At a time when his Washington honeymoon is turning into a hazing, President Barack Obama and his team are launched on a strategy to sail above the traditional White House press corps by reaching out to liberal commentators, local reporters and ethnic media, Politico reports.

The N&O is reporting that Christina Reynolds, who worked on communications for John Edwards’ 2008 presidential campaign, will now work as director of media affairs for President Obama.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Outgoing Gov. Mike Easley is complaining about how he and his administration have been treated by newspapers in North Carolina.

The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Tuesday that Easley said in an interview published Christmas Day by the News & Record of Greensboro that newspapers often publish stories that prompt questions from radio and television reporters.

Easley’s comments came in audio posted on the News & Record’s Web site. The governor, whose term ends in January, particularly complained about The News & Observer.

The Raleigh newspaper has published stories about problems with the state’s probation and mental health systems. N&O executive editor John Drescher said the paper was doing its job by running tough stories.

Politico political editor Charles Mahtesian was e-mailing the other day with a Republican lobbyist who signed off with a plea that sounded more like a taunt: “Keep it balanced.”

Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan called the media “sexist” Monday for focusing on the $150,000 in committee funds used to clothe GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

The good news for John McCain? He’s now receiving as much attention from the national media as his Democratic rival. The bad news? It’s overwhelmingly negative.

WILMINGTON, N.C. – The presidential election confounds me.

Exhibit A: North Carolina, which twice handed George W. Bush double-digit victories and last voted

Democratic for president in 1976. Is it really a presidential toss up, as the polls say?

Will Barack Obama turn this red Southern state blue or will John McCain galvanize Republicans and swing voters to win the state’s 15 electoral votes?

I drove from Washington to the presidential battleground to see for myself. This is the first of two columns on what I found.

McCain, trailing in the national polls but tied in North Carolina, dropped into Wilmington on Columbus Day. Relishing his role as underdog, he said he had Obama and running mate Joe Biden “right where we want ‘em.”
The day after McCain’s visit, I stopped for lunch at Whitey’s restaurant in Wilmington, where “Spots” were advertised on an outside sign. Local lore has it that spot was the fish Jesus used to feed the multitudes. The spot on the fish’s side is where Jesus left his fingerprint.

As David R. Lanning, a retiree, tucked into a plate of fresh, fried spot, he told me why he’s voting for McCain.
“I wouldn’t vote for that Hussein Obama!” he declared. “I don’t like McCain, but I’m going to vote for him. He’s the lesser of two evils.”

Lanning wasn’t alone in distrusting Obama because of his middle name and father’s Muslim heritage. Others in the area had complained that Obama wasn’t a real American.

Over coffee, Beth Sandy tried to dissuade her friend Karla Gurganus from voting for Obama. He’s the anti-Christ foretold in the Book of Revelation, Sandy argued, reprising the bizarre, Web-spread folklore about Obama.

“That’s crazy,” replied Gurganus, 21.

A couple of things about Whitey’s: The name comes from the owner, Whitey Prevatte, who opened the café 53 years ago. It’s a local landmark, and everybody’s welcome.

Pictures on the wall include those of a young Jimmy Carter and hometown hero and basketball legend Michael Jordan, who drew his first paycheck working after school for Whitey Prevatte.

The fare and ambiance at Whitey’s are pure, Southern-fried comfort. The waitresses call everybody “baby” and know regulars’ favorites. Elderly “Mister Brown” wears a coat and tie and rides the bus to lunch at Whitey’s. He tips his hat to the ladies on his way out.

And, there’s something else: “This is a first,” said waitress Sherry Lyons, “99.9 percent of my customers say they’re not voting this year.”

I thought I hadn’t heard her correctly.

But Lyons, a Hillary Clinton supporter, said it again, adding that she too will stay home. Clinton may have asked Democrats to support Obama, but Lyons isn’t buying.

“He’s not my Messiah,” she said.

She and Lanning ripped Obama and what they see as the news media’s pro-Obama bias. The idea of the first African-American president rankled them.

“We are not ready for that,” Lyons said emphasizing each word.

“The news media have always been for Obama,” Lanning groused. Lyons said nobody reports on the people who won’t vote.

“I got my doctors and lawyers who sit here every morning for breakfast.” She pointed to a long, empty table. “And they’re not voting either.”

Last month in Virginia, I’d run into a few people who said they wouldn’t vote this time. I’d thought it a fluke, isolated die-hard Clintonites or independents wary of Sarah Palin.

An informal Whitey’s poll found that Beth Sandy, Mister Brown, two construction workers and two other waitresses also aren’t voting this year. Karla Gurganus said her family is split between Republicans who’ll vote for McCain and Democrats who aren’t voting.

What’s going on? The one, indisputable fact about this election is that people are registering to vote in record numbers. Turnout is expected to be enormous.

It’s hard to know how many people are also turning their backs on the election. To be sure, there’s still time for the disaffected — mostly Democrats, it seems – to change their minds and vote for president after all. In a close contest, their nonparticipation could help McCain.

As I said, this is one confounding election.

Next time: Personal takes on the economy election in North Carolina

ST. LOUIS – Sarah Palin is vowing to take more questions from voters and reporters in the final month before the election.

Since John McCain selected her to be his vice presidential running mate, Palin has granted only a handful of interviews and done few campaign events solo. But now she’s declaring “my life is certainly an open book.”

In an interview with Fox News, Palin says she looks forward to “speaking to the media more and more every day and providing whatever access the media” wants.

On another matter, Palin says she’s disappointed that the McCain campaign decided to stop competing in Michigan. She says she “fired off an e-mail” this morning questioning the move.

Palin says people in Michigan “are hurting” because of the economic downtown, and she’d like to walk through the state’s auto plants and speak to them about it.

WASHINGTON – Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin repeatedly failed to cite a newspaper or magazine when asked what she had read regularly before John McCain picked her as his running mate, saying only that she had read “most of them.”

Palin also said that she doesn’t believe that the media’s coverage of her has been sexist. “It would be sexist if the media were to hold back and not ask me about my experience, my vision, my principles, my values,” said Palin, Alaska’s governor.
 
In an interview aired Tuesday on “The CBS Evening News,” anchor Katie Couric asked Palin what publications she had read to stay informed and to understand the world.

“I’ve read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media,” Palin replied. Asked for examples, she said, “Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.”

Asked again for an example, Palin told Couric: “I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn’t a foreign country, where it’s kind of suggested, ‘Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?’ Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.”

In remarks aired Wednesday on CBS’ “The Early Show,” Palin told Couric that she thinks media coverage of her has been guided not by sexism but by the fact that she isn’t “part of the Washington herd.” While she sees some double-standards in media coverage, Palin said she believes it’s more attributable to the “media elite, the Washington elite” not knowing who she is than her gender.

Palin has only agreed to a handful of interviews by major news media since joining the GOP ticket nearly five weeks ago and has not held a news conference.

Asked Tuesday by radio host Hugh Hewitt if she agreed that interviews with ABC’s Charles Gibson and CBS’ Couric were designed to embarrass her, Palin replied: “Well, I have a degree in journalism also, so it surprises me that so much has changed since I received my education in journalistic ethics all those years ago.”

She continued: “But I’m not going to pick a fight with those who buy ink by the barrelful. I’m going to take those shots and those pop quizzes and just say that’s OK, those are good testing grounds. And they can continue on in that mode. That’s good. That makes somebody work even harder. It makes somebody be even clearer and more articulate in their positions. So really I don’t fight it. I invite it.”

Palin has been spending the last few days at McCain’s ranch in Sedona, Ariz., preparing for her debate Thursday night with Democratic rival Joe Biden, Barack Obama’s running mate.

Although Palin told Couric on Monday that she didn’t have a “debate coach,” the campaign said she is getting advice from McCain’s top campaign strategist, Steve Schmidt, and campaign advisers Tucker Eskew, Nicolle Wallace and Mark Wallace.

“I have quite a few people who are giving us information about the record of Obama and Biden, and at the end of the day, though, it is – it’s so clear, again, what those choices are. Either new ideas, new energy and reform of Washington, D.C., or more of the same,” Palin said.