News-Record.com

Here's a bunch of maps from Mark Newman, professor of physics at the University of Michigan, that show the breakdown of red and blue states and counties in the election.

Pretty cool. You can probably figure out the red and blue. Purple shows parts of the country that were more evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats.

Reporters checking in from the polls say voting is going well here in Guilford County, and voting rights groups say they have no reports of serious complaints around these parts, unlike our neighbors to the North.

For our running notebook on Election Day doings, click here.

And let us know what is on your mind via the comment link below.

From N.C. NAACP President William Barber:

This morning in Craven County, I saw it for myself, just outside a polling place: a casket with Barack Obama's name on it. The NC NAACP has formally requested that both the Democratic and Republican Parties condemn this attempt at voter intimidation using images of death.

[snip]

Here's what I said in the letter to party officials:

I write about a matter of great urgency and seriousness. A casket with a picture of Sen. Barack Obama on it was conspicuously within the sight of voters entering an early voting polling place in Craven County yesterday. State Representative William Wainwright along with local NAACP President Alfred Barfield were alerted to the dangerous situation by their respective constituents, and they were able to convince the Craven County Sheriff to remove the vicious display. The obvious attempt was to use the image of death as a way of demeaning a particular candidate as well as intimidating voters. The casket had been placed near a fire station polling place.

The North Carolina NAACP calls on the state and national leadership of both major parties to denounce such acts. We request your parties issue strong statements of condemnation to the media and to call on your national candidates and their surrogates to repudiate such vicious acts.

There is no room for the suggestion of death threats for any candidate of any party in the United States. We condemn all such acts. North Carolina is the state where the only violent overthrow of an elected government took place in l898, when the bi-racial government of Wilmington was the object of a terrorist attack as a prelude to 70 years of disenfranchisement of African Americans. We will never go back.

Thank you for your immediate attention to our requests.

Sincerely,

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II

Click here for the WRAL report.

Sen. Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for vice president, will be back in Greensboro on Monday. From the Obama-Biden campaign:

EARLY VOTE FOR CHANGE RALLY WITH JOE BIDEN Price Bryan Performance Place 200 N. Davie St. Greensboro, NC 27401

This event is free and open to the public. Tickets are NOT required, but an RSVP is strongly encouraged. Members of the public are invited to RSVP at www.nc.barackobama.com. Space is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

***For security reasons, do not bring bags. Please limit personal items. No food or drink allowed inside the ballpark. No signs or banners allowed.***

So it IS possible to be amused, to have your heart warmed and to throw up a little in your mouth all at once...

I'm doing a little reporting on a story Saturday looking at what the Internet has done in this election compared to before, in 2004, and came across this from the St. Petersburg Times.

So for the fact-checking junkies out there, it's a fun and informative resource.

Also, if you're going online to watch the streaming debate or to research candidates more and more, I'd like to hear from you. Drop me a line this afternoon or tomorrow. I'd like to know what you're using, where you're going, how you're doing it, and how 2008 is different from 2004. If anything is really getting under your skin about the election online, I'd also like to know about that.

Congressman Robin Hayes, who represents the 8th Congressional District down near Charlotte and the South Carolina border, has managed to get national attention for wedging his wingtips down his throat. From The New York Observer:

Representative Robin Hayes, who prefaced his comments by saying it was important to “make sure we don’t say something stupid, make sure we don’t say something we don’t mean.” Republicans, he reminded the crowd, were kind people. Plus, he added, the liberal media had shown itself eager to distort such remarks. With the crowd duly chastened and put on best behavior, he accused Obama of “inciting class warfare” and said that “liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.”

Dome reports that Hayes later retracted the comments.

The Fightin' 8th, where Hayes faces Democrat Larry Kissell in the election, is a bit out of my coverage area but I note the comments here because they sounded familiar. When Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin was in town, the Washington Post reported she said:

"What about this reward for strong work ethic, isn't that what capitalism is all about? Isn't that what the American economy should be based upon? And so when I mention Joe the Plumber, know that that's why I do mention it. Because we understand what his concerns were as he spoke to Barack Obama there in that rope line," she added.

[snip]

Palin also made a point of mentioning that she loved to visit the "pro-America" areas of the country, of which North Carolina is one. No word on which states she views as unpatriotic.

In a follow up to that post, the Post reporter gave us the full quote:

"We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation."

Like Hayes, Palin later clarified.

I am bemused by the headline on this Burlington Times News piece: "Palin's message delights crowd of 15,000 at Elon"

15,000?

I don't think so. I've seen 15,000 people, I know what that looks like - they don't fit comfortably into a college baseball stadium with room for kids to run around on the grass.

Our story said 2,000, which we got from a police officer and seems consistent with what we saw on the ground. The entire baseball field was open to spectators, but the outfield wasn't full, nor was the infield really.

I would have bought a number up to 5,000, but 15,000? There would still be a traffic jam in Elon if that many folks were there.

Gov. Sarah Palin visited Greensboro and Elon Thursday.

Click here for the report on her speech.

Click here for the crowd story.

Pictures

This clip from the old 1960s Batman TV series has been floating around in e-mail and on blogs for a few weeks now. Three people have e-mailed it to me just this week.

I do have to say it seems sort of eerily appropriate this election season.

We've mentioned that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican VP nominee, will be in town Thursday for a fundraiser in Greensboro. And we've mentioned that it just doesn't seem likely that she'd come to town without doing some sort of public event.

Well, the announcement for that event just came through:

Who: Governor Sarah Palin

(Hank Williams Jr. will be along for the ride. He will be singing his new McCain-Palin song which is attached.)

What: Road to Victory Rally

When: Thursday, October 16, 2008

Where: Latham Park (Baseball Stadium) at Elon University

Time: Doors Open at 12:00pm

By far, the best thing about this release is it did come with an audio file attached. Click here to listen to Ol' Hank dump on "the leftwing liberal media" and extole the virtures of Sen. John McCain and Palin.

If you want to see the governor or hear Hank live, here's how you do it.

***Tickets will be available for pickup beginning on Tuesday at 12:00 PM at the the Victory Offices listed below. Tickets are limited to two per-person and will be distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis.

****Please note that ticket does not guarantee entry to the event. Entry will also be on a first-come, first-serve basis to those carrying tickets, so please be sure to arrive early! Parking for the event will be available at Firehouse Field on Williamson Avenue. For security reasons, bags and signs are prohibited inside the venue.

Ticket Distribution Centers, after the jump:

Update: Click here for the story from Tuesday's paper.

-=-=-=-=-=-

I trucked down to Wilmington for John McCain’s appearance there today. I had forgotten how well the man can deliver a speech because his debate performances have been very average. But today, he was in good form and had the crowd fired up.

There’s one odd thing that had my colleagues in the local and national media puzzled after the event. From the story I’m working on for Tuesday’s paper:

McCain’s appearance was marked by an unannounced shift in plans. The occasion was to be a “town hall meeting” according to publicity that preceded the event. And McCain himself started his remarks by saying, “My friends, I’d like to make some remarks to you and then I’d like to open it up for some questions or comments you might have.”

But at the end of his speech, speakers blared “Gonna Fly Now,” the theme from Rocky, and McCain moved about the front rows of the audience shaking hands. Then he left the auditorium, well before the next appointment - a media interview - listed on the schedule given to members of the traveling press.

A spokesman who talked to pool reporters traveling with the McCain Monday said the decision to shift to a rally rather than a town hall meeting was made on Sunday and could not explain why McCain said he would take questions. A second spokesman, contacted after the event, said the campaign wanted to emphasize the new speech, which offered “a different tone” than had prevailed over the past several weeks.

The response from the campaign isn’t all that satisfying and leaves one to speculate if one is so inclined. What could explain the change? So options:

• * McCain was short on time. This seems unlikely because, according to my friends in the traveling press corps, he didn’t have anything on his public schedule until well after he strolled out of the auditorium at Cape Fear Community College today. He did two media interviews (both with television types) and shot a commercial before leaving the state.

• * McCain forgot about the switch. Actually, I’m willing to buy this one in part. The guy has done so many events his opening lines become sort of reflexive. He was working from a teleprompter today but it sounded like he was adlibbing a bit at the beginning of his speech. Still, you’d think someone on staff would have said, “Now remember boss, today’s all about the new stump speech, no questions.”

• * The audience might not have accommodated that "different tone" and once the campaign workers took the temperature of the crowd they decided it didn’t want to give anyone openings to call Sen. Obama a terrorist.

As the Associated Press noted in this story, even some Republicans have grown uncomfortable with the tenor of attacks leveled by McCain at Obama in recent weeks. From the AP story:

NDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Three weeks before the election, Republicans are growing increasingly concerned about John McCain's ability to mount a comeback, questioning his tactics and even his campaign's main thrust in a White House race increasingly focused on economic turmoil.

"He has to make the case that he's different than Bush and better than Obama on the economy," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one of more than a dozen prominent Republicans who in interviews during the past week expressed concern over the course of McCain's bid. "If he doesn't win that case, it's all over, and it's going to be a very bad year for Republicans."

Several Republicans, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid angering McCain, said the campaign should have sought to plant doubts about Obama's associations with 1960s-era radical William Ayers and others months ago, rather than waiting until the campaign's final weeks. Doing so now, they said, makes the 72-year-old McCain come off as angry, grouchy and desperate, playing into Democrats' hands.

But if you read my blog post from earlier today, you know there were people in the crowd willing to sing from that more hostile hymnal.

So what was going on? Was it a last minute switch designed to avoid stories about how rabid the crowds at McCain rallies have become or truly contemplated a day in advance and McCain just misspoke? Well, more than one person told me today that it was fruitless to ask since, as one put it bluntly, “They’re all going to lie to you anyway.”

Your speculation welcome at the comments link below.

Your humble correspondent is in Wilmington today for the big McCain rally here. I'm both working on a report for tomorrows paper, as well as something for a couple weeks from now. For the time being, here are some photos of the day so far (McCain isn't due to speak until 2:15 p.m. or so.)

First off, Democrats had a little counter-protest down on the waterfront this morning. State Sen. Tony Rand and Ag Commission Candidate Ronnie Ansley spoke.

"I've got nothing against John McCain," Rand said. "He's just wrong."

Later on, I trolled the line looking for folks with interesting signs. Jim Whitworth, 44, of Wilmington is a former Clinton supporter who now backs McCain.

"To me, Obama is running for class president," Whitworth said. He mentioned that he had been reading excerpts from Obama's books.

"I have found him to be a devout racist," he said.

Maureen Drake is a self-described independent voter. She's a nurse from Wilmington who said that her pro-life beliefs influence her vote. She said she's voting FOR McCain rather than against Obama.

I'll let this last one speak for itself:

More in tomorrow's paper and updates to the main news site this afternoon.

A few Voterspeak members gave us their thoughts about the second presidential debate on Tuesday, the town hall-style meeting at Belmont Univeristy with Barack Obama and John McCain, moderated by Tom Brokaw.

Here's the transcript, as well.

Kendall Garvin, 29, unaffiliated: I did not like the blatant disregard of the rules that the senators agreed upon. I understand that each candidate wanted their side of the issue to be heard, but rules should be followed. I also didn't like how some questions were not clearly answered by both candidates.

One issue that I clearly agree with Obama on is his platform on conserving our fuel usage. It is a very simple thing that each American can do and will also improve the environment. I also agree that the answer to the fuel crisis is not to simply produce oil, but to invest in alternative energy sources like solar, wind, geothermal and others. Drilling is just a short term fix of the crisis we are in right now.

I also agree that proper health care should be a right and not a responsibility. A country like America should not have just a health disparity among the "rich" and the "poor". I like the idea of offering all Americans a federal health plan. Many lower income people will avoid going to the hospital because of lack of insurance and/or the knowledge of how much the doctor bill will cost even with insurance.

Kate Peeples, 27, unaffiliated: I didn't think many of the audience's questions got answered, sadly. Seeing as this is the only debate format that includes any sort of audience input, it's pretty disappointing that their questions weren't really answered - even as each of them walked over to address the audience member in particular. It seemed both McCain and Obama spent most of their time attacking one another's reputations. At this point, I can't imagine that this evasiveness, whether on purpose or not, could possibly sit well with voters, both committed and undecided ones. That being said, I thought Obama was the clear winner in this debate. He appeared much more "presidential," and as at least one commentator put it, appeared more like a "calm leader," which is something I appreciated seeing from him.

Deonna Kelli Sayed, 34, Democrat: Both McCain and Obama seemed to be in good form. I tensed when either candidate criticized the other. Give me facts and insights, not side swipes! I appreciated Obama's method of breaking down and listing his actions (even though we know a politician's promises never go very far). Obama quoted facts and figures, particularly regarding energy, allowing the viewer to actually learn something during the debate.

The segment on health care and insurance just confused me. Obama seemed to be more informed but I'm unclear how his policy will work. McCain commented that one state may have cheaper health care options than another, but how can families afford to cross state lines with
fuel so expensive?

Obama is right about how the rest of the world perceives America. Having lived overseas, I can attest that being an American carries a lot of baggage that wasn't there before Bush was elected. Most people do not see us as a "force for good" as Obama and McCain suggested.
I'm sad that many see American foreign policy as downright malevolent. Obama needs to calm down when it comes to Pakistan. That country is about to explode due to US presence and their own internal issues. If Pakistan goes, all bets are off for any stability in the region. Neither candidate really gets what is going on in Afghanistan. The US needs to involve the Taliban in government and invest deeply in developing the country rather than putting in more combat troops. McCain was absolutely right about Russia and Putin's KGB mindset. Thankfully, Obama linked our energy policy to Russia, which shows insight.

The last question asked was probably the most important. Obama said unexpected challenges are the biggest obstacles. His comments on the American Dream? Is that still around? McCain's comments were too general for my taste. I wanted a personal answer, not a political one.

I felt a little bad that McCain's few attempts at humor throughout the debate fell flat. I hoped Tina Fey would pop up in the audience to give him some support. But honestly, we didn't gain any new insights regarding candidate positions on the issues. Same stuff, different day. Is anyone ready for election season to be over?

On huffingtonpost.

From the site:

Want to know if a celebrity is playing both sides of the fence? Whether that new guy you're seeing is actually a Republican or just dresses like one?

FundRace makes it easy to search by name or address to see which presidential candidates your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors are contributing to. Or you can se if your favorite celebrity is putting money where their mouth is.

The tracker lets you break it down easily. For example, back in 2007, Kay Hagan gave $1,000 to Edwards' campaign.

You can track by name, address or location on the map.

Republican Gov. Sarah Palin and Democratic Sen. Joe Biden are about to get their vice presidential debate on. Use the comments link here as an open thread or click here to join me on Twitter.

Sarah Palin is coming to Greensboro, according to local Republican fundraisers.

The McCain-Palin campaign-proper is not saying anything about the visit yet, but I can't imagine they'll bring her into the state without showing her off outside Irving Park.

A very not-safe-for work and predictably obscene video from Sarah Silverman about "The Great Schlep" -- a plan to get young Jewish Americans to swing their older Jewish grandparents in Florida for Obama.

Certainly offensive on any number of levels -- but is it hilarious ... or brilliant?

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

President Bush has canceled a planned fundraiser set for Greensboro tomorrow. The reason, according to sources, is that he wants to stay in Washington to monitor the economy.

Sen. Barack Obama rolled into Greensboro with his running-mate, Joe Biden.

Sunday's main-bar.

Sunday's color story.

Prepared text of Obama's speech.

Audio of Obama's speech:

Pictures from the day:

Yes, there's a presidential debate scheduled tonight. And whether or not both candidates show up, people are preparing for the show as though it's the Super Bowl.

In a way, it kind of is. Or maybe more like a divisional playoff game. Nonetheless, if you haven't gotten your chips and drinks together, you have about 11 hours to get on top of things. And Decision '08 would like to know about the plans people are making.

So far, we've heard that the Green Bean will roll out a projector and a screen to watch the event; and two doors down on Elm Street, the upstairs bar at Natty Greene's will dedicate a few big screens and sound for anyone who wants to watch.

People are posting invites on Facebook, and a few have emailed us about their plans. Some, like Voterspeak's Phyllis Davis, are just watching at home.

"No plan to get together for me - I am afraid if it happens I might miss something if I have guest or a party!!" she told us in an email.

Others are staying in to have a little fun with the debate. And for the thirsty souls out there, you can even turn a debate into a chance to get really loaded.

Got any plans? We'd like to hear about them.

Update 1: Kay Hagan will have a debate party at campaign HQs across the state.

Update 2: The Republican Party will be hosting a watch party at their High Point headquarters:

High Point Victory Office 3800 Tinsley Road, Suite 103 High Point, NC 27265 (Near the intersection of Wendover and N.C. 68 Contact: Jordan Shaw, 919-862-6822

When Senator Barack Obama rolls into town Saturday the N&R will, of course, have a reporter at the rally.

But we'll also be covering it via Twitter, an online social networking site that allows its users to post short, real-time updates from anywhere.

The Obama campaign is (perhaps over) using the site already. McCain less so, though some seem to be using it on his behalf. His campaign's had a little trouble with the site already.

In short bursts of 140 characters or less, I'll describe the scene in real time - the crowd, the speech, the whole shebang. It'll be like Internet Haiku.

If you're already Twittering, add us to your feed list. If you're not, you can check in with us at our feed's homepage anyway.

Katie Couric interviewed Sarah Palin this week.

Transcript here.

Blog-ish post here.

Video re: the economy here:

This one is for my boss:

Since when did CNN develop a sense of humor?

Wha-wait a minute: It took all day to produce this?

Joint Statement of Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama

"The American people are facing a moment of economic crisis. No matter how this began, we all have a responsibility to work through it and restore confidence in our economy. The jobs, savings, and prosperity of the American people are at stake.

"Now is a time to come together – Democrats and Republicans – in a spirit of cooperation for the sake of the American people. The plan that has been submitted to Congress by the Bush Administration is flawed, but the effort to protect the American economy must not fail.

"This is a time to rise above politics for the good of the country. We cannot risk an economic catastrophe. Now is our chance to come together to prove that Washington is once again capable of leading this country."

Three sentences?

Three.

Were they just writing on their blackberries?

It took all day to produce that? Yeah, we should be able to craft a $700 billion bailout package in no time.

Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are both scheduled to be in Greensboro on Saturday.

A rally is scheduled to take place at the Depot "around noon" according to a campaign spokesman.

The visit will come the day after the first presidential debate between Obama and Republican candidate John McCain.

More details should be forthcoming this afternoon.

Update: From the campaign:

RALEIGH – Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama and vice-presidential nominee Senator Joe Biden will return to North Carolina Saturday to hold a rally on the Change We Need in Greensboro. This is Obama’s first time returning to the Triad since the primary. He was in Charlotte Sunday afternoon, and Senator Biden was in Charlotte for a rally the Sunday before last. Michelle Obama held a Women for Obama Rally in Greensboro with Dr. Maya Angelou and Sen. Kay Hagan last Thursday.

Saturday’s event is free and open to the public and tickets are not required, but an RSVP is strongly encouraged. Please see details below.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27

CHANGE WE NEED RALLY WITH BARACK OBAMA AND JOE BIDEN
Washington Street in front of the J. Douglas Gaylon Depot
Greensboro, NC
Gates Open: 10:00 AM
Program Begins: 12:15 PM

This event is free and open to the public. Rain or shine. Tickets are NOT required. However, an RSVP is strongly encouraged. Members of the public can RSVP at nc.barackobama.com.

For updates, visit http://nc.barackobama.com.

***For security reasons, do not bring bags. Please limit personal items. No signs or banners allowed.***

***Lawn chairs, alcohol, coolers and pets are not permitted. Entry to event requires consent to metal detection inspection.***

Jeffrey Toobin came and spoke Monday at Carolina Theatre, courtesy of the Elon School of Law, focusing on the Supreme Court and how the outcome of the 2008 election could affect that.

Some of Toobin's main points:

The nine justices on the Supreme Court of the United States consist of four conservative justices, four liberal justices and one swing voter.

Three of the four liberal justices are likely to leave in the next one or two presidential terms, opening appointment opportunities for the coming administrations.

This election could have a lasting impact on domestic policy, because the Supreme Court is taking on more cases that could be settled through legislation, but wind through the court anyway. Also, presidents are picking younger justices in order to have a longer impact than the courts of long ago.

Barack Obama, if he wins, would likely appoint moderate liberals like himself.

John McCain, in his Supreme Court speech given on Primary Day, "talked in code," which Toobin translated to mean that he wants to overturn Roe V. Wade and support juvenile executions.

He said that the Supreme Court is a reflection of the public. So, if a Republican president is elected, he'll appoint people who reflect the party. But the Senate is also an important player in the nomination process, too, and can kick back a nominee from the president.

But the appointees generally come from the executive office and then are scrutinized by senators.

"Want to change the Supreme Court? Change who you elect president," Toobin said.

Here's Philip Gourevitch's story in The New Yorker on the politicial climate (no pun intended) in Alaska in the period just before and during Sarah Palin's time as governor there.

There's some good context in there for people who may want a primer on how things work up there and who she is, plus a bit on the scandal involving Ted Stevens, the longtime Alaska senator who, in addition to pulling tons of money to the state, famously called the Internet a series of tubes.

And here's few bits from the story on Troopergate:

The allegation was that Palin had dismissed her public-safety commissioner, a respected and well-liked officer named Walter Monegan, because Monegan had resisted pressure from her office to fire a state trooper named Michael Wooten. Wooten was Palin’s ex-brother-in-law, and his divorce from Palin’s sister Molly had involved an ugly custody battle that was not entirely resolved; it appeared that Palin had used her public office to settle a private family score. On July 28th, a bipartisan vote in the state legislature commissioned an investigation into the matter, at a cost of up to a hundred thousand dollars. Palin had invited it. “Hold me accountable,” she said. She promised full coöperation: “We would never prohibit, or be less than enthusiastic about, any kind of investigation. Let’s deal in the facts.”

Now, it needs to be said that the magazine does produce good journalism, but often leans left.

There is a persistent rumor going about that President Bush will be in Greensboro on Sept. 30 for a fundraiser. That rumor has been confirmed by more than two local Republicans, all of whom think that the president will once again visit the home of Louis DeJoy and Aldona Wos.

We'll post more details here as we run them down.

Cautionary note: President Bush canceled a recent fundraising trip to stay in D.C. and deal with the financial crisis. Also, those most in the know are loath to make with the details because the Secret Service tends to scare the pants off them.

Update: I think we can safely take this one fully out of the category of rumor. Here's the story from our web site.

Update 2: Someone who has one of the invitations (and is sending us a copy, we hope) says that the fundraiser is being hosted by the McCain-Palin folks as well as a host of other Republican Party entities, including the Michigan and Missouri Republican Parties.

Update 3: Invite says doors open at 4 p.m. and folks should arrive no later than 4:30 p.m.

Update 4: Click here to read the invite yourself. And here's the backside.

Update 4: Wos: "The President is coming as a surrogate to help raise money and awareness and votes for Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin."

The following came from the Obama campaign after I went to sleep last night. Michelle Obama is making two public North Carolina stops, one in Charlotte and one in Greensboro Thursday:

RALEIGH – Michelle Obama, wife of Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama, will return to North Carolina Thursday, where she will host a women’s economic roundtable in Charlotte, followed by a North Carolina Women for Obama rally in Greensboro.

Mrs. Obama began this series of roundtable discussions early in the primary season, to hear firsthand the stories of working women who have struggled to support their families through eight years of failed economic policies. In discussions across the country, Mrs. Obama has shared her husband’s plans to make Washington work for working families, and grow the overall economy by strengthening the middle class.

Mrs. Obama’s last visit to North Carolina was the day before the Democratic primary in May; she hosted a roundtable discussion with military spouses at Fort Bragg to discuss the unique challenges facing military spouses and their families.

The Greensboro stop will be at the Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene Street. Doors open 1:30 p.m.

"The event is free and open to the public. However, space is limited and tickets are REQUIRED. Members of the public are invited to pick up their free tickets at the locations and times listed below," says the campaign. Those locations:

Greensboro Campaign For Change Office
318 S. Elm St.
Greensboro, NC
336-275-1964
Tickets will be available Wednesday, September 17 from 6pm-9pm.

High Point Campaign For Change Office
112 W. Broad Ave.
High Point, NC
336-885-6799
Tickets will be available Wednesday, September 17 from 6pm-9pm.

Linked here almost solely because of its opening line, this piece from the Wall Street Journal Web site:

The prize for "Twilight Zone" race of 2008 – the one that defies all logic unless you forget everything you thought you knew before – may go to the Senate contest in North Carolina.

It echoes something that Charlie Cook said during his appearance at Elon earlier this week:

"The last year and half, at least in terms of the presidential (race), I have felt like to the extent that the more you study voting patterns and election behavior and the more you know about presidential voting history, I think the bigger impediment it's been for the last year and a half. ...To me it's been a year where it's as if you took the rule book and just tossed it out."

Kind of reminds you of that old saying about what happens when you ass-u-me.

That Wall Street Journal piece goes on to describe all of Sen. Elizabeth Dole's Washington bona fides and why that should have given her a leg up here. That, of course, betrays the very Washington mindset that a U.S. Senate seat is a national office. While true to an extent, it's still voters in North Carolina that will determine the race.

What has Katherine Rizzo (the writer of the WSJ story) and Cook and other Washington-based analysts confused is that the campaigns for president, U.S. Senator and some other races have come unhinged from the national norms, at least over the summer. Regional and state-level factors -- local economic conditions, who knows who being shipped out to Iraq, what named storm is blowing through where -- are dominating voter thinking rather than any one single national drumbeat.

That’s not to say things won’t snap back into line at some point. In fact, over at the left-leaning blog "Facing South," Chris Kromm suggests Obama is pulling out of some Southern states where he’s invested resources, which would be a big nod to "historical voting patterns."

John McCain's presidential campaign sent out a news release listing the leadership of his "STUDENTS FOR MCCAIN-PALIN" group. An NCA&T student was featured in a quote:

TALLAHASSEE, FL -- U.S. Senator John McCain's presidential campaign today announced its North Carolina Students for McCain-Palin Leadership. The leadership team will direct grassroots operations in North Carolina, communicate John McCain's message of peace, prosperity and reform, and encourage students to follow John McCain's example of serving a cause greater than one's self.

"I support John McCain because he has vigorously opposed pork-barrel spending throughout his tenure in the House and Senate," said Daniel Davis, North Carolina Students for McCain State Chair and School Chair for North Carolina A&T State University. "He has the judgment and experience to safeguard our hard-earned tax-dollars, balance our budget and repair the economy."

John McCain thanked the student leadership in the Southeast Region, saying, "Young Americans understand that true happiness is much greater than the pursuit of pleasure, and can only be found by serving causes greater than self-interest. I am very proud of these students and of their support, and I appreciate the time and effort they have dedicated to my campaign."

Other local students listed in the group include:

Davidson College -- Mary Ross Bryant
North Carolina A&T State University -- Daniel Davis
University of North Carolina at Greensboro -- Jamie Freeze
Wake Forest University -- Ben Lynch (Co-Chair)
Wake Forest University -- Jordan "Paige" Fitzgerald (Co-Chair)

What, no Guilford or Greensboro College reps?

Much has been made of Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin being good looking, but is it really appropriate to dress someone who could potentially be the next vice president of the United States in a naughty school girl outfit?

To explain, the following brief came across the wire from our friends at McClatchy Newspapers and was passed along by our night editor, Whitney "007" Cork:

Online action-figure purveyor herobuilders.com, which has a line of popular dolls modeled on politicians of note, has unveiled its latest creation: a 12-inch plastic doll of GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The company offers John McCain and Barack Obama effigies in the classic 12-inch plastic format, as cuddly 8-inch plush dolls, and even as Pez candy dispensers.

So far, Palin is available only as a 12-incher, but she comes in three outfits: a conservative suit, a slightly sexed-up schoolgirl look, and as a gun-toting superhero clad in a black-leather trenchcoat.

Sadly, the company has yet to fashion a doll based on Palin's Democratic counterpart, Sen. Joe Biden.

"We are having trouble re-creating his hairline (but) the entire design team is working diligently on the problem," herobuilders.com President Emil Vicale told us, referring to widely held rumors that Biden's pate was marred by a badly executed hair transplant procedure.

-- McClatchy Newspapers

So yes, I had to go looking. You can see the Palin dolls here and some more political types here.

Is this all in good fun, disrespectful, completely irrelevant? Is there an Ann Coulter doll or would that be redundant? And is it me, or does Sen. Obama's head not seem the right size for his body in this picture:

Pretty nifty tool for following the major presidential candidates on the trail.

The interactive map allows you to pick a time span within which the candidates travel, where they go, and who goes where. Wanna know only where the VP candidates are? Where Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama are going? Or, maybe you want to see where the presidential candidates themselves have been over the last week or so.

You can search all of them through the interactive map. Looks like Biden has been spending some time in Florida.

This, from the NYTimes, is a breakout on the words that speakers used at the respective conventions.

Republicans overwhelmingly touched on taxes and business, while Democrats hit upon change, energy and health care.

While the frequency of just a single word may not indicate much, it does show the areas that the respective parties may focus upon as we head to November. Also, certain words are dropped along the way to ignite a little passion in each party.

Like this, on disasters: While Democrats mentioned Hurricane once, Republicans said Sept. 11 twice. What about those words might galvanize one party against the other?

Diane Lamb in our news library sent along a link to the Anchorage Daily News’ Sarah Palin archive, which is handy for those who want to know about the rise of the Republican Vice Presidential nominee.

Available there: video of that jet she tried to sell on e-bay. Palin made reference to the jet in her speech last night.

Also, there are stories from prior debates like this one where she said teaching creationism along side evolution in public schools would be a good idea.

The volatile issue of teaching creation science in public schools popped up in the Alaska governor's race this week when Republican Sarah Palin said she thinks creationism should be taught alongside evolution in the state's public classrooms.

Palin was answering a question from the moderator near the conclusion of Wednesday night's televised debate on KAKM Channel 7 when she said, "Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both."

So, if you watched Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s speech at the convention Wednesday night, what did you think?

For me, the best line was this zinger:

“My fellow citizens, the American presidency is not supposed to be a journey of personal discovery.”

That there is funny. Probably not fair, but funny.

Palin obviously was unleashed to be the attack dog on the ticket, the traditional role of the vice presidential nominee. Her most effective line may have been this one:

“Let us face the matter squarely; there is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you.”

For a lot of folks, that’s a tough one to answer. Sen. Obama may give a good speech, but for a lot of folks, military service is a powerful trump card.

For those chewing over whether it is right and proper for we scruffy media types to talk about Palin’s pregnant daughter, here’s a question: Palin talked about her son heading to Iraq and made a point of talking about her baby to reach out to the parents of special needs kids. If those children are fair game to use as political props, why is the pregnant teenager off limits?

Sen. Elizabeth Dole met with the News & Record’s editorial board today, mainly to chat about her re-election race here in North Carolina. But the Republican incumbent chatted at the beginning of the interview about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Arizona Sen. John McCain’s choice as a vice presidential running mate.

“I think she’ll be a very strong voice. She is commander and chief for the national guard of her state, and has a number of years in public service at various levels,” Dole said. “And I tell you, you know its interesting, when you’re the mayor, you have people knocking on your door, they’re right there across the street … it gets you very deeply involved in issues across the board.”

Dole was asked whether the Palin pick was hasty, teen-age daughters aside. Given news reports that McCain had only one or two conversations with the woman before putting her on the ticket, was the choice hasty?

“Knowing him and his way of doing things, I think he would have been very careful knowing how important this particular choice is,” Dole said.

Click here for the whole conversation. It’s about five minutes.

Update: Speaking of Palin, here's the McCain campaign's latest ad touting Palin (and knocking Obama):

The folks at Gallup have an analysis out of their latest polls in the presidential race up in video form. The most interesting upshot for me was that Sen. Barack Obama’s efforts to make nice with supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton seem to have born some fruit during the convention. A big question: how much will Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s choice bring some of the remaining Clinton stalwarts into the camp of (the almost official) Republican Nominee John McCain.

Got an answer to my question about how Brooks & Dunn felt about Obama using their song "Only in America" at the Democratic convention:

They're fine with it.

Jackson Browne and John Mellencamp on their music being used by McCain?

Not so much.

Alright, let’s acknowledge that Gov. Sarah Palin is easy on the eyes in a way that no vice presidential contender has ever been. And let’s further acknowledge the fact her teen daughter is knocked up and that’s going to make for good 24-hour news cycle fodder for all this week. Oh, and the whole trying to fire a trooper over a personal vendetta thing is priceless, ham-handed and maybe a touch worse worse than a certain North Carolina letting his wife get a humongous raise from a state university and travel first class on the taxpayer's dime.

But is McCain's Veep pick reckless? As in, if McCain croaks in office and the United States is faced with something akin to 9/11 are we going to be having a wicked case of buyers' remorse? At least one pundit seems to imply that.

From Slate’s John Dickerson:

Each new fact we learn about Sarah Palin—her reversal on the bridge to nowhere, her disagreements with McCain on issues from windfall profits to global warming, emerging facts about troopergate—contribute to the feeling that this whole Palin thing is being made up as we go along. It may be fun to read about, and it sure is fun to cover, but it also supports the judgment of the Palin pick that I first heard from a Republican veteran shortly after the announcement: "Reckless."

Obama was supposed to be the risky candidate. That's certainly how Republicans have painted him. Judging from how he's run his campaign, though, he's very conservative. Nevertheless, polls have shown that voters think McCain is the less risky pick by as much as 20 percentage points. Now that McCain has made a high-profile decision essentially defined by its riskiness—observers have called it a "Hail Mary pass" so often, I'm starting to think it's a play for the Catholic vote—the question is whether McCain has squandered his advantage with voters on the question of risk.

Click here for the whole thing. To be clear, I'm not sure whether Dickerson was talking about "reckless" in terms of a pick for Veep or "reckless" in terms of picking someone to put a heart-beat away, but one would seem to imply the other.

Ramesh Ponnuru writes at the National Review Online blog:

Pro-Life Women

They are radically underrepresented in national politics. Elizabeth Dole is the only pro-life woman in the Senate that I can think of.is there a governor besides Palin who fits the category? The situation in the House is only a little better. The dearth of female pro-life politicians creates any number of political problems for pro-lifers. (That's why the Susan B. Anthony List exists.) All else aside, I am glad to see a female pro-life politician reach prominence.

So I guess if you’re looking for local connections to the national race, there’s one. I’m not really sure having a strong pro-lifer on the ticket gets McCain any more votes than he would have had. I have a hard time imagining a whole lot of voters whose sole focus is the pro-life issue going over to vote for the current Democratic ticket.

Ponnuru mentions the Susan B. Anthony List, which looks like it’s supposed to serve as a counter-weight to Emily’s List, although I must confess having never seen the pro-life group active here in NC. The SBA List does have a big picture of Palin up on their site, so they’re obviously excited about the prospect.

I saw a video clip over the weekend where he said concern of Hurricane Gustav went “beyond politics.” As in this story from the AP via the Star Tribune he was urging supporters to be mindful of those who might be in need.

So I can’t decide whether this is incredibly nimble and genuine or kind of cynical and exploitive – yes, covering political campaigns makes you suspect everyone’s motives - but Obama’s North Carolina campaign offices announced they’ll be taking donations for folks affected by Gustav.

RALEIGH, N.C. – U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s Campaign for Change announced today that it will begin accepting non-perishables and other materials at its 16 statewide offices on Tuesday and Wednesday in an effort to assist families affected by Hurricane Gustav. “We wanted to give North Carolinians another way to provide support to families that may be in need in the aftermath of Gustav,” stated Marc Farinella, Obama’s North Carolina State Director. “Our grassroots organization is ready and willing to pitch in and use its resources to help in any way we can.”

Local residents are encouraged to bring non-perishables such as canned food, bottled water, first-aid supplies and other materials that may help people in the wake of the storm to their local Campaign for Change office. The supplies will be distributed to aid foundations that can ensure they are delivered to families in need.

The local Greensboro office is:
Greensboro
318 S. Elm St.
Greensboro, NC 27401
336.275.1964

Local lawyer and convention delegate Marshall Hurley has sent along a couple photos. The first is of his son, Anderson Hurley, a 17-year-old senior at Grimsley who is serving as a page at the Republican National Convention.

It looks like he’s checking out a model of Air Force One.

And here is Anderson and a proud papa in front of a portrait of Lincoln.

Hurley is a delegate to the convention and sent along this reaction to Arizona Sen. John McCain picking Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate:

In 1996, a brand new member of the Atlanta Braves named Jermaine Dye stood up to the plate for his first at bat and hit a home run on his first try.

On Friday, Governor Sarah Palin stood up for her major league debut, and she crushed a grand slam homer out of the park.

The North Carolina delegates to the Republican National Convention have greeted Senator John McCain's choice for vice-president with passion and enthusiasm for this bright new star. She soared in her acceptance speech, showing her ability to connect with the American people. She spoke with a steady, authentic rhetoric, all her own.

Delegates welcome Governor Palin's energy and her commitment to government reform. Her political resume retells the story of the American dream: raising a family, building a business, grassroots community service and, most recently, placing a firm, conservative hand on the wheels of government in one of America's special places.

Mother Nature has disrupted our convention schedule but not our spirits. We have, appropriately, sought to find the balance between a focus on the threat to the Gulf coast and at the same time, conducting the business of the convention which we are charge to do. We will make our nominations, and the campaign will resume soon.

Our delegates are absolutely energized by this exciting ticket, led by real reformers. Senator McCain and Governor Palin are ready to face and debate their opponents: a self-promoting orator and his running mate, a relic from the Nixon era. In the next two months, North Carolina Republican activists will join together with a new determination to make our case for McCain-Palin to keep Barack Obama's callow fingers far away from the buttons of power in Washington, DC.

I guess it’s good to know that the woman who might end up being a heartbeat away from the presidency is in pretty good shape. From a teased story in the first issue of WSJ Magazine story on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin:

"My family and I eat a healthy diet heavy in wild Alaskan seafood, moose, caribou and fresh fruit," she says. "I guess my biggest pitfall is breakfast. I know it's the most important meal of the day but I still haven't bought into it. I hate to admit it, but a skinny white-chocolate mocha is my staple in the morning."

Read the whole thing here.

Magazine pieces like this take a while to churn out. Did they just get lucky or did they have a hint that Palin might be someone good to profile? Either way, bully for them.

If you're reading this and somehow had missed the news of the day: Arizona Sen. John McCain has picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate. I ran across the WSJ piece while looking for more on the Veep pick. The most amusing - if not most respectful - entry on the governor came from Wonkette in 2006.

It may also be worth mentioning that the chants of "eight is enough" that we heard at the Obama acceptance speech last night were previously heard on The West Wing, hurled by a Republican presidential candidate at the Bartlet administration.

It was mentioned on another blog that there was a similarity between Obama's saying John McCain "didn't get it" and a line from Michael Douglas' President Shepherd in The American President, written by West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin.

That line, aimed at Richard Dreyfus' Republican candidate in the movie, is actually "Bob's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. Bob's problem is that he can't sell it."

Life imitates art imitating life.

In an interview in this month's GQ, Sorkin says he digs Obama.

From the Q&A:

"The first time I met Barack Obama—I should say the only time I’ve met Barack Obama—was a year ago, when he was doing fifty-person-cocktail-party fund-raisers. He flattered me by saying, “My intention is to steal a lot of your lines.” My prediction is he’s just going to blow the doors off the place in Denver. This is a man who—the Jeremiah Wright of it all aside—was clearly paying attention in church. I don’t need to tell you that I’m a big fan of oratory. A big part of leadership is the goose-bump experience. We’ve been missing that."

Anybody else notice that after Obama's big speech in Denver last night, they played "Only in America" by Brooks and Dunn?

The song, recorded for their 2001 "Steers and Stripes" album, was the official campaign song of president George W. Bush in 2004. While its lyrics certainly seem more applicable to Obama than the president, you do have to wonder if it was chosen specifically as a jeer to Bush.

You also have to wonder how Brooks and Dunn, Bush supporters who played on the eve of his last election, feel about Obama using it on his big night.

John Mellencamp, a lifelong Democrat, asked John McCain to stop using his songs on the campaign trail earlier this year and there is, of course, the classic story of Reagan's staff wanting to use Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." (presumably having heard nothing but the chorus).

DeWayne Wickham, USA Today columnist and Director of the Institute for Advanced Journalism Studies at N.C. A&T, is blogging what he is witnessing at the Democratic National Convention.

From the site, on Hillary's speech last night and whether her call for unity was enough:

... "No way. No how. No McCain."

Earlier in the day I spoke with former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder and he expressed great frustration over the slowness of Clinton's supporters to back Obama. "I don't know what else he has to do," Wilder said of Obama's outreach to Clinton's camp. "We've got an election to win."

High Point City Councilwoman Bernita Sims chatted with us from her perch at the Democratic National Convention in Denver today.

Not surprisingly, she had good things to say about Michelle Obama’s speech Monday night. I asked her what stuck out from the presentation.

“Well, I think the tone of her speech in terms of letting everybody know in the room that she’s just an ordinary person, that she doesn’t come from a monied background or a background that speaks of some sort of dynasty … She doesn’t have a pedigree that speaks to two and three or four generations of folks coming up in this country. I think it resonated with just everyday people. That part I liked, and the fact that she talked about the legacy she wants to leave for her children. And I think with most Americans that’s what we’re looking for, what kind of country are we going to leave when we’re gone.”

(More on Michelle Obama’s speech here.)

Sims was in Boston for the 2004 Democratic convention and I asked her to compare the two.

“In terms of the historical significance of what we’re doing in Denver, there’s no comparison. When he gets the nod and he becomes the nominee, we’ve made history. And I think that’s what the individuals who are here, the delegates who are here and the folks who are attending, are here for that reason alone. I talked to several people who said they wanted to cast their vote for an individual who first of all is going to be different from what we currently have in Washington, and then secondly the historical nature of him being an African American and the very first to actually achieve this level.”

So, are people more enthusiastic in Denver than in Boston?

“I think for the North Carolina folks, it’s probably the same level of enthusiasm because if you remember, John Edwards was the vice presidential nominee. As far as our delegation goes, the excitement level is probably the same. But I think overall, it’s greater and it’s higher and there’s more energy in the room than there was four years ago. I think the party was in a defensive posture four years ago. I think this year we’re more on the offense than we are being defensive about our position.”

So, coming up tonight is the big Hillary Clinton speech. Are you running into many people who are still sore about the primary and about the fact that Clinton didn’t win?

“There are still a lot of Clinton supporters who are here, there are still a lot of people undecided about what they’re going to do. They announced in our breakfast meeting this morning that Hillary was going to go ahead and release her delegates tomorrow and that she intended to vote for Sen. Obama. Now the question becomes, once she releases her delegates, if she goes in and says, ‘I’m asking you all to support Barack,’ then that makes a difference… I guess the tale of the tape will come tomorrow when that conversation takes place. But there are a lot of supporters here in this convention and they’re still sort of holding out, for what, I don’t know. But there still not really clear about what they’re going to do.”

(More conversation about the Clinton vs Obama thing here.)

Michelle Obama as seen through Pricey Harrison's cellphone, via Facebook:

Gloria Craven, of Eden, told her story of being laid off while she struggled to pay for health care when presidential candidate Barack Obama visited North Carolina last week. She'll tell that story to a national audience Tuesday at the Democratic National Convention. From the Obama press gang:

Gloria Craven of Eden is scheduled to speak at 10:01 pm Eastern Time Tuesday night. She and her husband lost their jobs as textile workers when Pillowtex closed its doors in 2003. After going to community college using Trade Adjustment Assistance, she encountered work-related medical problems. Now the bad economy, rising prices and lack of health insurance have left her and her husband in tough times. Gloria is supporting Barack Obama because she believes he understands the struggles of working families, and he will help to protect American jobs, rather than rewarding companies who ship jobs overseas. She introduced Senator Obama at last week’s Town Hall Meeting in Raleigh.

She will join Pamela Cash-Roper of Pittsboro in the convention spotlight. Also up, according to the campaign:

Additionally, two North Carolinians will have their questions featured at “America’s Town Hall” TONIGHT in Denver, which is scheduled to take place between 8 and 9 pm Eastern Time. People from around the country videotaped questions that will be aired during the live town hall tonight. Brandy Bynum and Adam Terando came to a taping at Moore Square in Raleigh, and their questions on health care and job losses will be among those featured during tonight’s event. The virtual town hall will be moderated by Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, and it will include a panel of policy experts to answer the questions.

Toward the end of the five minutes that we had with Barack Obama, we talked football.

Defense wins championships. Not too sure what it does for a shot at the presidency, though.

Here's audio from Barack Obama's interview with us Tuesday.

On winning North Carolina in the fall.

How he hopes to break down support existing along racial lines for his and John McCain's campaigns.

Capturing older voters.

At 11:30 a.m. today, the Obama folks (along with Gov. Mike Easley) are going to hold a news conference to talk about their "blueprint for victory in North Carolina."

This is the virtual handout sent in advance of the call.

No shock: "The campaign will help turn North Carolina blue by harnessing the enormous enthusiasm and support throughout the state evident in the unprecedented volunteer involvement."

Looks like a pretty serious effort, especially in terms of investing in volunteers and "change crews." But the real indicator will be whether Obama stays on the air here into October. If you're seeing Obama ads on the television around Halloween, his folks will be serious in thinking he can win the state.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Update: Gov. Mike Easley on the call: "The people of North Carolina want two things: they want out of this war and they want changes in the economy."

Update: The ground game sounds pretty serious. Obama State Director Marc Farinella: "Every single precinct in the state will be worked by volunteers."

Update: Gov. Mike Easley: "Those who like what we (Democrats) have done in North Carolina, should vote for Sen. Obama."

Update: Gov. Mike Easley: "What I don't understand is why this is even a close race."

North Carolina Republicans opened their Triad “Victory Office” this afternoon. These things are joint operations between Arizona Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign and the state party.

Should you be inclined to stop by, this one is in High Point near the N.C. 68 and Wendover intersection. The address is 3800 Tinsley Road.

As noted in my my first-take story, former Senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole was on hand to celebrate the opening.

Those doing the speechifying today were particularly upbeat about Republican chances in November. Part of that had to do with the nature of the event. But there was a bit of genuine optimism emanating from the GOP faithful that I haven’t heard from them in a while.

Click here to listen to Sen. Richard Burr give his take as to why Republicans might win more races this fall. Short answer: he thinks the party has better candidates this time around.

Congressman Howard Coble also gave a go-get-‘em speech, which surprised me a little bit because from December through this spring he’s been talking about “a very difficult year.” So has he changed his mind?

Click here for Coble’s answer, which started “No, I’m still pessimistic.” He said that McCain’s chances were improving, but the real bright spot on the ballot was Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, who is running for governor. In particular, he said there seems to be growing sentiment that its time for a change in the executive office that plays, ironically enough, off Obama’s message of change.

More pictures of the ribbon cutting...

...and Laura Wiley sporting her convention outfit:

Cross-posted from Capital Beat:

-=-=-=-=-=-

The John Edwards affair story has been the stuff of speculation for weeks:

My boss weighed in...

...as did the barkeep and my friends at McClatchy. And so did the folks at Blue NC and Cone..

Now there is some there there as the candidate speaks. From our friends at the AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is admitting to an extramarital affair but denies fathering the woman's daughter.

Edwards tells ABC News that he lied repeatedly about the affair with a 42-year-old woman but says that he didn't love her. He says he has not taken a paternity test but knows he isn't the father because of the timing of the affair and the birth.

ABC says a former Edwards campaign staffer claims he is the father, not Edwards.

Edwards was a top contender for the Democratic nomination for president. He placed second in the Iowa caucuses last January but dropped out of the race a few weeks later.

Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2004.

Here's ABC's early take.

This is ugly all the way around:

• * Ugly for the family. You don’t need me to explain that.
• * Ugly for Edwards’ career and rep. He goes from being kind of an interesting, different sort of national figure to just another pol who couldn’t keep it in his pants.
• * Ugly for the news business. The National Enquirer is not a legit newspaper by any stretch of the imagination, but everyone once in a while that blind pig finds an acorn.
• * Ugly for the news business part II. As if it weren’t bad enough to have to follow an Enquirer story, we now get treated to whole news cycles full of material that will push the puerile interest test. Ah, shucks, it’s not like there’s a national election to cover or anything.
• * Ugly for the electorate. Once again, they’ve been lied to. Not good for one’s faith in politicians.

Ugly, ugly, ugly.

Update: Edwards has issued an official me culpa, via the AP:

In 2006, I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs. I recognized my mistake and I told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness. Although I was honest in every painful detail with my family, I did not tell the public. When a supermarket tabloid told a version of the story, I used the fact that the story contained many falsities to deny it. But being 99 percent honest is no longer enough.

I was and am ashamed of my conduct and choices, and I had hoped that it would never become public. With my family, I took responsibility for my actions in 2006 and today I take full responsibility publicly. But that misconduct took place for a short period in 2006. It ended then. I am and have been willing to take any test necessary to establish the fact that I am not the father of any baby, and I am truly hopeful that a test will be done so this fact can be definitively established. I only know that the apparent father has said publicly that he is the father of the baby. I also have not been engaged in any activity of any description that requested, agreed to or supported payments of any kind to the woman or to the apparent father of the baby.

It is inadequate to say to the people who believed in me that I am sorry, as it is inadequate to say to the people who love me that I am sorry. In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic. If you want to beat me up - feel free. You cannot beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself. I have been stripped bare and will now work with everything I have to help my family and others who need my help.

I have given a complete interview on this matter and having done so, will have nothing more to say.

So I rolled out the McCain event at Hilco this evening. It struck me as the sort of things pols used to do, getting local supporters to talk to the hometown crowd and paper about what’s on their mind.

Doc Long, the 84-year-old founder of the company, was particularly fun. He is a McCain fan and therefore took a few swipes at Obama’s energy policy. He noted, for example, that Obama said Americans need to maintain their cars and keep their tires inflated. So in conjunction with that sentiment, he handed out tire pressure gauges. That allowed Rep. John Blust, a Greensboro Republican, to quip from the peanut gallery: “Look, it’s Obama’s energy plan.”

More in tomorrow’s paper, including wire coverage on the candidates, a breakdown of the plans and my story from the McCain event. In the mean time:

* Click here for McCain’s energy plan.
* Click here for Obama’s energy plan.
* And here’s a picture of Doc in action:

I just got this notice in my e-mail box from McCain’s presidential campaign:

TALLAHASSEE, FL -- U.S. Senator John McCain's presidential campaign today announced that Hilco Transport Inc. founder Doc Long and president Gurney Long will hold a press conference in Greensboro on August 5th at 6:00 p.m. EDT to discuss John McCain's Lexington Project. The comprehensive plan will lower gas prices, expand the use of nuclear energy, and encourages more research while investing in alternative energy sources. Tuesday, August 5, 2008 GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA

WHO: Founder of Hilco Transport Inc. William H. "Doc" Long
President of Hilco Transport Inc. Gurney Long

WHAT: Press conference to discuss John McCain's energy plan

WHEN: Tuesday, August 5th at 6:00 p.m. EDT

WHERE: Hilco Transport, Inc.
7700 Kenmont Road, Greensboro, NC

Hilco’s website is here.

The Public Radio program Marketplace just did some stories on leadership PACs that you can find here. Handy links to data on the PACs is here.

Click here for the page listing all the North Carolina contributions they found.

This is one of those projects that lays out how things work and shouldn't be surprising. If you check out the latest story, it sort of explodes the myth of Obama not taking lobbyist donations. From that story:

STEVE HENN: When Barack Obama turned down federal funds for the general election, he boasted to his legion of small donors that his campaign had found a better way.

BARACK OBAMA: Instead of forcing us to rely on millions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs, you've fueled this campaign with donations of $5, $10, $20 -- whatever you can afford.

STEVE HENN: It's true Obama's campaign hasn't taken money from lobbyists or political action committees run by corporations and unions. But his own Leadership PAC has.

Leadership PACs are a carbon copy of corporate and union PACs. Their primary purpose is to raise money and share it with other party members facing tough election fights.

Obama's PAC is called the HopeFund and it has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from Washington lobbyists and special interests. Obama's not the only one with a Leadership PAC. John McCain and nearly all the other candidates who competed in the primaries run these PACs, too.

And the reality is that politicians use this money for all sorts of things, not just to contribute to others' campaigns.

Worth digging into if you have the time.

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has a new home in downtown Greensboro.

The staff has decamped from Elm Street's Cheesecakes by Alex, where they worked during the search for a new building. Obama's campaign met in a building on W. Friendly Avenue during the primary.

The new location opened for business Sunday across the street at 318 S. Elm St. A small staff is conducting voter registration and signing up campaign volunteers.

Setting up a Greensboro headquarters follows Obama's much-touted emphasis on winning over previously Republican states across the South. North Carolina is one of the states Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean will visit in a southern bus tour this month. Dean is set to visit Greensboro, Raleigh and Charlotte July 25.

The time and location of Dean's visit is not yet set, but we'll keep updates coming as information is made available.

Update: The NC Republican Party has issued a press release denouncing Dean's Southern tour and claiming that the DNC chairman is out of touch with Southern voters.

"It doesn't surprise me that Barack Obama would send Howard Dean to the South to do his bidding," said state party chairwoman Linda Daves, according to the e-mail release. "Dean might want to be careful though. There is a distinct possibility that in rural North Carolina, he may run into those 'bitter' voters who cling to their guns and religion, the ones Barack Obama has talked about in the past."

We would like to point out that Dean doesn't actually plan to stop in rural North Carolina, limiting his visit to three of the state's largest cities.

Update 2: The DNC has confirmed times and locations for Dean's three North Carolina stops. He'll be at the state Democratic Party headquarters in Raleigh at 9 a.m., Greensboro's Governmental Plaza on Greene Street at noon, and in Charlotte at 3:30 p.m. at the Margery Thompson Professional Development Center.

Update 3: Not to be outdone, Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan today announced a three-week "Victory 2008 Tour." The trip includes North Carolina alongside swing states Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and others.

Duncan will use the opportunity to discuss voter registration and Republican fundraising efforts. No word yet on his mode of transportation.

Zogby has done a red/blue/purple map of the country based on its polling.

The map is available at the firm's website and is interactive. If you click on North Carolina, here's the data it spits out:

State: North Carolina Summary: Obama - 47% McCain - 38% Barr - 4% Nader - 1% Someone else - 4% Undecided - 6%

19% lead among Independents fuels Obama lead. McCain margin with Born Agains (+14%) not as great as in most other states.

Electoral Votes: 15, Too close to call

That "too close to call" line means we get coded purple.

NC Gov. Mike Easley raised some eyebrows when he endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, not the least because the normally politically attuned Easley was picking a horse that most folks thought would pull up lame here.

He's since spent some time making nice to Sen. Barack Obama campaign.

Immediately after that appearance there was some chatter: is Easley angling for a job, just doing the right thing for the party, getting his karma right with the political gods?

Well, Easley has been lending a hand to the Obama campaign again. First, a little background.

President Bush has been advocating offshore drilling along the Atlantic Coast as a way to bring down the price of gas and help put some more oil in the system. Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee for president, had been against offshore drilling. But after a speech this week, not so much:

But the stakes are high for our citizens and for our economy. And with gasoline running at more than four bucks a gallon, many do not have the luxury of waiting on the far-off plans of futurists and politicians. We have proven oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States. But a broad federal moratorium stands in the way of energy exploration and production. And I believe it is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions and to put our own reserves to use.

We can do this in ways that are consistent with sensible standards of environmental protection. And in states that choose to permit exploration, there must be an appropriate sharing of benefits between federal and state governments. But as a matter of fairness to the American people, and a matter of duty for our government, we must deal with the here and now, and assure affordable fuel for America by increasing domestic production.

The full speech is here.

Obama disagrees with McCain. And when campaigns don't have their own candidate rebut the other guy, they often call on surrogates.

So Gov. Mike Easley on Wednesday got on a conference call with reporters today to decry McCain's "flip-flop" on the off-shore drilling issue and outline why he thought it was a bad idea.

"People need to understand this policy does not help working families at all," Easley said. "Any drilling would be 10 years away....We would never be able to affect the price."

He also said that looking for more oil takes the focus looking for renewable energy like wind and other alternatives to conserve.

"The people are being sold a bill of good here. This policy will not lower the price of gasoline," Easley said. He added that oil drilling could threaten the state's tourism economy, particularly if there were an accident that soiled the beeches or fisheries.

So will this work for Obama cause more talk about Easley playing some sort of role in an Obama administration or, heaven knows, a VP slot?

Not if the folks at Public Policy Polling are headed:

When asked if Hillary Clinton being on the Obama ticket would have any effect on their vote, the survey shows 18% of respondents being more likely to vote for Obama, and 13% being less likely.

Similar results were found when asked about the likelihood of voters choosing Obama if John Edwards was on the ticket, with 19% saying they would be more likely, and 15% saying they would be less likely.

North Carolina voters seem to be showing weak support for Governor Mike Easley as a potential candidate, with 22% saying they would be less likely to vote for Obama if he was on the ticket, compared to the 11% that said they would be more likely.

Republican Sen. John McCain's has an interesting event coming up. From his press office:

ARLINGTON, VA -- U.S. Senator John McCain's campaign today announced that John McCain, along with RNC Victory Chair Carly Fiorina, will participate in a virtual town hall with Democrats and Independents this Saturday to discuss McCain's record of putting country before political party. Many town hall participants are expected to be former supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton's campaign.

The town hall is part of the campaign's effort to build on growing support from voters who are rapidly joining "Citizens for McCain," a new grassroots organization headed by Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to rally Americans of all political parties to support John McCain's candidacy.

"The American people know I have a long record of bipartisan problem solving," said John McCain. "They've seen me put our country before any president, before any party, before any special interest -- and before my own interest. They might think me an imperfect servant of our country, which I surely am, but I am her servant first, last and always. I look forward to talking to voters across the country of all parties to present them with my vision for the future of our great nation."

Saturday, June 14, 2008
WHAT: Virtual Town Hall Meeting
WHO: John McCain & RNC Victory Chair Carly Fiornia
WHEN: Saturday, June 14, 2008; 3:30p.m. ET

PARTICIPATE: To participate, the general public should please visit cityhall.johnmccain.com.

I noted earlier that it was pretty significant that N.C. Gov. Mike Easley endorsed Barack Obama today, delivering the introduction at a rally here in Raleigh.

Easley was booed and jeered during the Democrats Jefferson-Jackson dinner, held just before the May 6 primary and not 300 feet from today's event. That's because he backed Sen. Hillary Clinton in her presidential bid and Obama supporters let him know that they were not pleased. Some in the audience, mainly older Dems for who party functions were not place for that sort of thing, were taken aback by the outburst from Obama supporters.

I talked to Mac McCorkle this afternoon. He's a long-time Easley political strategist - now working for Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue - who said that Easley's support doesn't necessarily mean Obama will have an easy go of it here.

"I really don't want to over-play that," McCorkle said. But, he said, Easley's appearance helps in two respects.

First, it shows that Democrats are together in their backing of Obama.

"What he did today reflected the unified nature of the Democratic Party down here and cast aside the notion that there would be any problem unifying behind Sen. Obama," McCorkle said.

The primary campaign had been so long and hard-fought, that many think it might take time to smooth over the grudges held by supporters of either Obama or Clinton.

Second, McCorkle said, for those who Easley is a name brand, someone they trust, his backing will mean something. He characterized Easley's base as less-political, "hard working" North Carolinians who might be worried about one part of Obama's political pedigree or another.

"That's a good signal to that part of the electorate that somebody they're comfortable with is comfortable with Obama," he said.

Certainly, one would have had a hard time imagining this picture just three weeks ago.

(Photo Credit: The Associated Press)

Click here to listen to audio from Obama's economic policy speech in Raleigh today.

Even better: Click here for about two minutes of AP video from the speech.

Click here to read the pre-fab version of Obama's speech.

Obama typically sticks close but delivers a few rhetorical embellishments along the way.

...I'll have more after his speech. Also on hand: John and Elizabeth Edwards, who got a standing O.

Gov. Mike Easley is kicking off things here.

That's significant. You'll remember during the primary that Easley endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton over Obama.

"I know I'm late, but I'm on the train," Easley told the crowd to applause.

Doors opened at 11 a.m., so things are rolling by now, right?

Ha.

Folks at the fairgrounds are still waiting for things to get moving.

Two of Obama's economic advisors, Austan Goolsbee and Jason Furman, are doing a conference call with reporters right now to preview the speech.

According to Goolsbee, Obama will touch on three main points:

• * More stimulus. Money would come from the federal government to aid states so they don't have to slash services and more money would be put into unemployment insurance. Also, additional tax rebates targeted to lower income families so they would get money in their pockets. (I guess this is one place where he and President Bush agree?)

• * More work on housing policies, including stiffer penalties for those who offer bad loans. Also, Obama said he wants to deal with what he calls a "massive backlog in foreclosures" by way of a $10 billion fund to prevent further foreclosures.

• * Riffing off something mentioned above, tax cuts for those earning less than $40,00 a year and tax relief to help people make housing payments."

They also slammed McCain's economic policy.

State Treasurer Richard Moore walked in a little while ago. He's no longer a candidate for governor, but still one of the chief financial movers and shakers in the state.

Moore, a Democrat, was one of - if not the first - candidate for statewide office to endorse Obama and said he was here to show his support. When asked to compare and contrast Obama and McCain, he said:

"To me, it's a no brainer between the two...What you will see in a McCain administration is a continuation of the worse economic polices of my lifetime."

Listen to his chat with the press by clicking here.

He did not, by the way, bite on questions that asked him to handicap Obama's chances of winning the state.

The North Carolina Republican Party is making its voice heard relative to the Obama visit. Aside from multiple e-mails from just about every GOP list I belong too, the NC party's executive director Chris McClre planted himself outside the event in order to talk to reporters.

His best line riffed off Obama's theme of the day, "Change that works for you," which is the headline for an economic policy tour he's kicking off here.

"What he really wants is the change our of our pockets," McClure said, saying that Obama's proposals would cost taxpayers too much.

You can listen to more of his chat with the press by clicking here.

And you thought we were done with visits from presidential candidates? I'm writing to you from inside the (mercifully air-conditioned) exposition center at the State Fairgrounds for Sen. Barack Obama's first appearance in North Carolina as the presumptive nominee.

Compared to a lot of the events I covered during the primary, this venue is positively cozy, only about 300 or 400 seats it looks to me. It was by "invitation only" so that will keep the crowd down.

Sen. Barack Obama's N.C. appearance this Monday has folks chewing on this question: what exactly is he up to? Does one of the Senate's most liberal/progressive members think he's going to turn a reliably red state blue? Or is this some sort of campaign head fake, a quick dodge to confuse the opposition while he breaks the other way?

A New York Times story offers one of several possible explanations. I say one of several because I think if you polled the heart-of-hearts of 10 Obama campaign strategists, you might just get three or four different answers.

But this story suggests that North Carolina could be a sort of holding action, designed to cause attrition on the other side as much as score a full on victory. From the second half of the story:

Mr. Obama's aides said some states where they intend to campaign - like Georgia, Missouri, Montana and North Carolina — might ultimately be too red to turn blue. But the result of making an effort there could force Mr. McCain to spend money or send him to campaign in what should be safe ground, rather than using those resources in states like Ohio.

Mr. Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, said that the primary contest had left the campaign with strong get-out-the-vote operations in Republican states that were small enough that better-than-usual turnout could make a difference in the general election. Among those he pointed to was Alaska, which last voted for a Democrat in 1964.

"Do we have to win any of those to get to 270?" Mr. Plouffe said, referring to the number of electoral votes needed to win the election. "No. Do we have reason to think we can be competitive there? Yes. Do we have organizations in those states to be competitive? Yes. This is where the primary was really helpful to us now."

I don't know if a state where you've had a Democratic governor 16 years running and nearly unhindered control of the Democratic legislature for nigh on a century really qualifies as "too red," but one can't ignore the last 30-plus years of Tar Heels voting for Republican presidential candidates in the general election.

Curiously, I've heard similar theories about Congressional and Senate campaigns. National or state strategists will look for credible, well funded challengers who might not have enough electoral oomph to win but can keep the incumbent pinned down.

I would think that is one reason Democrat Kay Hagan's race against Republican U.S. Senate incumbent Elizabeth Dole is getting so much attention. Not only is there the primary objective of winning a seat in the Senate that could help secure the 60-40 majority that Democrats fervently desire, but there's a secondary benefit. Even if Hagan loses, if she runs a good campaign she'll keep Dole pinned down rather than letting her jet about the United States helping out other Republicans.

Now, no campaign ever - EVER - will say they're playing for a loss. They'd be dumb to and frankly, you can't run expecting to lose. So I would expect that Hagan's folks will be quick to say something like, "What, are you stupid? Look at the polling. She can win this thing." Likewise, I would doubt you're ever going to see a direct quote from Obama's folks saying they expect the campaign in North Carolina to be anything other than a success.

Well, this will feed the discussion over whether Sen. Barack Obama will contest North Carolina during the presidential campaign. From Obama's folks:

CHICAGO, IL—The Obama campaign announced today that Senator Obama will launch a two-week economic swing—the “Change that Works for You” tour—on Monday, June 9. Obama will travel across the country, talking to Americans about how the economy affects their everyday lives. He’ll hold events with voters where they work and where they live, discussing the challenges we face and his plans to turn the economy around.

The tour will kick off on Monday with an economic speech in Raleigh, North Carolina.

“The middle class has always been the engine of prosperity in this country—but for nearly eight years we’ve had an administration that tells working people ‘you’re on your own,’” Senator Obama said. “Not when I’m President. I’ll reform our tax code to benefit the middle class instead of the big corporations. I’ll make sure that quality health care is affordable and accessible for every American. And I’ll provide real relief from the housing crisis by creating a foreclosure prevention fund, providing a tax break for homeowners, and cracking down on fraudulent lenders. Those are the kind of solutions that will make a difference for working Americans—and that’s the kind of change we’ll be discussing on this tour.”

You can learn more about Barack Obama’s economic policies HERE. More details of the
“Change that Works for You” tour will be released when they are available.

MONDAY, JUNE 9
Raleigh, NC
SPEECH ON “CHANGE THAT WORKS FOR YOU”

North Carolina State Fairgrounds
Exposition Center
1025 Blue Ridge Blvd
Raleigh NC 27607

Doors Open: 11:00 AM

The event is by invitation only.

So Obama has claimed the nomination and Clinton supporters are wondering what's next.

I was hanging with the legislature last night, so I neglected to post on the end of the primary.

As the primaries were shutting down, both campaigns sent e-mails to supporters. Obama's was very triumphant sounding, as you might expect:

I'm about to take the stage in St. Paul and announce that we have won the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

It's been a long journey, and we should all pause to thank Hillary Clinton, who made history in this campaign. Our party and our country are better off because of her.

I want to make sure you understand what's ahead of us. Earlier tonight, John McCain outlined a vision of America that's very different from ours -- a vision that continues the disastrous policies of George W. Bush.

But this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past and bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.

It's going to take hard work, but thanks to you and millions of other donors and volunteers, no one has ever been more prepared for such a challenge.

Thank you for everything you've done to get us here. Let's keep making history.

Barack

Meanwhile, Clinton's e-mail was more muted in tone and doesn't exactly scream "I give up:"

Over the course of this campaign, I have seen the promise of America in your courage and character, your energy and ingenuity, and your compassion and faith.

Your spirit has inspired me every day in this race. While I traveled this country talking about how I wanted to help you -- time and again, you reached out to help me. To grab my hand or grip my arm, to look me in my eyes and tell me, don’t quit, keep fighting, stay in this race for us. There were days when I had strength enough for the both of us -- and on the days I didn't, I leaned on you.

This has always been your campaign, and tonight, there's no one I want to hear from more than you. I hope you're as proud as I am of what we've done and that you'll take a moment to share your thoughts with me now at my website.

I want to congratulate Senator Obama and his supporters on the extraordinary race that they have run. Senator Obama has inspired so many Americans to care about politics and empowered so many more to get involved, and our party and our democracy are stronger and more vibrant as a result.

Whatever path I travel next, I promise I will keep faith with you and everyone I have met across this good and great country. There is no possible way to thank you enough for everything you have done throughout this primary season, and you will always be in my heart.

Sincerely,
Hillary Rodham Clinton

Just to round things out, here was the e-mail sent about the same time by the McCain campaign. If was very much a get-down-to-business affair:

My Friends,

Tonight, we can say with confidence the primary season is over, and the general election campaign has begun.

Each American faces a decision this election and the choice between my candidacy and Senator Obama's could not be more clear. This is a change election. But the choice is between the right change and the wrong change; between going forward and going backward.

The right change recognizes that many of the policies and institutions of our government have failed. The right kind of change will initiate widespread and innovative reforms in almost every area of government policy from energy to taxes to government spending and the military.

The right change will stop impeding Americans from doing what they have always done, overcome obstacles and turn challenges into opportunities. Today, I humbly ask you to join my campaign for the right change, as we move forward together as a nation. Please follow this link to make your generous campaign contribution right away.

The wrong change looks not to the future, but to the past for solutions that have failed us before and will surely fail us again. Like others before him, my opponent seems to think government is the answer to every problem. That's not change we can believe in.

My friends, we're not a country that would rather go back than forward. We're the world's leader, and leaders don't hide from history. They make history. If we're going to lead, we must reform a government that has lost its ability to help us do so.

You can take direct action today by making a donation of $25, $50, $100, $250, $500, or any amount up to the legal limit of $2,300. Your generous support will enable me to take my message of the right change and reform directly to the American people.

I don't seek the presidency on the presumption I'm blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save my country in its hour of need. I seek the office with the humility of a man who cannot forget my country saved me. I assure you that if I'm elected president, the era of reform and problem solving will begin. From my first day in office, I'll work tirelessly to make America safe, prosperous and proud. And that, my friends, is the kind of change we need.

Sincerely,

John McCain

P.S. We need change in this country, but we need the right change. I am prepared to lead this country in the right direction, but I will need your help to get elected. Follow this link to make a donation of any amount up to the legal limit of $2,300. Your generous support will make all the difference in determining the type of change our next president brings to this nation. Thank you.

Before last week's election, there was a good deal of speculation about what the drop-off would be. How many more people who would vote in the presidential contest versus other races lower on the ballot, particularly in the Democratic primary?

After looking at some data from the State Board of Elections and the Guilford County BOE it's fair to say that there was some serious drop-off, although I found the ballot spots where it happened a bit surprising.

At both the county and state level, the presidential contest definitely was the draw. But at both the state and county levels, the race for governor was the second-biggest draw on the Democratic ballot. That was followed by the U.S. Senate race. Statewide, the drop-off from President to governor was 5 percent, versus U.S. Senate 15.5 percent.

In Guilford County, nearly 4,000 fewer people voted for U.S. Senate versus for Governor. That's despite the leading candidates in the senate race (Greensboro state Sen. Kay Hagan and Greensboro-native Jim Neal) having ties to Guilford County and the race appearing on the ballot ahead of the race for governor.

This bum-fuzzles me. I would think that the choice of who Democrats want to take on Sen. Dole would be pretty darned important to them. I'm not sure how to interpret this, although I'm betting if I talked to Dole's folks they'd say it's a sign that some Democrats are happy with the incumbent.

The only alternative I have at my fingertips involves advertising: Richard Moore and Bev Perdue were on the air a lot. Hagan was the only one of the U.S. Senate candidates on television and in nowhere near the rotation that Bev Perdue and Richard Moore were.

Among the partisan statewide races, the biggest dropoff on the Democratic side was between President and Labor Commissioner. Statewide, 376,425 - or 24 percent - fewer people voted for the state official responsible for inspecting elevators and amusement rides and enforcing workplace safety rules. Phhhhppttt...who needs to keep nails out of their skulls anyway.

In Guilford County, a lot of people went to considerable trouble to under-vote the down ballot races. You can tell because a total of 127,589 people voted in the Republican and Democratic presidential races. Then 122,000-plus voted in all the sales tax and bond referenda.

But only a total of 105,345 Democrats and Republicans voted for Lt. Governor, the #2 elected official in the state.

To roughly extrapolate, that means about 17,000 punched a button for president, and then leafed through several pages, leaving races like Lt. Gov. blank, before getting to the bonds.

What does this all mean? Several things, I think, some obvious:

• * Not all races caught the voting public's imagination equally.
• * All politics is local and the referenda are about as local as it gets.
• * Folks probably aren't sure what the people who hold the council of state offices do, much less the differences between the candidates.
• * There's probably an argument in here for eliminating some council of state offices, if one wanted to have it.

Your thoughts welcome at the comment link below.

In case you missed, former N.C. Senator John Edwards was on NPR's "All Things Considered" Friday. He didn't say who he would back in the presidential primary, adding that his neutral position put him in a better position to pursue his anti-poverty agenda.

There's been an air of inevitability about this one, but from our friends at the Associated Press:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) _ Rep. Brad Miller endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Thursday, becoming the third North Carolina superdelegate to pledge support to the Illinois senator since his convincing win in the state's primary.

Miller met with Obama in Washington on Thursday afternoon and said afterward that Obama has shown that he can inspire people and bring fundamental change to the country.

"I see this year as an opportunity to really build a consensus that can last a generation," Miller said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Obama now has the support of nine superdelegates from North Carolina, including state Democratic Party chief Jerry Meek. Rival Hillary Rodham Clinton has the support of three state superdelegates, including Gov. Mike Easley.

Miller's been dropping hints about this for the past couple days.

North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Meek, who is a super delegate, endorsed Sen. Barack Obama today:

Chairman Meek said, “Over the past year, I’ve watched as Barack Obama has drawn countless new people to the political process. Although my position as State Chair has led me to remain neutral through the primary, I’ve quietly celebrated as Barack Obama offered new hope to millions of Americans who have lost faith in the American dream after years of disastrous Republican policies. Rarely does a public servant emerge with Barack Obama’s ability to unite our country and produce real change. With Barack Obama as our nominee, North Carolina can deliver its electoral votes to a Democrat and Democratic candidates up and down the ballot will benefit. Barack Obama offers the best chance to take back the White House, elect countless democrats down-ballot, and breathe new life into the Democratic Party.”

From our friends at the Associated Press:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) _ Two Democratic superdelegates from North Carolina have endorsed presidential candidate Barack Obama.

State Democratic Party chief Jerry Meek and Cumberland County commissioner Jeanette Council both announced their support for the Illinois senator Wednesday.

Their votes now give Obama the support of eight superdelegates from North Carolina.

Hillary Rodham Clinton won the support of Rep. Heath Shuler for beating Obama in his district. She has the support of three North Carolina superdelegates, including Gov. Mike Easley. There are seven uncommitted superdelegates remaining in the state.

Meek also has the power to recommend four people to fill two positions as unpledged add-on delegates. Those delegates will be selected at the state convention in June.

Sen. John McCain gave a speech in Wake Forest this morning before heading to a fundraiser in Greensboro at New Breed CEO Louis DeJoy's house. That's where I hopped aboard this thing:

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee rolled in the Straight Talk Express on up to PITA, where he hopped a charter to Michigan.

Along the way, we scruffy media types got to toss him a few questions and snap some (in my case) bad photos:

While on board, the subject du jour was McCain's take on judicial nominations, which was the focus of his speech this morning.

I've got to write a story, now but you can click here to listen to McCain's speech at Wake Forest (The first person on this take is Sen. Richard Burr, doing the introductions. ) or here to read the prepared text.

And you can listen to the press gaggle on the bus by clicking here. The conversation ranged all over the place, but it concentrated on the nominations.

I was at the Hillary Clinton stop in High Point earlier today.

There were some incredibly enthusiastic supporters there -- including the owner of what I'm calling the Hillarymobile, a Toyota sedan with Arizona plates covered in tributes to Hillary:

Some advance man should be handed his walking papers for putting her at the train depot downtown, where trains rolled by a few times making it difficult to hear what she was saying. She was tough though, incorporating the trains into her speech (click to listen to streaming audio of the speech, with intro by Gov. Mike Easley and his son Michael) at several points and talking over them when she needed to.

Clinton even cracked wise about North Carolina barbecue...

Because I'd heard the basic stump speech a half-dozen times now and she did much of it on today's morning shows, I noticed something else that was the least bit different and strange...

Courtesy of reporter Joe Killian:

If the good folks at Zogby International can be trusted, Sen. Barack Obama maintains his lead in the Democratic presidential primary despite Sen. Hillary Clinton's last minute push, the Rev. Wright Controversy, etc... From the release:

After a good day of polling, Obama retains a lead in North Carolina - 48% to 39%, with 13% either unsure or favoring someone else.

[snip]

In North Carolina, Obama's lead comes from strength among voters age 18 to 54, while Clinton leads among the 70 and older.

From today's paper: the race for the Democratic presidential nominations is affecting races lower down on both the Dem and GOP ballots.

Also: more hot air over the gas tax.

Meanwhile, early voting ended in Guilford County Saturday and Lorraine Ahearn ponders race and politics.

And in case you missed it, Obama and Clinton chatted up Dems in Raleigh on Friday night.

Candidates for president and governor will be in Greensboro-High Point-Triad area Sunday and Monday. Some of the doings:

On Sunday:

• * Kal Pen (Kumar from the Harold and Kumar films) will be at Elon Universities McKinnon Hall in Elon at 12 p.m.

• * Former President Clinton is due in Reidsville at Reidsville High School at 9:15 p.m.

On Monday:

• * Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, a Republican campaigning for governor, will hold a rally at the Jamestown Public Library at 7 p.m. You'll remember, that's where McCrory started his campaign.

• * Lawyer Bill Graham flies into PTI Airport for a presser at 1:15 p.m.

• * Treasurer Richard Moore, a Democratic candidate for governor, will bring his campaign to Stamey's on Coliseum Boulevard. Major penalty points if he doesn't have the cobbler.

• * Sen. Hillary Clinton, campaigning for president, is scheduled for a Monday, 11:30 a.m. Get Out the Vote event at the Depot in High Point.

So a few weeks ago in an interview Gov. Mike Easley kind of ripped on this whole idea of a gas tax holiday.

Two weeks later, he endorses Sen. Hillary Clinton in her bid for president.

Funny story: Clinton has made creating a federal gas tax holiday the centerpiece of her campaign since an appearance in Graham on Monday.

Of course, I'm pretty much a moron so it took me a while to put two-and-18.4-cents together. So it came as a bit of jog today when the Obama campaign sent out a new release citing that interview and questioning how it is that Easley could back Clinton when he disagrees with a policy that has been central to her campaign for the past six days.

The answer from Easley's press office:

“The governor enthusiastically supports the proposal in Washington because it taxes the windfall profits of big oil to replace the taxes on the people,” Easley spokesman Seth Effron said. “On the state level, there is not the ability to tax big oil, so North Carolina would have a deficit.”

More on this in tomorrow's paper.

It wasn't 8 a.m. yet this morning before I got a phone call from someone complaining about my story on Sens. Clinton and Obama campaigning at the Jefferson-Jackson diner in Raleigh last night.

The criticism was over this line:

"...from the crowd, which appeared to heavily favor the Illinois senator and roared when he took the stage 70 minutes later. Audience members roared and came to their feet several times during his speech. Although Clinton got applause, it was not as robust."

The caller said that the audience was evenly split between Clinton and Obama supporters. That was simply not the case.

First off, Clinton got a smattering of "boos" during her speech and Gov. Mike Easley appeared to lose his place at one point when the crowd jeered over his endorsement of Clinton.

Secondly, Clinton got some nice ovation. You could feel - literally feel the vibrations - from the applause that Obama got before he said a word.

Also, eyeballing the crowd, multiple reporters remarked on how many more Obama signs were in the house than there were for Clinton.

And the crowd was simply louder for Obama than it was for Clinton.

But maybe I'm crazy. If so, I'm other scruffy media types are with me.

From Rob Christensen at the News & Observer: "But the sharp divisions were evident in the crowd, which leaned toward Obama. There were scattered boos from Obama backers when Clinton discussed her gas-tax plan. And there was almost certainly a first in 78-year-history of the dinner -- lusty boos for a sitting Democratic governor. Gov. Mike Easley, who had endorsed Clinton earlier in the week, was jeered when he was introduced, and had to speak over scattered boos."

From the Charlotte Observer Team: "When Obama walked to the stage after Clinton, the room exploded with energy."

At any rate, if I'm indulging in a delusion, it is a shared one.

Here's a few clips from Hillary Clinton's rally this afternoon at Guilford College.

She gave a little heat to the current administration and promised to protect some jobs (1:04 minute mp3).

Clinton also said she wants to revise NAFTA and do something about goods from China (42 second mp3).

And she spoke to her plans to relieve gasoline costs and close the "Enron loophole." (1:52 minute mp3)

Cross-posted from Inside Scoop:

At the Hillary Clinton rally today we ran into a Guilford College senior wearing a body-sized triangular suit that had a photo of a slice of pizza.

"Loving pizza is the common denominator of human existence," Johanna Breed told Scoop. The statement might be the truest piece of almost-political rhetoric that Scoop has ever heard
(27 second mp3).

Breed said she was there to shoot for a spot as Hillary's running-mate. But after a while Breed showed her true colors. She supports Barack Obama in the presidential primary, and only happened to have the costume on hand.

"I'm actually an Obama supporter, but I just thought this was funny," she said. Though if Clinton approached her, the Guilford College art major might reconsider, Breed said (44 second mp3).

Clinton's press secretary hasn't gotten back to Scoop about the chances of a Clinton/Pepperoni ticket in 2008.

Not that Slate really needs the traffic, but this video is worth your seven minutes:

Remember those robo-calls that seemed designed to suppress voter turnout? As Facing South reports, they're from a nonprofit that supposedly wants more people to vote. From their post:

Facing South has confirmed the source of the calls, and the mastermind is Women's Voices Women Vote, a D.C.-based nonprofit which aims to boost voting among "unmarried women voters."

What's more, Facing South has learned that the firestorm Women's Voices has ignited in North Carolina isn't the group's first brush with controversy. Women's Voices' questionable tactics have spawned thousands of voter complaints in at least 11 states and brought harsh condemnation from some election officials for their secrecy, misleading nature and likely violations of election law.

There are two options here.

The first one: WVWV is truly trying to increase voter turnout and just has bad timing and/or is painfully ignorant of the state's voter laws.

Or: WVWV is trying to help a specific candidate or candidates by suppressing turnout in certain communities.

Facing South seems to think it's the latter:

For such a sophisticated and well-funded operation, which counts among its ranks some of the country's most seasoned political operatives, such missteps are peculiar, as is the surprise expressed by Women's Voices staff after each controversy.

[snip]

Now Women's Voices is plunging North Carolina into the same confusion. State officials tell Facing South they are still receiving calls from frustrated and confused voters, wondering why "Lamont Williams" is offering to send them a "voter registration packet" after the deadline for mail-in registration for the primaries has passed.

In correspondence with North Carolina election officials, Women's Voices founder and President Page Gardner merely said that the disruptive timing was an "unfortunate coincidence" -- a strange alibi for a group with their level of resources and sophistication.

There are other questions about Women's Voices' outreach efforts. Although the group purports to be targeting "unmarried women," their calls and mailings don't fit the profile. Kevin Farmer in Durham, who first recorded the call, is a white male. Many of the recipients are African-American; Rev. Nelson Johnson, who is a married, male and African-American, reported that his house was called four times by the mysterious "Lamont Williams."

And as Farmer asks, "Why are they using a guy for the calls if the target audience is single women?"

Some have also questioned the ties between Women's Voices operatives and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton.

When Obama was in Winston-Salem Tuesday he came to talk about gas and ended up talking about a gasbag.

Lorraine has her own unique take here.

I don't know for sure, but you've got to think the N.C. Republican Party has to feel like the rooster that made the sun come up by rolling out this ad before this latest round of controversy started.

The eye of the presidential campaign storm moves out of state for at least two days, with Obama and Clinton heading to campaign in Indiana.

Update: A commenter on this post writes: "This is so transparent. Rev. Wright gets the spotlight he craves and Obama can distance himself from his Achilles Heel. Of course the pro-Obama prepaid media machine is praising this move as the best thing ever."

Leaving the "pro-Obama media machine" aside, the focus on the Rev. Wright was not the best thing ever. In fact, it was really frustrating.

Here we have one of the three people who could potentially be the next president in the state and we're having him talk about what someone else said. Rather than getting to hear his thoughts on the Supreme Court's latest voting rights ruling (voter ids are okay, the court said. Expect this to be a topic in NC soon) or immigration problems that are peculiar to North Carolina, we got treated to more of the freak show that is Rev. Wright.

Is Wright a legit campaign issue? Sure. But listening to Obama say 50 different ways that he deplored the reverend's comments wasn't a good use of anyone's time.

Sen. Hillary Clinton was in Greensboro Tuesday, as mentioned in this story.

The news bullet of the day was Clinton's push of a gas tax holiday, something new for her campaign. It was something she pitched at an event in Graham, where reporters were invited to the festivities.

Reporters were not invited to the event in Greensboro, which was a fundraiser. Still, we covered the action anyway.

How?

We bought a ticket and walked in.

The campaign made the point to me, before and after the event, that it was closed press.

I have resisted, until now, pointing out the fact that there were 700 people in that venue, 95 percent of who were toting cell phones with cameras and recorders, a bunch with personal cameras and all, I would think, with decent enough memories to relate the event to friends and neighbors. So since everyone invited to the event was potentially a reporter, that "closed press" thing seemed pretty laughable.

The other answer, which I have given to some, is that if the Clinton campaign or any national campaign rolls into the News & Record's home turf - Greensboro, Guilford County, etc... - we're going to cover things aggressively as possible, so the "closed press" designation really isn't going to be a deterrent.

By the way, the speech Clinton gave to the paying crowd and the one she gave to those who just showed up at a fire station in Graham was pretty much the same. The paying customers did get a bag lunch and a comfy seat, though.

Today is Tuesday, so I'm off to see Sen. Barack Obama in Winston-Salem.

Question: What's happening today in Greensboro, requires a $25 minimum contribution to get in, will feature a major party candidate for president yet is on none - and I mean none - of the official schedules the campaign in question is sending to us scruffy media types.

Answer: Hillary Clinton's shindig over at the Carolina Theater.

As far as I can tell, this is Sen. Clinton's only scheduled stop in the Gate City.

Anyone heading to the fundraiser who wants to drop a line on why they're going, what they think of the festivities or who have other Clinton-relate thoughts to get off their chests: mbinker@news-record.com.

From today's paper: a look at the Democratic primary for governor. Previously: the Republicans.

Here's more on the the tv ad by the GOP. You know the one. It'll begin airing Monday.

The bad news, you're behind in the polls and fundraising in the U.S. Senate race. The good news: you have the money for a heck of a party. Our editorial page has made an endorsement in the race.

Coming this week: Presidential candidates are back in town. Hillary Clinton will be at a fundraiser in Greensboro Monday. and Barack Obama will be in Winston-Salem Tuesday.

With all the national media declaring Sen. Hillary Clinton the victor in Pennsylvania, a Tar Heel voter may be tempted to ask, so what?

I think the only relevance to those of us voting on May 6 is that the victory ensures the campaign will come to North Carolina. If Clinton had lost, one might have been able to make the case that Barack Obama had more mojo going into the final stages of the campaign and that with a loss among people who were supposed to be her base, Clinton had shown enough weakness that she should bow out.

Well, that ain't happening.

Clinton, her husband the former President and daughter Chelsea will all be in the state over the next week and one can well imagine Obama is going to be back with his top surrogates as well.

North Carolina, with 115 delegates, is the richest prize left on the Democratic Primary calendar. Indiana, which also votes on May 6, is next with 72. Puerto Rico has 55. Puerto Rico will vote June 1, followed by Montana and South Dakota, which close the primary season on June 3.

A group of 29 legislators came out to endorse Barack Obama today. Among the locals on the list were Reps. Alma Adams and Pricey Harrison along with Sen. Katie Dorsett.

However, the heavy hitters on the agenda were Rep. Dan Blue, a one-time U.S. Senate candidate and very well respected committee chairman in the House, and Sen. Tony Rand, the Senate majority leader all around power broker in the Senate.

Two points about Rand's speech today: It sounded a little un-Rand-like. Rand is known for his home-spun colloquy that borders on the elegant at times. I asked him if the words were his own. He acknowledged that the campaign had written part of it, which I think is pretty standard operating procedure for these kinds of announcements.

However, after the newser when he was just fielding questions, Rand delivered some very Rand-like lines. The best, by far, came in response to a question about the flag-pin and Rev. Wright controversies and whether they would hurt Obama in Rand's district, which includes Ft. Bragg.

"I think that so shallow. I don't think the people of my district are going to fall for that kind of stuff ... It's what you stand for and where you are. I hope we will focus on jobs, on doing something about the dependence on energy, I hope we'll look at what we can do to resolve the problems of the Middle East and get out of there. If we can do those things, you know, he could walk around naked as far as I'm concerned and it would be fine."

The full list of legislators who endorsed Obama Tuesday is after the jump:

No debate. This just came through from state Democratic Party HQ:

RALEIGH -- The North Carolina Democratic Party announced today that it will cancel the proposed Democratic Presidential debate on April 27 due to time constraints and logistical issues associated with such a large, national event.

While there was great interest in the debate, there were also growing concerns about what another debate would do to party unity.

The Party would also like to thank North Carolina State University for their hospitality and willingness to host this debate.

Both campaigns have offered North Carolinians additional opportunities to be seen and heard across the state in the coming weeks and months.

In addition, Senators Clinton and Obama have committed to attending our Jefferson-Jackson Dinner on Friday, May 2 in Raleigh.

Tickets are still available by signing up online http://www.ncdp.org/.

This is from an Associated Press breakdown of the remaining primaries in the Democratic nomination process:

With its large population of black voters and well-populated liberal enclaves, Obama is heavily favored to win North Carolina. Recent polling shows him with a double-digit lead over Clinton, and both candidates vying for the state's Democratic gubernatorial nomination have endorsed the Illinois senator.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who also sought the nomination, has declined both candidates' endorsement requests. He's kept a low profile since leaving the race, and it's unlikely he will appear with either candidate leading up to the primary.

Obama has been advertising on television in North Carolina since late March. Clinton went up recently with an unconventional one-minute ad in which she invited North Carolinians to submit questions that she would answer in subsequent ads leading up to the primary. More than 10,000 questions have been submitted so far.

Obama is targeting the state's five major urban areas _ Charlotte, Durham, Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Raleigh, the state capital. Clinton is eyeing the more rural regions of the state and military communities such as Fayetteville.

Unaffiliated voters can vote in either party's contest. The state has heavy early voting that began Thursday.

So I was in Greensboro Thursday on some other assignments, but it turned out that Hillary Clinton's national campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, was going to drop by the Guilford County Courthouse.

As I was loitering about beside Market Street, the appointed hour for McAuliffe's arrival came and who should wander up the street? Right: a bunch of Barack Obama supporters chanting their hearts out:

Very odd timing.

At any rate, McAuliffe showed up shortly after and stopped to chat with some Clinton supporters who were also gathered outside the courthouse.

During a brief conversation, McAuliffe said that North Carolina was one of several southern states the eventual Democratic nominee would do well to campaign in. He also said that North Carolina could have been in play in 2004, but that then-nominee John Kerry was too slow to respond to the swift-boat accusations.

Click here to listen to some of our conversation.

I also asked if he worried the ongoing Democratic battle would give presumptive Republican nominee John McCain and advantage. As you might expect, the answer to that question was no. "I think all this excitement is good, the key is we've got to come together at the end." Click here for that.

Gov. Mike Easley was kind enough to sit and chat a spell earlier this week. Among other things, I asked him whether he's make a choice in the presidential election - he has not - and what he thought of the back-and-forth in the Democratic primary to replace him. I asked Easley if he has been tempted to step into the battle between Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue and Treasurer Richard Moore.

"I've said some things. It doesn't work. They're going to do what they're going to do, " he said.

Click here to listen to a segment of that chat.

And then there was this question: are you done running for office? Click here for that answer.

More is coming, including a Q+A in the paper this weekend.

From the N.C. Democratic Party:

RALEIGH -- The North Carolina Democratic Party announced today that Raleigh’s RBC Center will be the site for the April 27th Democratic Presidential Debate.

It will be held in partnership with North Carolina State University and CBS News.

CBS will broadcast the 90-minute live debate, beginning at 8 p.m., immediately following 60 Minutes. Katie Couric and Bob Schieffer will moderate.

“North Carolinians are excited about the opportunity to hear from both candidates, right here in our state about the issues that are important to us,” said NCDP Chair Jerry Meek. “Both candidates have said our May 6 primary is important to them and have agreed to a CBS debate in North Carolina.”

“Their participation in this debate will be the clearest indication of North Carolina’s importance in this process,” Meek said.

The RBC Center is home to the N.C. State University men’s basketball team and the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes.

Seating will be limited due to a special set-up for the televised debate. For more information, monitor our website, www.ncdp.org.

The Obama folks say they're not sold on the date. From a campaign spokesperson:

Senator Obama has debated Senator Clinton more than 20 times so far, and our campaign agreed to another debate in North Carolina that was proposed for the third week of April. Unfortunately, the Clinton campaign vetoed that date. We are still determining whether or not the later date works for Senator Obama’s schedule.

I have a hard time figuring that Obama would not rearrange his schedule to take advantage of that kind of air time, but I've been wrong before.

I talked for about 10 minutes on the phone this afternoon with Sen. Chris Dodd, who was himself a candidate for President this spring. He suspended his campaign this spring and now support Sen. Barack Obama.

Here's the full disclosure bit: Dodd has become a surrogate for the Obama campaign and it was the campaign that approached me about talking to him. But hey: I'll take an interview with a U.S. Senator and former presidential candidate when I can get one and to be fair, Dodd didn't push an agenda on the call and actually answered the questions I asked him. (That, my friends, is not always the case when interviewing politicians.)

Dodd was an interesting guy to talk with and, being chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, is especially knowledgeable about all the doings and misdoings in the financial markets and mortgage industry. We spent a good part of our time talking about how complex some of this stuff is and how hard it will be to sort out.

Which lead me to this question for him: You're supporting Sen. Obama in the presidential chase. But he does not have a really deep banking and/or financial industry resume - he has not even served a full term in the state Senate and does not serve on the Banking or other committees with the oversight responsibility on these industries. Does he have the background to take on this problem were he elected? His reply, transcribed from some poor-quality audio:

"Certainly he does. The background you want in president is to first of all understand the problem needs to be addressed. He certainly gets that. And he needs the gray matter to understand it, and he certainly has that.

"But most importantly, because none of this is going to happen, I don't care how good your ideas are and your position papers are, and even if Barack Obama had spent his entire life becoming knowledgeably about financial institutions and mortgages, if you don't have leadership ability to motivate the country, to motivate people, to sit down and work out things in a way that will resolve issues to the satisfaction of our nation, then none of this is going to happen.

"We don't need to hire a technician. We need to hire a person who can provide that kind of moral leadership, that direction, that inspirational leadership, the ability to attract people who want to be part of the solution who get excited about being invited to that table to make a difference. And those are the qualities.

"Experience is very important, but it shouldn't be judged in isolation. It's your value system, your life experiences, your character, your commitment, your leadership skills - all of these things are much more important than, than - what experiences do you want to have? At this very hour its in housing and financial services, you know, yesterday it was Iraq. Tomorrow it may be Africa or Latin America, then it may be health care.

"We're never going to have anybody in that job who is experienced in all of this. But what they ought to have is the qualities and abilities to know the difference between the people who are coming to the table with an honest commitment to make a difference, who understand a good idea when you've heard it, to not be afraid of people with opposing ideas who come to you with good will and are interested in making a contribution. And I think Barack Obama has that talent and ability.

"I spent a year and a half of my life competing against these people not to mention getting to know them pretty well. And I'm satisfied, and this is not to be against Hillary Clinton. I'm not against anyone, particularly her. I have a lot of respect and admiration for her and she's talented as she can be.

"But I think the moment in history and the individual are coming together in this moment, and Barack Obama is exciting an element in the country that we've not seen in a long time. In our system you need that to get things done and we haven't had it in a long time. So I'm supporting his candidacy - and look, there are people like myself and Ted Kennedy, and others who years of experience. So if he wants to get technicians who know how to do this and who to listen to and so forth, that's what a good president will do. That's what his talent is going to be. That's who you want in that job."

My next question was this: how do the Democrats bring the nomination process to a close in such a way that the party does not hurt the chances for its eventual nominee?

"It going to take some adults in the room over the next few weeks to say, you know, game over, you know, and mean it and make that happen.

"Having said that quickly to you, then how do you do that? You've obviously got to have facts moving in your direction, and they are clearly (moving) Barack Obama's way. What is it, 56-to-32 (percent) among Democrats who believe he has the strongest opportunity to win in November. I know we don't like to talk about winning, but if you don't win you're not going to talk about any of this stuff in January, so you've got to win.

"And you've got to win by not just appealing to your base, but you've got to attract independents and in our case moderate Republicans who are looking for change. One statistic that is not gotten a lot of attention, Mark, is the following: of the 44 contests that have happened, in those contests where Republicans and Independents are allowed to vote in a Democratic caucus or primary, Barack Obama has a million more people that are Independents and Republicans that have voted for him and not voted for his opponent. That's the constituency you better have working for you on November 5 or you're not going to win the election.

"But if you end up going to Denver (the site of this years Democratic presidential nominating convention) in a brawl, with the party highly divided over personalities - it's not like George Wallace and Bobby Kennedy running against each other. We got to get down and drill down into those position papers to find those sub-paragraph three differences."

So, at what point should the adults get together in the room and make some decisions?

"When? ... You and I will know it when we see it. What happens in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, what happens in Indiana. I think taking a good hard look on May 6 is the date I'll be looking at. If Barack wins Pennsylvania, maybe we don't have to look at it any more than April 22. If it's a narrow loss, then obviously what happens in North Carolina will be critical, what happens in Indiana - If the trend lines continue as they have been, then I think its about that time to say let's put a wrap on this one and let's pull people together.

"Candidates always get together. I'm not worried about Hillary Clinton working hard for Barack Obama, or Barack Obama working hard for Hillary Clinton. I'm worried about the legions of people, supporters, people who (gave) financially, people who have committee a year and half - two years of their lives to this, they're much harder to turn around in eight weeks between the end of August and the first week in November.

"I've been around long enough, Mark, to watch this, I've seen what happened. We come out of conventions with all the phony pictures of people holding up each others' hands as a symbol of unity and there isn't an ounce of it in the room, and you try to patch that up and you end up loosing elections.

"So I'm very concerned about it. And I think people who say, 'This is healthy for the party,' and all these things, they don't know what they're talking about. It is to a point, but if you allow this thing to go too far and candidly, this campaign has been run by these cable networks, who are living off this and would love nothing more than to be reporting 24/7 about every nuanced battle between Michigan and Florida and delegates and supporters and fundraisers, what great theater that could be."

Okay, this is just getting odd. Here's the latest report on a potential presidential debate in North Carolina from the Associated Press:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama have both signed off on a Democratic debate in North Carolina. The question now is when.

Obama had previously agreed to debate his rival on April 19 in North Carolina. On Thursday, the Clinton campaign said she has agreed to a debate April 27, sponsored by CBS.

North Carolina holds its primary on May 6.

The two candidates have agreed to debate in Philadelphia on April 16, a few days before the Pennsylvania primary on April 22.

The contenders have debated 20 times during the presidential campaign. Their last meetings were in Texas on Feb. 21 and Ohio on Feb. 26 ahead of those states' primaries on March 4. Clinton won both contests.

State Democratic Party chairman Jerry Meek said he has yet to get a response from Obama's campaign, which did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

This here is why political reporters are always friends with the local barkeep.

Sen. Hillary Clinton just told reporters two things on a conference call:

• 1- she's going to begin airing ads in the state that will feature her answers to questions asked by ordinary North Carolinians. The website www.ncaskme.com has apparently been set up to take these questions.

• 2- she's agreed to an April 27 debate date, although location and place are still unsettled.Update: Charlotte's Jim Morrill has more on this.

Update: Here's the first in the series of ads:

Since it's the Democratic presidential hopefuls who have been stopping by to sit a spell, it's the Dems we've been paying the most attention to. Just to remind folks there's a Republican in the race (with his party's nomination in hand, no less) here's the latest "Web Ad" from Sen. John McCain. It's a "Web Ad" because it's too long to stick on television. It also relies on the person watching it to stick with it all the way through to the end; otherwise you kind of miss the point.

From the Clinton Campaign press office:

The Clinton campaign today announced President Bill Clinton will return to North Carolina this Friday, April 4, attending events in Pembroke, Laurinburg, and Monroe.

Actors Shawn and Marlon Wayans will tour college campuses throughout the state this coming weekend as part of a get-out-the-youth vote push on behalf of the Obama campaign. UNCG and NCA&T are on the itinerary.

Also part of the youth movement is an ad that is due to start airing this week:

Into the weeds of presidential back-and-forth we go...

So, a news release with this headline came to us scruffy media types from the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign today: "Charlotte City Council Mayor Pro Tem Susan Burgess to Hold Conference Call to Challenge Sen. Obama to Stop Trying to Disenfranchise North Carolina Voters."

What the campaign was trying to get at was that North Carolina, for the first time in a very long time, had the opportunity to have a meaningful vote in a presidential contest. But there have been those allied with Sen. Barack Obama that have called for Sen. Clinton to step out of the Democratic primary.

Before going further, it is worth noting that Obama himself has said "My attitude is that Sen. Clinton can run as long as she wants" and it is rather Obama supporters such as Sens. Dodd and Leahy who have suggested she should stand down.

At any rate, Burgess and Clinton campaign spokesman Isaac Baker were on the phone today and were asked a couple questions about the use of the word "disenfranchise," which is defined: "to deprive of a franchise, of a legal right, or of some privilege or immunity; especially : to deprive of the right to vote."

It's a word that might have some particular resonance in this state, given the fact we're still subject to the federal voting rights act to ensure the state doesn't disenfranchise African American voters.

Burgess was asked whether she thought calls for Clinton to step out of the race were disenfranchisement: "Not really. I think disenfranchisement means depriving of voting right. And what I want to make sure is that we're not deprived of voting because I want the voices of people of North Carolina heard in this very, very important presidential race."

Baker didn't back down from the word though: "I think this stems from several instances, certainly the way the Obama campaign has handled the votes in Florida and Michigan have raised a lot of concerns. There have been proposals put on the table by multiple parties, not just the Clinton campaign, to count votes in Florida and Michigan, to allow for re-votes so that people following the rules of the DNC would be allowed to turn out and vote and participate in this primary. And they have at every turn obstructed and delayed those efforts and essentially run out the clock on those efforts so as not to allow the voters of Florida and Michigan to vote....Now as we face 10 new contests to come...we're asking the Obama campaign to urge its supporters and its surrogates not to try and short circuit this process. We know that in trying to push Sen. Clinton out of the race what they would essentially be doing is saying to North Carolina voters, to Indiana voters and others coming up, you know, you may have a preference in this election but we don't want you to get to voice it because we want this to be over...That's the basis of our comments in this regard."

The way that Florida and Michigan have been dealt with will be a strong concern in the General Election, where it could be used as talking point by the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain.

Well, Baker was asked, wouldn't it be that Clinton would be the one who was disenfranchising voters?

"What we're trying to say is that no one in this election should try to bring a premature end to this process by trying to bully or force out Sen. Clinton ... There's very much a campaign left to be run and our concern is that anyone would try to bully Sen. Clinton out of this race before the voters have a chance to vote for her, and that's our position here."

Bully? Really?

Okay, another reporter read the headline from the press release and asked how exactly it was Obama, and not some of his supporters, who are trying to disenfranchise (or whatever) North Carolina voters.

"We think a clear message was sent to his surrogates ... who have been pressuring Sen. Clinton to drop out of the race. We believe that was met with a great deal of resistance in the states that are coming up to vote, and that Sen. Obama was forced to backtrack ..."

I asked for the Obama campaign to weigh in, and spokesman Dan Leistikow e-mailed the following:

"It's laughable to suggest Senator Obama is disenfranchising voters when he's brought more new people into the political process than any candidate in recent memory and our campaign is working around the clock to register North Carolinians for this historic primary. And as the Clinton campaign well knows, Senator Obama said this week that Senator Clinton should be able to run as long as she wants. North Carolina voters deserve better than these desperate, Washington-style political attacks."

At the end of that exchange, I was still wondering whether the word "disenfranchise" might be calibrated to particularly speak to African Americans and other minorities, who have within the past 60 years been able to use the word in its full and true meaning. I got a mix of answers.

"I think it's very disingenuous of the Clinton campaign to use that word," said Melvin "Skip" Alston, who counts himself as an Obama supporter. Alston, a Guilford County commisioner (and former head for the state NAACP) who is African American and frequently speaks on the various equations of race in politics, said the use of the word would have been "carefully calculated" to speak to minority voters.

"They're using that term ... as a way to try to cause confusion and division within the African American community," he said. He added that it was unfair to pin the words of a surrogate or supporter on the candidate himself.

On the con side was Michael Cobb, an assistant professor of political science who studies how race is used to frame political debate.

"I don't think it would be deliberate in terms of subtle racial context," he said. "Everyone viewed South Carolina as a disaster, so why would they repeat the behavior."

What happened in South Carolina was kind of a ham-handed use of racial politics by Clinton's surrogate-in-chief, former-president Bill Clinton.

Others I talked to said that the greater sin that may have been committed here is one of linguistic imprecision. Sen. Clinton has total control over whether she stays in the race. Obama can't force her out or take her off the ballot. So if anyone is going to do any disenfranchising, it's going to be Clinton herself, right?

Also pointed out: Women had to struggle for the right to vote in the early 20th century.

Where does this get us at the end of the day? Absolutely nowhere. But you can expect much more of what has been a national back-and-forth to filter down to the local level over the next month and change.

Does Obama have more endorsements coming from North Carolina Congressmen? It depends on who you ask/believe.

The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that the seven Democrats from the state are prepared to endorse en mass, while the Winston-Salem Journal says some will and some won't while Media General's bloggy folks say the reports of endorsements are greatly over-blown. And other sources are lining up with that Media General report, office-by-office.

So where does the truth lie? Who knows, short of strapping these guys up to lie detectors or something crazy, like waiting to see if and when someone comes out and gives and endorsement.

But it's worth noting that the seven Congressional Democrats who represent North Carolina - G.K. Butterfield, Rep. Bob Etheridge, Rep. Brad Miller, Rep. Mike McIntyre, Rep. David Price, Rep. Heath Shuler, Rep. Mel Watt - had all lined up behind former N.C. Sen. John Edwards during his run. Butterfield defected before Edwards dropped out and has been doing his best to talk up Obama. And, as in this report from Dome, a lot of the endorsement happy-talk seems to be originating with Butterfield.

I'll let y'all draw your own conclusions.

As we reported earlier, the Obama campaign has set up a storefront in Greensboro, one of 13 across the state. Should you be wanting to drop by, it's at 500 W. Friendly Avenue. The local phone is (336) 332-0028.

You'll start seeing commercials for Obama this weekend. For preview, click here.

Hillary Clinton was in Winston-Salem Thursday evening, after stops outside of Raleigh and in Fayetteville. From the paper and website:

• Today's policy story.

• The color story for Winston.

• This live story - in bloggy format.

• Video.

• Photos.

If former President Bill Clinton is holding to his schedule, he's in Greensboro right now and will be in High Point at 9:30 a.m. Others will run down those events for you. I'm heading to the U.S. Senate debate tonight in New Bern.

If any of you are still interested, we have video from Sen. Barack Obama's appearance in Greensboro. The third video segment on the page is a group interview with Obama that helped flesh out this story.

I caught Sen. Hillary Clinton's appearance in Wake County today. She used it to highlight a $2.5 Billion per year workforce training program.

During her speech, she praised Gov. Mike Easley's efforts to back programs like Learn and Earn that let students get college credit and work experience in High School.

She didn't slag Obama, but did take a few shots at the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain.

"It's time for a president who is ready on day on to be Commander-in-Chief of the economy," Clinton said. Then, referring to McCain's recent economic policy speech, she called his plan a do-nothing approach.

"It seems like if the phone were ringing, he'd just let it ring, and ring, and ring," Clinton said. "I think we've had enough of president who didn’t know enough about the economy."

The News & Record is mustering for coverage of her appearance in Winston-Salem this afternoon. Worth noting, Clinton was more than an hour late to her first campaign appearance this morning.

So Presidential contender Barack Obama was in town today. Live coverage went mostly to main site:

• * pictures.
• * Story updates.
• * Doug's thoughts.

I'm waiting on our tech boys to upload some video of a newser Obama did after his speech. Among the things he was asked: Who ever won that basketball game between him and Sen. Edwards back in February.

"I will confess. Edwards took it. Now he had his home floor. And he's got an interesting game. He doesn't have much range, but from about 14-to-16 feet, he does not miss. So when I took it outside, beyond the 3-point line, he couldn't go out there. But he hit like eight in a row from 14-to-16 and that mid-range jumper was tough. So I'm going to have to get a rematch."

Will post more links when I get them.

Thursday, Sen. Hillary Clinton will be in the state. We'll be staffing her Winston-Salem appearance.

On Monday, Congressman Howard Coble endorsed Mitt Romney in the Republican presidential primary. On Thursday, Romney drops out after a bad day on Super Tuesday.

About an hour ago I get a tremendously funny e-mail from a colleague who suggests: "If only Romney had given Howard's endorsement more time to work!"

I have a call in to Coble to see what's on his mind right now.

Update: Coble said he didn't first endorse anyone back when there were eight or nine candidates because his constituents were all over the map.

But he took the step of endorsing Romney Monday because it was down to two people - Romney and McCain - who he saw as having a viable shot.

"I felt not uncomfortable coming aboard even knowing that the chance of victory was slim ... I have no regrets," Coble said.

Coble attended a briefing Romney held with his Capitol Hill supporters Thursday afternoon. He said that Romney told them that he had won California on election day, but was beat by those who sent in their ballots early.

"One thing I took away from it, don't color him gone," Coble said, adding he though Romney could make another presidential run in the future.

When asked about Arizona Sen. John McCain, someone who can almost claim the title of presumptive Republican nominee, Coble said, "I'll support him. But not in the spirited way that I supported Romney. But I'll support him."

Locally, Virginia Foxx was also a Romney endorser.

Gary Pearce uses his blog to point out there's a difference between electoral math and calculating one's odds of success. Previously and more so.

Mitt Romney is going to drop out of the Republican nomination hunt, according to the Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post.

I've not got time right now to ponder what this all means, but you can by way of the comments link.

Charlotte's Mark Johnson has done the math and says North Carolina will be mathematically in play come May 6 for both the Republican and Democratic primaries.

Polls in North Carolina already show potential Republican primary voters showing more love to Arizona Sen. John McCain than to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

If, however, by some quirk of fate, the state were to be in play come May 6, our primary day, Romney probably just sealed his fate here. Now, my bet is things will be decided before then, but if Tar Heels do get a say Romney will be wishing for the genie to get back in the bottle.

Here's what happened:

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh has been bashing McCain for not leaning enough to the right. Former Sen. Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican presidential nominee, sent Limbaugh a letter essentially asking Limbaugh to lay off McCain.

Romney was asked about this on the Fox & Friends show this morning. Romney's response, according to the USA Today On Politics blog, was:

He is "the last person I would want to write a letter for me. ... McCain's (campaign) is a lot like Bob's campaign (was)."

Yeah, why would you want a war hero, long-time senator and respected elder of your party on your side in a primary fight?

Here are the additional complicating factors in North Carolina:

• * Bob Dole won North Carolina in 1996. Handily. In a year when almost anywhere else you cared to look was breaking for Clinton.

• * N.C. Sen. Richard Burr has already been stumping for McCain and has some affinity for Dole. He sent out a statement this morning slamming Romney:
  

  "Bob Dole's commitment to the country and to the party is unparalleled. He has spent decades working for conservative causes and trying to build the Republican Party. Governor Romney's comments only work to continue to divide Republicans. It is one thing to attack your campaign opponent, but it is another to insult a well respected American hero like Bob Dole. Governor Romney should apologize."

  
  
• * North Carolina's other senator is Elizabeth Dole, wife of Bob Dole. She has, thus far, stayed out of the primary fray but one might think neutrality has just been breached.

Okay. So, who can tell me what other statewide Republican figure is out there with the kind of personal loyalty of supporters and statewide organization it takes to win a high profile political contest?

Were this 16 years ago, you might say Jim Martin, the still-popular former governor. But I think that might be it.

And because North Carolina is so late on the primary calendar, campaigns haven't really invested here so statewide allies would count for more than usual. And while Congressman Howard Coble and Congresswoman Virginia Foxx have endorsed Romney, I don't see them delivering the kind of votes that Burr and Dole can bring to bear.

It's something to watch if the GOP primary is legitimately in play past today.

The day on which the most delegates to the Republican and Democratic convention are at play is largely a spectator occasion here in North Carolina. North Carolina won't hold our presidential primary until May 6.

For those looking to mark up their own personal Super Tuesday score cards, you could do worse then Dan Balz's "8 Questions Super Tuesday Could Answer" at the Washington Post.

(For those looking to geek out on delegate counts, check out the NY Times' Republican and Democratic Super Tuesday breakdowns.)

The answer to Balz's second question, "What Constitutes Victory?" is different between the Republicans and Democrats but also different for North Carolina.

For the Tar Heel state, we want to see some deadlock, indecision, pandemonium. If McCain, as predicted, can come out of Super Tuesday with a convincing lead, the Republican nomination fight will start winding down. Ditto if either Clinton or Obama manages to come away with something resembling a win.

If the nominations are both settled by May, the candidates will have nothing to play for here and will likely bypass the state entirely.

And because North Carolina usually gets lumped into the "red state" column early on in the General Election, whoever is playing in the General Election will, by and large, pass us by.

That means the issues and concerns particular to one of the 10 largest states in the union will, by and large, be ignored.

Deadlock, however, on either side would guarantee at least a little attention being focused here...not to mention some fun for scruffy media types and political junkies.

So after all the hemming and hawing Coble comes out and endorses Romney anyway.

Boy, Ol' Howard sure can milk a story, can't he?

The National Beer Wholesalers Association has been doing this online poll of which presidential candidate voters would rather have a beer with. The North Carolina Beer and Wine Wholesalers held a similar event here in Raleigh Wednesday night down at the Flying Saucer.

I'm not sure that the event served any purpose other than to promote the beer drinking culture and show us scruffy media types that politics didn't have to be all up tight.

As for who won the caucus, who knows?

"I don't wnat to give it way, but the front runners are Ron Paul and Harrison Ford," said Dean Plunkett, executive director of the group.

Personally, I cast my ballot for Paul O'Connor, the curmudgeonly columnist for the Winston-Salem Journal. (And yes, boss, I paid for all my own beer.) Other votes were cast for Harry Truman, Theodore Roosevelt, Steven Colbert and "Dennis Kucinich's hot red-headed wife." I'm thinking there were some college students in the crowd based on that last one.

If there is a serious point to be had here, it's that how "likeable" a candidate is plays some role in whether they get elected. Supposedly this was a factor at work in 2004 when the more home-spun Bush was the candidate folks most would have liked to have a beer with. (I'm figuring you would have poured some Pinot Grigio at Kerry's pad anyway.)

Do I think this is going to decide either nomination? Absolutely not. If fact, I think the better question is which candidate would you least want to have beer with? My guess is that a lot of middle ground voters are going to be pushed away from a candidate this spring rather than drawn to one on Feb. 5 and beyond.

I've met a lot of Democrats who think that Obama or Clinton is an untenable choice, and are voting with the other one because of that - not because they are particularly enthused about their candidate. And I think there is a lot of that same feeling at play among Republicans, who see some fatal flaw in either McCain, Romney or Huckabee and will go in some other direction because of that.

Former N.C. Sen. John Edwards placed third in the South Carolina primaries but vowed to press on. Click here for the early version of my story from last night.

I'll have some more thoughts and notes from my trip south on Monday. Until then, the comment lines are open. (Any burning presidential primary questions out there?)

I've hit a few polling places here in Columbia, trying to gauge how things are going. Universally, it seems like pretty steady turnout. I don't know if I'm just picking all the right places, but even in presidential election years you can find pretty slow traffic at some Greensboro-area polling precincts. Not here, at least not today.

Edwards did one public meet and greet today at Greenwood Park. He wandered into the polling station, shook a few hands, answered some questions shouted out by reporters.

The one that got a laugh (seen below) was a reporter that reminded Edwards that his campaign had complained that "the media" was ignoring him. At today's stop, he was pretty much mobbed by camera crews.

"It'd be hard for me to complain about that," Edwards laughed.

After walking about some neighborhoods, I headed downtown to the state Capitol, where apparently it is something of a tradition for supporters of various candidates to occupy some sidewalk space and yell at passing cars and each others. Take a listen:

While I was down there, I ran into Rep. Pricey Harrison, of Greensboro, and Felita Donnell, also of Greensboro. The Edwards folks had set up shop away from the more boisterous Obama and Clinton crews.

"We're above the fray," joked Donnell, who was helping to prop up a massive campaign sign.

I'll be writing from Edwards' campaign celebration here in downtown Columbia tonight for Sunday's paper. If I have a chance, I'll update here. If not, I'll see you back in the Tar Heel State next week.

Update: Click here for Saturday's newspaper story.

South Carolina is the first and only southern state in the early primary group for Democrats. (Delegates from Florida's Tuesday primary will not county because the state jumped in front of the Feb. 5 date set by the national party.)

Pollsters predict Obama will place first, with Clinton #2 and Edwards trailing third. Of course, there are a fair number of undecideds out there. (True story: this is the first election where I've met a lot of a undecided voters in a while.) They could really create some surprises tonight.

I'll see you back here this evening.

From the campaign trail this week: Click here to listen an audio clips that features John Edwards, Dr. Ralph Stanley, Congressman Ben "Cooter" Jones, Greenville lawyer Carlyle Steele, Madeleine Stowe, random campaign supporters and more Edwards.

As of 8 p.m. tonight, the lede of the lead story on the New York Times website features none other than former NC Sen. John Edwards.

The very nice lady who brought me my dinner tonight didn't understand why I was laughing at my PDA tonight - truth be told she looked like more of a VH1 viewer than a CNN junkie. But you, dear reader, may actually get the joke.

The Edwards campaign has been railing all this week against "the media," specifically the national media. Consider this from a campaign appearance in Greenville, SC this morning, where Edwards talked about the advantages that his rivals in the Democratic primary enjoyed:

"They may have all the money, they may have the media, but I have you," Edwards said.

Earlier, local lawyer Carlyle Steele warmed up the breakfast crowd by offering up an oratory that was somewhere between Atticus Finch and Matlock.

"The Yankee pundits can say all they want, but the native South Carolinians are going to come swarming to the polls tomorrow and they're going to put John Edwards where he belongs, in first place," Steele said.

Now, for you folks reading this up North, "Yankee" is a term used down 'round these parts with in a self-conscious way, part inside joke among southerners while at the same time still delineating an "us" and "them." However, the term doesn't just mean someone from up north, it means "Someone from up north who acts the fool when they talk about us southerners."

In the eyes of Edwards supporters, the national media has been acting quite the fool in counting their man out. One gets the feeling that a few of them might have voted for Edwards just to mess with Chris Matthews and crew, never mind the fact they like the guy.

Update: Click here for Friday's story from South Carolina.

You ever wonder what a presidential candidate looks like amidst a throng of supporters? Like this:

We were here:

...when we scruffy press types climbed up on top of a fire truck:

...in order to shoot a picture of this:

Former N.C. Sen. John Edwards has accused Sens. Obama and Clinton of cribbing some of his policies. I've been doing some reading, and he's beginning to sway me on that point.

But it struck me as I followed him on the campaign trail that Edward had cribbed at least a line or two from his Democratic primary opponents.

"This is personal for me," Edwards said of his run for the White House and a anti-poverty work. "It is very, very personal."

Those phrases were prefaces to him criticizing the two other candidates for their focus on personal attacks rather than issues.

It echoed, to me anyway, Hillary Clinton's famous line in New Hampshire, without all the tears of course.

However, in reading up on this line, I found Edwards laying claim to it earlier on in the campaign. Even if that's right, has the line become a bit tainted? Heck, I follow this stuff for a living and possibly went the wrong direction with it. What does the average voter think?

Later in the same visit to a South Carolina diner, in the same stream of thought, in fact, Edwards called for Obama and Clinton to get past the back-and-forth.

"We need to move past that kind of politics, past these personal attacks," he said.

That, to me, smacked of Obama's earlier calls to form bipartisan coalitions, hold hands and get past politics as usual - what CNN called his post-partisan message.

Of course, since Obama has been busy blasting Clinton (and visa versa) it seems like he might have abandoned that line for the moment.