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... and more.

Here's some of what the attorney general said to us in video interview Thursday.

Other topics he touched:

1. The new SBI lab in Greensboro and why it has no DNA testing capability.
2. Whatever happened to meth labs?
3. His political future.

We begin our endorsements Sunday, with North Carolina's U.S. Senate race between Elizabeth Dole and Kay Hagan.

We have interviewed nearly 100 candidates and read reams of questionnaires. We have attended forums. Now it all comes down to this.

We are starting sooner this year to accommodate early voting, which begins Oct. 16.

Here's the rest of the lineup, from Nov. 4 backward (which is subject to change):

a.Tuesday, Nov. 4: Endorsement recap
b.Thursday, Oct. 23: School board (at-large, District 9)
c.Wednesday, Oct. 22: County commissioners (at-large, District 4)
d.Tuesday, Oct. 21: High Point City Council
e.Monday, Oct. 20: State Senate 27, State House 58, State House 59
f.Sunday, Oct. 19: City bonds (Ideas); Congress
g.Saturday, Oct. 18: Council of State
h.Friday, Oct. 17: District Court judge
i.Thursday, Oct. 16: District Court judge
j.Wednesday, Oct. 15: District Court judge (deadline for election-related letters at noon)
k.Tuesday, Oct. 14: District Court judge
l.Monday. Oct. 13: District Court judge
m.Sunday, Oct. 12: Governor
n.Saturday, Oct. 11: Attorney General, lieutenant governor
o.Friday, Oct. 10: Court of Appeals
p.Thursday, Oct. 9: Court of Appeals
q.Wednesday, Oct. 8: Court of Appeals
r.Tuesday, Oct. 7: Court of Appeals
s.Monday, Oct. 6: Associate Justice, N.C. Supreme Court. Court of Appeals
t.Sunday, October 5: U.S. Senate

This week's column.

It was well past midnight three Saturdays ago on High Point Road. A car slipped alongside mine as I idled at a red light, its windows tinted too darkly to see inside.

One intersection later the car had changed lanes from my right to my left. Again, we idled side-by-side at a red light.

Suddenly, the front passenger door opened and a slender young man stepped outside. He looked at me, his cornrows dangling. Then he formed a mock pistol with his right hand, pointed it my way and pretended to shoot.

He smiled and returned to his car.

Tomorrow: Attorney general and lieutenant governor.
Sunday: Governor.
Monday: District Court judge (the first of five).

And so it has come to this.

John McCain was booed today for suggesting to supporters that Barack Obama is a decent man.

Here is what McCain said of Obama in Lakeville, Minn, to invite the viitriol.

"I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."

I may be wrong. I've never met McCain, but I sense that he is conflicted by the nasty turn his campaign has taken. This is neither who McCain is nor what he used to stand for.

As the polls show Obama building his lead, the McCain campaign has made no secret of its strategy to attack Obama's "character."

But the onstage rhetoric from McCain and especially his running mate, Sarah Palin, has fed the fire and evoked such responses from crowds as "Off with his head!"

Apparently determined not to be John Kerry, Obama has responded in kind, not only with rebuttals, but with counterattacks against McCain as "erratic."

You'd think each side believes that a victory by the other would mean the dawn of the Apocalypse.

We are a better countr than this. And McCain and Obama are better men than this.

Deep down inside I don't think this is who McCain really is and I think he regrets it.

Manoy of us had had higher hopes for this campaign ... it would be about issues, not personal attacks.

Now both sides are wallowing in the muck and the mood at some rallies has become downright vicious.

This week's column.

The Godfather of Soul wasn’t very impressed at the state of the dressing rooms in War Memorial Auditorium. And neither were we.

James Brown last performed at the auditorium during his “Living in America” concert tour in 2001. We last appeared there two weeks ago, for just a plain tour.

The 49-year-old facility looks its age, and then some. As dank and Spartan as they are, the dressing rooms are only the beginning.

Parts of ceilings are pocked with peeling plaster and brown circles from water leaks.

The air conditioning comes and goes.

The acoustics are bad.

The sight lines are bad.

You can hear the wind howl through a loading-dock door backstage.

And, well, you get the idea why Brown didn’t feel so good on July 6, 2001.

In fact, the Godfather got to see the building age before his eyes. He appeared 13 times at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex.

That’s why the facility is back for a return engagement of its own, in a bond referendum, after failing in 2006. There’s no disputing the big, fat price tag of the project, at $50 million. That makes it the single most expensive project among all of the Nov. 4 city bonds, which total $205 million.

But at least the auditorium gets to face voter scrutiny on its own, without the cover of other projects. In two other cases, high-profile items have been wedged into packages with numerous others, much in the way Congress tends to lard popular bills with juicy add-ons. The most glaring example is a $12 million regional swim center, a late addition to the Parks and Recreation package.

I spent some time this week after one interview with a Republican candidate discussing (for what it's worth) what I was going to happen in this year's election.

Here are some first-blush predicitons:

1. McCain wins North Carolina but loses the election. I just don't see North Carolina turning blue, even this year.
2. McCrory breaks the Charlotte jinx and becomes governor. Perdue has run a mushy, uninspiring campaign
3. Hagan upsets Dole in a squeaker. Dole seems to generate very little fire from many Republicans I've talked to.
4. The sales tax increase passes ... and maybe two of the city bonds. The street improvement bonds definitely will be one of them because people want those roads fixed.

Colin Powell's graceful but very straightforward endorsement of Barack Obama Sunday morning may not be a game-changer, but it was significant.

In coming forward to state his case for Obama, Colin Powell made it clear that he respected and admired both Obama and Republican John McCain.

But he also made it clear, in very specific terms, why he will vote for one man over the other.

He was skeptical over McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate.

He was bothered by the tone of the McCain campaign and its emphasis on such issues as William Ayers.

He disparaged GOP whispering campaigns that Obama is a Muslim, and he added, eloquenty, so what if he were?

When asked by "Meet the Press" host Tom Brokaw the significance of both him and Obama being African American and its bearing on the endorsement, Powell said, without hesitating, that if that were the overarching factor, he would have gotten this over with a long time ago.

Powell's credibility makes this a big deal.

His military bonafides. His tenure as secretary of state. His status as one of the most prominent Republicans of any race.

This should help Obama, but how much it helps remains to be seen.

l

When a man got and walked out during the Oliver Stone movie, "W," last week at the Brassfield, I assumed he was coming back.

He didn't.

I don't consider the film that bad, but it's not very good, either.

The movie's main flaw is that it can't make it's mind what it is: a serious biopic or a two-hour Saturday Night Live" skit? Fact or fiction?

Give Josh Brolin credit for an uncanny portrayal of George W. Bush.

But the film is wildly uneven and meanders all over the place, from the sublime to the downright silly, as in the scene it wastes, from start to finish, on the president nearly choking to death on a pretzel.

It relishes close-ups of him chewing with his mouth open.

Then there's Thandie Newton's portrayal of Condoleezza Rice, which comes across as broad and one-dimensional ... less funny and not as good as Tina Fey's Sarah Palin.

What was the point?

There are some intriguing scenes between Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. that suggest the son's frustration that his father does not take him seriously.

But not much else. What a waste of a strong cast, including James Cromwell as George H.W. Bush, Ellen Burstyn as Barbara Bush and Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney.

When the movie ended, some in the audience clapped.

I thought about cheering, too. It was finally over.

This probably will come as a surprise to no one, but Robbie Perkins and Mike Barber seem not to like each other a lot.

Maybe it's not personal, but I still suspect they're not having drinks together after Greensboro City Council meetings.

It could be they're not bosom buddies because they're so much alike. Both are passionate idea guys who aren't shy about speaking their minds.

It also could be that they fundamentally disagree on the disposition of the city manager, Mitchell Johnson.

Barber seems to want Johnson gone.

Perkins still defends Johnson, as does a majority (six votes) of the council.

Longer term, I would not be surprised to see Barber and Perkins one day locking horns as mayoral candidates.

That could be dicey, Perkins jokes, given that his wife once appeared in a Barber campaign ad.

.

N.C. A&T fired another football coach, Lee Fobbs, while I was away last week.

It's hard to fault the school for pulling the plug, based on Fobbs' inability to win. He's certainly had his chances. A&T retained him even after a winless season.

But one still has to wonder why A&T has had such a hard time fielding a competitive football team. It has a high national profile, an impressive campus and a good stadium.

Schools with a lot less have managed to do more, better.

Somewhere Bill Hayes is smiling right now.

The new Elizabeth Dole ad attacking Kay Hagan for attending a September fund-raiser hosted in part by a PAC called Godless Americans is both politically risky and ethically risque.

The ad insinuates that if Hagan associates in any way with atheists and agnostics, then she herself must be one.

Hagan, of course, has been involved for years as an elder and Sunday school teacher at Greensboro's First Presbyterian Church.

I've seen her there when I've visited and recall her being in the audience when I was guest speaker at a Sunday school class taught by former News & Record Editorial Page Editor Bill Snider.

But if the ad is to be believed, Hagan is a godless heathen.

Beyond a litany of clips about what Godless Americans believe in and don't believe in, the ad closes with a woman's voice saying, "There is no God," which it implies is Hagan speaking.

It's not. The voice belongs to a leader of Godless Americans.

But it's clearly calculated to deceive.

To be fair, negative ads on both sides of this campaign have bent impressions of both candidates with distortions and sins of omission.

But this one stands out for its ambiguous ending and because it touches upon a very important and resonant issue in the Bible Belt: God and faith.

It could help Dole. Or it could backfire.

It also reflects Dole's vulnerability in this race, where Hagan, who wasn't supposed to have a snowball's chance, holds a slight lead.

Hagan is having a news conference on this issue as I type these words. Doug Clark is attending and has interviewed Hagan. We also have an editorial planned for tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Meanwhile, some atheists have cried foul, saying their lack of faith shouldn't make them any less American.

This lifelong Southern Baptist agrees.

But in the world of politics, especially in the South, they're practically radioactive.

This isn't the way it should be. But it's the way it is.

Update. For Doug's blog post, click here.

More Hagan-Dole aftershocks:

This, from the Rev. J. George Reed, executive director, North Carolina Council of Churches:

Dear Senator Dole:

And this from a commenter at Your Voice at the Table.

I'm not American so perhaps I have no right to comment, but this is bizarre. It's a bit like what Colin Powell said about the Obama-Muslim lies. The correct answer is that he isn't a Muslim. The really correct answer is, what if he is? It sounds like Hagan has proved to be a Christian beyond reasonable doubt. The sickness is that people care. Isn't America supposed to be the land of religious freedom, including (if you so choose) freedom from religion?