As if a political wormhole has opened up between Raleigh and Jefferson City, Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt has been sued over his administration's alleged deletion of e-mail backup tapes to avoid releasing messages concerning the wholesale destruction of public records and the firing of a whistle-blowing state employee.

The story should sound vaguely familiar to North Carolinians who have seen a flap over e-mail destruction arise in the wake of the firing of a state employee, Michael Biesecker reports. Here, it was a group of newspapers that sued the Gov. Mike Easley, and not a special investigative team that sued Missouri's governor, according to a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The suit was filed in Cole County Circuit Court by the special investigation team set up by Attorney General Jay Nixon last November to probe allegations that Blunt's staff were destroying office e-mails in violating of state laws governing open-records requests and preservation of public documents.

The suit is filed against Blunt and Dan Ross, the state's custodian of records who works in the Office of Administration and oversees the computer system that handles and preserves e-mails for most of state government.

The suit says the order to delete was made on Oct. 31, less than a week after news broke about the firing a month earlier of Blunt's former deputy counsel, Scott Eckersley. The lawyer maintained that he was fired after raising concerns that the governor's staff was intentionally destroying e-mails that should be preserved as public records.

Blunt has maintained that Eckersley was fired for unrelated reasons.

There has been a shakeup in the Senate campaign of GOP Sen. Elizabeth Dole.

J. Sam Daniels, the campaign manager, has been shifted into the role of a top fund raiser, Rob Christensen reports. He will be replaced by Marty Ryall, who until recently ran the gubernatorial campaign of Bill Graham.

Daniels is a former executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party and he had also worked in the 2000 gubernatorial campaign of Bill Cobey.

There was no immediate reason given for the shuffle. But recent polls have shown that Dole has a much closer race against Democrat Kay Hagan than many had anticipated.

No immediate word from the Dole campaign.

Sen. Elizabeth Dole's new campaign Web site includes a five-minute video in which she and her husband, former Sen. Bob Dole, talk about how they met.

The video, which features lighting design that would make Barbara Walters' producers jealous, is modeled loosely on segments from the film, "When Harry Met Sally," in which couples talk about how they met. In the Dole's case, there was an initial attraction, followed by a series of phone calls, particularly from the shy Bob Dole.

She was in his office to discuss a policy issue.

"A side door opened. Bob Dole Walked in. And I remember looking up at him and thinking, 'My goodness, he's an attractive man.'" 

He noticed too.

"I think that's the first time I saw her, and I thought to myself, this is not a bad little meeting we're having here," he said.

Campaign video from Sen. Elizabeth Dole's Web site.

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr joined his Democratic colleague on the Senate Veteran Affairs committee today in calling for an independent investigation into a veterans hospital in Texas and its diagnoses of PTSD.

Burr, of Winston-Salem, is the top Republican on the committee. He and Sen. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, the panel’s chairman, said the Inspector General for the Veteran Affairs department needs to look into diagnoses at the medical center in Temple, Texas, reports Barb Barrett.

There, an employee recently sent out an e-mail suggesting that workers not diagnose post-praumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, among patients.

“It is troubling if even one person at VA would encourage other employees to make anything other than a completely honest health assessment of our veterans,” Burr said. “These allegations are serious.”

U.S. Rep. David Price says he’s disappointed with President Bush’s remarks to the Israeli parliament on Thursday, just 24 hours after Price and about 50 other members of Congress urged Bush to promote diplomacy in his visit to the region this week.

"The president’s comments yesterday demonstrated that he is far more committed to political cheap shots than he is to actually pursuing peace in the Middle East," Price said.

During the celebration of Israel’s 60th anniversary, Bush compared those who would talk with Iran and radical Islamic groups to Nazis’ appeasers, angering many in the Palestinian territories and in the United States.

"That he would use such a solemn occasion in a foreign land as a campaign stop, undermining his own stated commitment to a peaceful resolution, is not only disgraceful; it speaks volumes about the broader failure of his foreign policy," said Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat.

"The letter that I, along with 51 of my colleagues, sent to President Bush this week encouraged precisely the opposite course: leadership that understands the imperative for peace and takes the steps necessary to achieve that goal," Price said.

Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole must have been watching the polls in recent days, because she predicts a hard-fought race to keep her seat next fall.

In her first blog post on her new election site, Dole says she expects to have to defend her record against attacks.

"Modern campaigns have become a contact sport, so please anticipate that this campaign – and yours truly – will come under attack," Dole writes. "There will be careless attacks – personal attacks – votes and issues taken out of context – maybe even outright falsehoods."

Recent polls show Dole just a few points ahead of Democratic challenger Kay Hagan, a state senator from Greensboro, and national pundits are beginning to wonder whether Dole could be in trouble next fall.

Her new campaign Web site followed the model of those by many of the presidential candidates, offering ways for readers to interact with the campaign, register to vote and make donations online.

The third and fourth place finishers in the Democratic primary for state Labor Commissioner want a recount.

Mary Fant Donnan of Winston Salem finished first, but failed to get the 40 percent of the vote that would have allowed her to avoid a runoff with former labor commissioner John Brooks of Raleigh, Michael Biesecker reports.

However, state law allows candidates in a statewide race who finish either .5 percent or less 10,000 votes behind a prevailing candidate to request a recount.

Though the primary won't be certified by the state Board of Elections until next week, complete but unofficial results show Brooks at 24.36 percent, candidate Ty Richardson at 24.18 percent and Raleigh lawyer Robin Anderson at 23.92 percent.

Both Richardson and Anderson filed for a recount by the deadline Thursday.

Gov. Mike Easley's budget proposal includes $40.4 million for a new capital visitor's center. 

The existing visitor's center, isn't a center at all, David Bracken reports. It's a reception desk hidden in a corner of the N.C. Museum of History's lobby.

"It's been so embarrassing for us when people walk in and say, 'Is this the visitor center?'" said Jackie Parrish, the center's acting director. "First they have to find us, and then they have to find a parking space. They are fit to be tied when they get in here."

Easley's proposal is for a new 55,000-square-foot visitors center by 2011, which would feature a stand-alone center and a two-level underground parking garage.

The new center would be the second large development project undertaken by the state downtown.

The $109 million Green Square project calls for construction of a Department of Environment and Natural Resources building, an expansion of the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences and an underground parking facility.

The visitors center would be directly east of the Museum of History on what is now a paved parking lot for state workers. Among its amenities would be an outdoor plaza, classroom space, a drop-off point for school buses, and designated parking.