FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. – Democrat Beverly Perdue spent Friday talking to those undecided on their choice for governor at early-voting locations, benefiting from a money advantage over

Republican Pat McCrory in the campaign’s final days. With $1.6 million pouring in to her campaign alone during the past 11 days, according to campaign finance reports, Perdue had more leeway to choose her schedule and worry less about paying for television and radio commercials.

“I told my whole team I was going to leave two weeks ago and do nothing but grassroots. But this is my favorite part,” Perdue, the lieutenant governor, said after shaking hands with dozens of people waiting to vote outside Fayetteville’s Cliffdale Recreation Center.

She later did the same thing in Wilmington. “It helps you remember why you’re doing it all.”

McCrory’s campaign said the Charlotte mayor was going full-throttle this week, too, appearing on 15 radio stations and holding a handful of public campaign events. He visited GOP “victory” headquarters Friday afternoon in High Point.

“We’re getting incredible positive feedback and momentum from literally hundreds of thousands of citizens,” McCrory said in a phone interview. His schedule also listed eight fundraisers this week.

McCrory acknowledged that Perdue had more money to spend in the final weeks. Perdue’s last formal fundraiser was Oct. 24, her campaign said.

“I’m not planning on going into debt,” McCrory said, referring to Perdue’s campaign borrowing more than $900,000 from herself or her husband during this election cycle. “I will not spend money I don’t have.”

Both candidates scheduled several campaign events Saturday. An Associated Press-GfK poll released earlier in the week said Perdue and McCrory were knotted at 44 percent of those surveyed, but 8 percent were undecided or named a candidate not on the ballot.

Libertarian candidate Mike Munger, who received 4 percent in the poll, also began a three-day trip across the state Friday. Perdue’s campaign raised $4.6 million from July 1 through mid-October, compared with $2.8 million for McCrory. She spent $5.7 million to McCrory’s $3.3 million during the period and had more cash on hand.

Perdue’s additional contributions included $875,000 in cash from the state Democratic Party. The party previously received $600,000 from the Service Employees International Union, whose North Carolina’s affiliate for state employees endorsed Perdue.

McCrory has received more than $425,000 during the last two weeks thanks in part to the fundraisers, including an additional $73,500 from the state Republican Party, disclosure reports said.

Political parties can give unlimited amounts of money to candidates, while a union’s political action committee is limited to $4,000 per election. A donor can’t direct how party money is to be spent.

McCrory said the donations show that Perdue will be beholden to labor unions if she’s elected. The State Employees Association of North Carolina, the SEIU affiliate, wants the Legislature to remove a ban on state and local governments from formally bargaining with workers.

“The unions are pushing collective bargaining,” McCrory said. “She’s made the unions a lot of promises.”

But Perdue said an endorsement by an outside group doesn’t mean she’ll show favoritism.

“I’m really not for changing the labor laws of this state,” Perdue said, adding that she’s opposed to collective bargaining for state workers.

Also Friday, McCrory’s campaign urged radio stations to pull a Perdue radio commercial that McCrory called “a total lie.”

The ad has two men talking about McCrory’s record. One said McCrory “questioned whether we should pave roads in small towns and rural areas” while another said the mayor “wants to let New Jersey and New York ship their garbage down here to North Carolina.”

McCrory has criticized the state’s road-funding formula, but he said he’s never said the state should stop spending on less-congested areas.

Perdue ran a television ad this fall that said McCrory opposed a 2007 law that proponents said prevented large landfills from being built in eastern North Carolina to take in other states’ trash. But

McCrory said he opposed the bill because it included a $2-per-ton surcharge on trash collected at landfills that cities will have to pay.

McCrory campaign attorney Alan Pugh wrote the ad was untruthful and rose to “the level of libel and slander” needed for a public official to file a lawsuit.

Perdue campaign spokesman David Kochman said McCrory “is pulling a desperate stunt to hide the truth from voters” with the letter.

In just five days North Carolinians may elect the state’s first-ever female governor.

Or they could vote a Republican into the Executive Mansion for the first time in 16 years.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Libertarian candidate for governor Mike Munger is planning a marathon campaign swing before Election Day.

The Duke University professor is slated to visit nearly 20 cities and towns this weekend as he campaigns along U.S. Highway 64, from Murphy in the mountains to Manteo at the coast.

Munger is likely to finish well behind Democratic nominee Beverly Perdue and Republican Pat McCrory in the final election results. But if Munger wins at least 2 percent of the vote, the Libertarian Party automatically remains on state ballots through 2012.

Munger’s campaign also reported receiving $26,350 in donations during the third quarter, compared to the millions that the other two campaigns generated.

DURHAM – Republican gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory avoided a wholesale endorsement of school vouchers at an appearance Tuesday but said he favors more choices, including tax credits for people who home-school their children.

CHARLOTTE – Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue made the case that she will be North Carolina’s biotech governor.
In a stump speech at the Charlotte Biotechnology Conference Tuesday, Perdue established her “biotech cred” and defended her record in investing in North Carolina’s biotech industry infrastructure and laid out her plans to build the state into No. 1 in the country for biotech.

“I want to tell New England and the Terminator that North Carolina is coming,” Perdue said, referring to California and Massachusetts. “I want to be number one.”

North Carolina is the third-largest biotechnology hub in the country, behind California and Massachusetts, Perdue said.

She credited UNC Charlotte and the North Carolina Research Campus with raising the state’s profile in the life science world.

Conference organizers invited Perdue’s opponent, Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, but he did not attend due to a scheduling conflict.

Ken Paulus of the Charlotte Research Institute said this was the biggest crowd the conference had drawn yet – about 330 people had registered. The conference started out focused on Charlotte’s emerging role in biotechnology, but quickly changed its focus when the North Carolina Research Campus was announced.

“That really changed everything,” Paulus said. “There has been a lot more response to the conference.”
This year, directors and researchers from the UNC institutes located at the research campus gave presentations about their respective projects. All this comes a week after the Core Research Laboratory and the UNC and N.C. State buildings opened in Kannapolis.

The mood at the conference was upbeat and progressive, as if the industry, despite the recent financial woes, is on the move. Students presented their best research in a poster contest.

Perdue added a bit of the election season to the event, saying her absent opponent accused her of seeing too far into the 21st Century.

“But that is exactly what a governor should do. Biotechnology is a economic mainstay,” Perdue said. “We have more than 450 companies and employ about 55,000 people. We are getting something right here.”

If elected governor, Perdue said she would boost start-up funding through the One North Carolina Fund, which provides start-up funding to fledgling companies. She also would support agriculture biotechnology, which promises to take crops of the past, like tobacco and corn, and make new discoveries and biomanufacturing.

“North Carolina’s new economy will be very global,” Perdue said. “It will be rooted in knowledge and innovation.”

RALEIGH, N.C. - At barbecue joints and greasy-spoon diners, in stump speeches and on the airwaves, the tumultuous race to be North Carolina’s next governor is sizzling away.

It’s not as splashy as the presidential race, which is playing out in big arenas and outdoor rallies around the state. But entering the campaign’s homestretch, the contest between Bev Perdue and Pat McCrory is the
closest race for governor in the country this year.

“It’s tight as a tick,” said former Gov. Jim Hunt in a recent interview, summing up the state of the race as effectively as any of the numerous polls, which all show a dead heat.

It’d be wrong to expect anything less from these two candidates, both of whom have 20 years of public service, and neither of whom has ever lost an election.

Perdue, a Democrat, began her undefeated streak in 1986, when she won a seat in the N.C. House of Representatives from a rural district in Eastern North Carolina. She ended up serving seven two-year terms in the legislature (two in the House, and five in the N.C. Senate), before being elected twice more as the state’s lieutenant governor, the job she holds now.

McCrory, a Republican, was a teenager when he won his first election, becoming student-body president at Ragsdale High School in Jamestown. Beginning in 1989, he won three successive terms on the Charlotte City Council, and then, in 1995, he ran successfully for mayor of Charlotte. He remains mayor today, having been re-elected six times – which makes him the longest-serving mayor in the city’s history.
But in a little more than a week, either Perdue’s or McCrory’s streak will end.

Both candidates expressed cautious optimism last week as they scurried between last-minute fundraisers, campaign rallies and forums with voters.

National advocacy groups have poured millions of dollars into the state to advertise on behalf of Perdue and McCrory. In the meantime, the economic crisis has increased the likelihood that the next governor will face a significant budget shortfall immediately upon taking office.

And both candidates would be beating certain odds simply by moving into the governor’s mansion. No woman has ever been governor of North Carolina, and there have been only two Republican governors here in the past 100 years.

“We’re exceeding the expectations of all the political pundits,” a visibly exhausted McCrory said last week between campaign events.

Aboard a van that was shuttling Perdue and two reporters from one campaign appearance to another, Perdue spoke about struggling to break into the male-dominated world of North Carolina politics.

“I’ve spent my whole life, my entire life, listening to people tell me I can’t do it,” she said.
Contrasting styles on the trail.

A third candidate, Libertarian Mike Munger, is also on the ballot in the race. Munger, a professor of political science at Duke University, has distinguished himself from the two major candidates on a number of issues. For instance, he supports legalizing same-sex marriage and enacting a moratorium on capital punishment.
Munger said that his goal is to get 2 percent of the vote, which would guarantee the Libertarians an automatic spot on the ballot in 2012.

As for McCrory and Perdue, it’s hard to imagine two candidates for governor who could be more different.
On the campaign trail, McCrory’s most striking characteristic is his social energy. He is gregarious and eager to please, practically leaving a trail of charisma as he works the room.

Perdue is a natural politician, too. But what’s most striking about her is not affability, but empathy. Especially in these economic times, she wants her audiences to believe that she feels their pain.

While McCrory backslaps, Perdue hugs. And while McCrory speaks in intense, declarative sentences, Perdue tends to be more oblique, using folksy anecdotes or lofty generalizations to make her points.
Their contrasting styles seem to originate in their very different backgrounds.

McCrory, despite his 19 years in city government, is very much a product of the private sector. He grew up in Jamestown, a small town outside Greensboro, and he attended Catawba College in Salisbury. But he has lived most of his adult life in Charlotte, where he spent almost 30 years at Duke Energy before leaving his post as an executive in order to run for governor.

He may be a Republican in a city with a Democratic majority, but in Charlotte, it is the Chamber of Commerce – not any political party – that holds key influence on many issues. And McCrory has deep ties to the coalition of Democrats, moderate Republicans and banking and business interests that form the corporate power structure in Uptown Charlotte.

Most of his major achievements as mayor were supported by the business community. Those include a new arena for the Charlotte Bobcats, a NASCAR Hall of Fame, and a light-rail system that is financed by a local sales tax increase that voters approved.

McCrory sometimes found himself more at odds with conservative members of his own party than with Democrats.

Don Reid, a former member of the Charlotte City Council, criticized McCrory for focusing only on “the beautiful toys that the Uptown crowd wanted,” to the detriment of the rest of the city, he said.

“He didn’t like me because I was willing to stand up to some of these Republicans that were acting like Democrats, and he was one of them,” Reid said. “And I was very critical of those people, including the mayor.”

Long Record In Raleigh

Perdue, for her part, worked as a schoolteacher and then a health-care consultant early in her career. But she rose to prominence firmly within the political realm, and along the way, she established connections with all of the state’s strong, traditional Democratic constituencies – among them teachers, state employees and the health-care industry.

She became one of the leaders of the Democratic majority in the state Senate, serving as a key budget writer.
As lieutenant governor, Perdue holds a position with a large bully pulpit but few formal powers. In that role, she has lobbied the federal government to protect the state’s military bases from closure. She has also worked on health issues, such as making high schools tobacco-free, and she started a fund that provides state grants to companies in renewable-energy technology.

She also cast the tie-breaking vote that created the N.C. Lottery in 2005.

Perdue has taken great pains throughout the campaign to cast herself as an agent of change working within the channels of state government. She has distanced herself from Mike Easley, the outgoing governor. And she has proposed several government reforms, such as a bipartisan commission to streamline the state budget, and a public-financing program for future campaigns for governor.

But her long record in Raleigh has made her an easy target for Republicans in a year in which anti-incumbent sentiment is running high.

“I think the Democrats have just gotten way too comfortable running state government, and they’ve taken it for granted,” said Chris McClure, the executive director of the N.C. Republican Party. “You have somebody (in McCrory) who’s shown leadership abilities as mayor, compared to somebody who’s really a Raleigh insider who could be more of the same.”

Perdue responds that she has always worked independently, and as a woman, she has never been a part of the entrenched political club.

But John Davis, a veteran political consultant and election forecaster in North Carolina, believes that voters’ anti-establishment sentiment will help McCrory, whose chief campaign theme is that of an upstart outsider who can clean up Raleigh.

“It’s not that she’s made mistakes,” Davis said of Perdue. “It’s that she has a very, very attractive, tough opponent who is the outsider and who is 51 years old at a time when voters are looking for fresh faces and a new generation of leaders.” (Actually, McCrory turned 52 this month. Perdue is 61.).

Disagreements On Policy

Ideologically, Perdue and McCrory differ on some of the major policy issues in state government.
McCrory has indicated a willingness to explore market-based solutions in areas such as health care and education. For instance, he supports the targeted use of school vouchers for certain high-needs students.

He also opposes Perdue’s plan to offer free, taxpayer-financed tuition at the state’s community colleges.
Perdue has proposed large expansions of a number of existing government programs, although she has recently said that some of those expansions – such as her plan to increase public health insurance for children – may need to be postponed during the current financial crisis because the state will have less money to spend.

McCrory’s educational and economic platforms rely on emphasizing vocational skills.

Not every student needs a four-year college degree, McCrory often says on the campaign trail. Instead, he argues, they should learn a technical skill in industries with jobs that are hard to fill. It’s one of his biggest applause lines in his stump speech.

But that rhetoric can also rub the wrong way. Speaking in Winston-Salem to a meeting of the state’s nursing association, McCrory referred to nursing as a “trade” – rather than a profession – and grouped it with jobs such as plumbers and electricians. Some nurses in attendance said that offended them.

At a campaign stop last week at Brunswick Community College, Perdue pushed back against McCrory’s vocational emphasis.

“Some folks running for office say you only need one skill,” Perdue told a small group of officials at the college. “You’ve got to have the capacity to innovate and be an entrepreneur.”

Former Gov. James Hunt, a Democrat who was in office from 1977 to 1985 and again from 1993 to 2001, praised Perdue’s understanding of the need to compete in the global economy.

“I called her about a month or two ago, and I said, ‘Beverly, when you get in office, we’ve got to put a North Carolina office in China to recruit industry here,”‘ Hunt recalled. “And she said, ‘And India.’ She was one step ahead.”

Whoever is elected governor, the most immediate issue will be the faltering economy and its effect on the state budget. Some projections show that the state could be facing a shortfall of as much as $2 billion next year.

Both Perdue and McCrory said that any tax increases would be off the table. But neither gave specific examples of programs or areas they would cut in order to make up the shortfall.

“The new governor is going to inherit a fiscal crisis that will require being willing to do some pretty unpopular things to resolve the situation,” said John Hood, the president of the John Locke Foundation, a conservative-leaning research group in Raleigh.

Hood said he believes that both candidates have the necessary political talents.

“I think they have it in them to confront the public with the inescapable facts, and rally support for difficult choices.”

According to the most recent PPP poll, Hagan is ahead. Read More.

RALEIGH, N.C.- It took a worldwide banking crisis before it became clear to North Carolina that the economic powerhouse of the New South isn’t exempt from the ailing economy.

Charlotte-based Wachovia Corp. fell, the state unemployment rate hit a six-year high and a government budget shortfall could reach several times the current amount of $230 million.

The candidates for North Carolina governor are focusing heavily on cutting the state’s expenses to balance the budget.

But Republican Pat McCrory, Democrat Beverly Perdue and Libertarian Mike Munger also are promoting plans to lower taxes – either through rate reductions or targeted relief for low-income families and the elderly.

The candidates say lower taxes will help families struggling financially and free up money to spend, invest and create additional jobs.

From The Herald-Sun of Durham, Oct. 20
      Endorsement: Pat McCrory
      North Carolina voters should be pleased to have good choices in the Nov. 4 election for governor – in fact, three of them.

Democrat Bev Perdue and Republican Pat McCrory were joined in this year’s race by Libertarian Mike Munger, who brought a refreshing candor and contrarian view to the race. It’s good for the two major parties to be challenged by an “outside the box” thinker like Munger, who chairs Duke’s political science department.

The mainstream candidates – Perdue, the lieutenant governor and McCrory, the mayor of Charlotte – both bring strengths and experience to the race. After meeting the candidates and weighing the pros and cons of each, our choice for governor is Pat McCrory.

McCrory is an anomaly, a Republican in Charlotte who has been getting re-elected for 13 years. To pull that off, and to continue to work with City Council, McCrory has to be able to work across partisan lines, a trait he will need in Raleigh in working with a Democratic-leaning General Assembly. He has also worked closely with mayors from across the state, including Durham’s Bill Bell, and has received the endorsement of former mayor Nick Tennyson. …

The choice was tough because we also think that Perdue would make a good chief executive. We applaud her focus on education and her desire to solidify the gains that have been achieved under governors Jim Hunt and Mike Easley in teacher’s pay, accountability, early childhood education and making a college education available to any North Carolinian willing to do the work. We hope that if McCrory is elected, he will work to build on the foundations of these accomplishments.

Here are three questions posed by The Associated Press to the three candidates for North Carolina governor on the topic of health care, followed by their unabridged responses. The responses were only edited for AP style.
     
      1. An estimated 1.4 million residents of North Carolina, including 250,000 children, lack health care insurance. What steps would you take in your first year in office to reduce those figures?
     
      2. The state employee’s health insurance plan is in danger of running out of money, and its high premiums are a turnoff to younger state workers with families. A 2006 consultant’s report found that North Carolina needs an additional $23.8 billion to cover the future health care expenses for all current and future state government retirees. What actions would you take during your first term to turn around the plan?
     
      3. In 1995, the Legislature cut the state’s abortion fund from $1.2 million to $50,000, effectively keeping the state from assisting low-income women without Medicaid coverage seeking an abortion. Would you support restoring money to the abortion fund? Would you support any further restrictions on abortion in North Carolina beyond the current law requiring parental consent for minors, such as mandated counseling or a 24-hour waiting period?
      
PAT MCCRORY
      1. First and foremost we have to change a culture of mismanagement in state government that has resulted in our State Health Insurance Plan for State Employees being over $200 million in the red this year. (It is projected to be $800 million in the red next year.) In addition, our overall budget is up to $2 billion in deficit. How is the state going to expand on other health insurance programs if we cannot keep our own house in order?

Second, we need to reinstate the child health care tax credit. In 2001, Lt. Gov. Perdue and state legislators repealed the child health care tax credit used to provide affordable health insurance for the children of North Carolina. Now our state has an estimated 250,000 children who are uninsured. Under my administration, I will work to get this tax credit reinstated so parents can again afford to get health insurance for their children.

In addition, I support tax breaks for small businesses to provide insurance for their employees. I also support giving people a menu of choices when it comes to their health care. I believe people should be able to have coverage for what they want and need rather than what they don’t want and cannot afford. It’s not up to me to mandate what coverage people should have. Individuals should have the option of taking comprehensive care or a less expensive option.
     
      2. As mayor of Charlotte, I have tackled this problem before. Several years ago, we realized that our health insurance program for city employees was headed toward disaster. We took corrective measures to make sure our plan was solvent. For example, we increased the premium share for retirees and current employees and established a significant employee wellness program.

It’s not going to be an easy fix and unfortunately we’re going to have to make some sacrifices. The General Assembly has taken a first step by changing the five-year vestment to twenty years.
     
3. No, I would not restore funding. I would support a 24-hour waiting period to ensure all options are properly considered.
      

MIKE MUNGER
      1. The premise of the question is false. The goal is NOT to maximize the number of people who have health care provided at no cost to themselves, and paid for by everyone else. That doesn’t add up. If I paid for your car’s upkeep, and you paid for mine, we’d both do a bad job with oil changes and maintenance. We’d spend more than we should, for lower quality autos.

What is necessary is to ensure that health care is affordable, and universally available. I would take two steps.

First, ensure competition and increased availability of primary care. License more physician’s assistants, and nurse practitioners, to perform many basic diagnostic tasks. Make it possible for health care consumers to have low cost, high quality, care with short waits and little paperwork. We don’t have oil change insurance, after all. Instead, we have accident insurance, for major unexpected events that are devastating and very expensive.

Second, provide vouchers for insurance for those who can’t afford it. We don’t have government grocery stores; we have WIC cards, and food stamps. So, we don’t need government provided health care. We need a way to support the people who can’t afford health care. Why not a WIC program for health care, with private choice?
     
2. “Needs” an additional $23.8 billion? No. We “need” to hold down costs. Competition in health care provision would cut that bill in half. Our problem is that we want to help people pay, but we are taking away their pay, and their tax money, to do it. Instead, we need to let the market work to hold down costs. Right now, the only place there is competition is at the level of HMO’s forcing doctors to provide substandard care, and dismiss people from the hospital too soon. That has to change.
     
      3. The state should not provide funding specifically for abortion, or other operations. However, a “health care voucher” program, as described above, could be used to offset costs of any private insurance plan. If that plan covers abortions, or anything else, then that is between the person and the provider. It is none of the state’s business.
     

BEVERLY PERDUE
      1. With the current economic situation in North Carolina, America, and globally, there are no certainties about the budget in my first year as governor, except that I pledge to make job creation, education, and health care my top priorities. As with all of the answers in this questionnaire, any governor’s agenda in the first year will be impacted by the global financial crisis and its impact on North Carolina’s economy.

I am committed to the goal of quality and affordable health coverage for all of North Carolina’s families. In the future, we may be greeted by a new day in Washington with national action to push to make health insurance affordable for all Americans, but it is clear that we cannot wait any longer for Washington and must do what we can in North Carolina now to cover more uninsured families. I am the leader who can to do this. My opponent’s health care plan has been called “risky and inadequate” by independent health care advocates, while my health care plan has been called, “the most significant changes in health care access in North Carolina in, quite literally, decades” by the director of the North Carolina Health Access Coalition. I am proud that we seized the historic opportunity when I co-sponsored the legislation to create our state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program, which now covers over 115,000 previously uninsured children. And I am committed to providing health coverage for all of North Carolina’s uninsured children.
 
But the truth is that we will never get as close as we should toward that goal until we reach out to the uninsured parents of poor children and help whole families obtain coverage. Research confirms that a crucial element to enrolling more children is covering their parents as well. As a report from the National Academy of Sciences put it, “Health Insurance Is A Family Matter.” As governor, I will work to ensure that all children have health care. This is in direct contrast to my opponent, who said that providing health care to our children “sends the wrong signals.” I respectfully disagree.

We must also work to make private insurance more affordable. In particular, we must take direct action to make private health coverage more affordable for the middle-class – especially for small businesses and their employees and for the self-employed. As governor, I will provide tax incentives for small businesses that provide health insurance for their employees if the state’s economic condition allows.

We must focus on getting those families who have been squeezed out of the market back in. We can do that by following the lead of other states and working with private insurers to develop new quality, affordable policies. Such a first step will lay the foundation for development of a larger structured marketplace in the state. In effect, that would create a statewide, open-access purchasing pool or “club” for health coverage where all North Carolina families and businesses can compare and choose from several different affordable private health coverage options.

Finally, we must work to bring down underlying health care costs across the board by putting more of an emphasis on preventive care and public health education. Currently about 75 percent of health care spending is associated with treating on the back end such chronic diseases as diabetes and heart as well as lung disease. So we must have wellness on the front end rather than just deal with expensive illnesses on the back end.

I am proud that the state’s Health and Wellness Trust Fund, which I chair, is becoming a model for other states in the promotion of preventive care and wellness. As North Carolina’s next governor, I will be make North Carolina the clear national leader on prevention.
     
2. There are a number of temporary stop gap measures that the legislature can use to give a temporary financial fix, but I strongly believe it is time that we update the state health plan, particularly to reward preventive care and wellness to help reduce costs on the back end. Additionally, there are a number of best practices that we can borrow from other states and we must resolve to make fundamental change.
     
3. I do not favor changes in state regulations here and the downturn in the national economy means that there will be little money for expansion of the fund.