Mitch Kokai

Senior Political Analyst
Mitch Kokai is senior political analyst for the John Locke Foundation. He joined JLF in December 2005 as director of communications. That followed more than four years as chief state government reporter for News 14 Carolina, now known as Spectrum News. The job included extensive coverage of the General Assembly for the 24-hour local regional television news channel.

Before News 14 Carolina, Kokai worked as a radio news reporter for seven years. He started a radio news department at WENC-AM in Whiteville, then led Chapel Hill’s award-winning radio news team at WCHL-AM. He spent two-and-one-half years as news director and assignment editor for Raleigh’s WPTF-AM.

Mitch is a Columbus, Ohio, native, and a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduate. He has lived in North Carolina since 1989.

Posts by Mitch Kokai (page 1)

  • AOC, NYC mayor push counterproductive school admissions changes

    David Marcus of the Federalist examines implications of the latest school admissions proposals from New York Mayor Bill De Blasio and freshman U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The battle over the admissions standards at New York City’s elite public high schools has heated up again. After having failed to…
    Mitch Kokai, March 21, 2019
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  • A technical problem for the Green New Deal

    Josh Siegel of the Washington Examiner details one of the chief obstacles facing the proposed Green New Deal. The Green New Deal would require an overhaul of the transmission lines that deliver wind and solar power, a major logistical obstacle to the progressive plan for radically revamping the…
    Mitch Kokai, March 21, 2019

  • Florida leaders push more school choice

    John Haughey writes for the Washington Free Beacon about the Sunshine State‘s latest school choice initiatives. Gov. Ron DeSantis and Senate leaders both proposed plans to significantly grow Florida’s school choice programs — already the nation’s largest — before the 2019 legislative session began on March 5. Two…
    Mitch Kokai, March 21, 2019

  • National Review defends the Electoral College

    Now that U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has launched the latest attack on the Electoral College, editors at National Review Online offer a defense of one of the U.S. Constitution’s basic elements. Warren’s lofty rhetoric notwithstanding, a large portion of the Democratic party’s present animosity toward the Electoral College…
    Mitch Kokai, March 21, 2019

  • French ponders the ‘Twitter primary’

    David French of National Review Online considers the impact of social media on the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Certainly the Democratic mainstream has become more liberal, and its left-most cohorts are white, female, college-educated, and young. In other words, I just described many of the key…
    Mitch Kokai, March 21, 2019

  • New Carolina Journal Online features

    Don Carrington reports for Carolina Journal Online on the public relations group assembled to sell Gov. Roy Cooper’s actions linked to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. John Trump’s Daily Journal highlights one example of the problems created by North Carolina’s system of regulating alcohol.
    Mitch Kokai, March 21, 2019

  • Martin Center column focuses on education as postmodernist training

    Stephen Hicks writes for the Martin Center about the way postmodernists approach education. One of Stanley Fish’s postmodernist colleagues at Duke University, Frank Lentricchia, took the [next] step: With rival viewpoints off the syllabus, he said, teachers should only “exercise power for the purpose of social change.” The postmodern…
    Mitch Kokai, March 20, 2019

  • House ‘modernization’ could lead to the return of earmarks

    Susan Ferrechio of the Washington Examiner reports on the latest proposals from U.S. House Democrats. House lawmakers have begun examining ways to help make the chamber run more efficiently, and the top recommendations call for raising the pay of lawmakers and allowing long-vilified earmarks to be included once…
    Mitch Kokai, March 20, 2019