. Peder Zane, of The Daily Caller, discusses the attacks on Art Pope. “Jane Mayer, the New Yorker writer who targeted the Koch brothers last year (and Clarence Thomas two decades ago) has come up with another bogeyman, North Carolina millionaire Art Pope.” Read more Source: The Daily Caller

Rob Christensen, of the The News & Observer, examines the recent discussion around Art Pope. “‘State for Sale’ reads the headline in the current edition of The New Yorker. “The state is North Carolina. And the person who is doing the buying, according to the article, is Art Pope, the Raleigh businessman, former state legislator and former GOP nominee for lieutenant governor.” Read more Source: The News & Observer

In the Carolina Journal, John Hood discusses how Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece is incorrect. “Of all the responses I received from friends and acquaintances after this week’s publication of a New Yorker hit piece on Art Pope and North Carolina’s conservative movement, the most-frequent comment has been something along those lines. Be they conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican, most callers or correspondents seem to think that I ought to be shaking with rage at the attempted character assassination of Art, my longtime friend, or at the New Yorker’s attempt to cast the work of the John Locke Foundation and other right-of-center groups in the worst possible light.” Read more Source: Carolina Journal