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Raleigh businessman Art Pope and Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx are among those scheduled to be interviewed when the C-SPAN Campaign bus spends six days in North Carolina in the run-up to the May 8th Democratic primary.

The C-SPAN bus will arrive Thursday and travel through out the state broadcasting throughout the country through the primary.

Among the guests are Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx at 9:15 a.m. on Sunday and Raleigh businessman Art Pope, a major conservative donor, on Monday at 9:15 a.m.

Spotted at Winston's Grille in Raleigh having dinner on Monday with presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was Raleigh businessman Art Pope.

Pope, a major GOP contributor, confirmed he had dinner with Gingrich, but said it doesn't mean  he was backing the former House speaker.

“I am not endorsing,” Pope said. “I am staying neutral in the presidential primary.”

Pope declined to discuss the specifics of the conversation, other than to say there was general talk about the convention platform and the direction of the party in the fall. Gingrich and Pope were part of a small group that also included businessman Bob Luddy, and attorney Tom Farr.

So what did Raleigh businessman and GOP financial angel Art Pope whisper to Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue at last month's now infamous Carolina-Miami game at the Dean Dome?

Not much, according to Pope. Just a little friendly chit-chat.

Pope sought to puncture rumors that Pope had told the governor that he would spend a bunch of money running negative ads against her and her family to defeat her. A few days after the game – in which she was boed at halftime – she announced that she was not seeking re-election.

Gary Pearce, a long-time Democratic strategist, noted the rumor in his blog, Talking About Politics this week. This prompted Pope to respond with a letter.

“Gary, I realize that in your blog you are simply reporting a story “going around,” and not vouching that it is true.
 Please let me assure you, it simply is not true that I told Governor Perdue “that she was facing a nasty campaign, that he [Art Pope] would spend heavily to beat her and that her husband and son might be targets.”
 Governor Perdue and I have been personal friends since we served in the North Carolina House, and on several committees together, back in 1989. While of course she is a Democrat and I am a Republican, and we respectfully disagree on many issues, we have maintained that friendship. Though we rarely see each other these days, it is not unusual for us to say hello when we are at the same Carolina basketball games. Indeed, at the Carolina-Miami game, while I was talking to another person, the Governor came up to me to say hello.

News & Observer metro columnist Burgetta Eplin Wheeler highlights the charitable side of conservative moneyman Art Pope in her column today -- one which will surely generate much discussion in political circles: 

"Immediately, my eye was drawn to the first name on the list of charities and universities the Pope Foundation blessed with $1.2 million in grants last year. The Alliance Medical Ministry? Art Pope, Republican archenemy of some Wake County school board Democrats, gave $10,000 to the charity where Dr. Anne McLaurin, former school board Democrat, provides medical care to the uninsured? What nefarious motive must he have?

We need our selfish, rich, conservative caricatures to eschew humanitarian efforts so we can say they want to hang on to their haddock. Every conservative, we know, believes that giving a man a fish instead of teaching him to fish just keeps the man standing there with his hand out. Humanitarian aid actually is the fourth prong of the Pope Foundation's charitable efforts - the other three being public policy, education and the arts.  Given the amount of unfavorable press Pope has received this year, one might expect any talk of prongs to refer to a pitchfork."

Most interesting fact in a sidebar: Pope doesn't like caves. The enclosed space horrifies him. Read Wheeler's full column here.

Distributed at the Martin Luther King Jr. Triangle Breakfast Monday morning, were flyers that criticizes Art Pope and hints but does outright suggest that people should boycott stores operated by his company.

“Art Pope Uses Cash from His Stores to Make Life Worse You! said the headline in the flyer that includes a caricature of Pope, the names of several chains owned by Pope, and how Pope and his foundations spent money to influence politics  and public policy.

The flyer was published by Democracy North Carolina, a Durham-based group that advocates for public financing and other causes.

“Meet the 1 percent,” said the flyer. “Art Pope is NC's biggest political donor. He uses his customers' cash to finance a network that makes him richer but rest of us – the other 99 percent.”

A Democratic group has been leading a boycott effort against Pope stores since last year.

The flyer was distributed at a breakfast at the Sheraton Imperial attended by 1,000 people including Gov. Bev. Perdue, Sen. Kay Hagan, Raleigh Mayor Nancy McFarlane, Durham Mayor Bill Bell, and Wake Schools Superintendent Tony Tata.

Perdue told the crowd that King would not stand for cuts in education or a new bill requiring voters to show an ID to vote.

“He might remind us that America is strongest when we encourage everyone to vote on election day – not when we build barriers to disenfranchise,” said Perdue, according NBC-17. ”And I believe if Dr. King were here today he would speak up boldly and loudly about education.”

It's being called "Art Pope Exposed, a community teach-in," and scheduled for Tuesday night in downtown Raleigh.

The event is sponsored by the Institute for Southern Studies and includes a panel with representatives from Democracy North Carolina and the N.C. AFL-CIO.

"Want to know what all the Art Pope buzz is about?" a press release asks. "Curious to know more about his political network and its influence on everything from cuts to North Carolina schools to the state's anti-gay marriage amendment?"

Pope is a wealthy Raleigh retailer who has helped bankroll conservative causes and candidates throughout the state to the tune of $40 million according to one study. In October, the New Yorker ran a lengthy profile of him headlined, "State for Sale."

The story brought national attention on Pope, who had already become a sort of public enemy to liberal groups throughout the state. He's become a target of Occupy groups, who wave signs bearing slogans like "Say Nope to Art Pope." The North Carolina Association of Educators has called on shoppers to boycott stores in his Variety Wholesalers retail chain.

Pope knows about Tuesday's teach-in. "I haven't been invited but maybe I'll go, I don't know," he says.

First there was The New Yorker magazine article “State for Sale.”

Now there is the website: “ArtPopeExposed.com.

The Institute for Southern Studies, a liberal media and research group based in Durham, has started what it calls “investigative website” to track the influence of Pope, the Raleigh businessman who has contributed millions to conservative and Republican causes.

“There are a handful of big political donors, but no one person in North Carolina has Pope's level of influence,” said Chris Kromm, the Institute's executive director who has authored a series of critical reports about Pope. “Yet because he works largely behind the scenes, many don't know how big of a role he plays in the state and nationally.”

Pope has never gotten so much national attention as he has this week, mainly as a result of The New Yorker article. He was featured prominently on The Huffington Post, the liberal Internet newspaper and on The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC.

Speaking of Art Pope, his controversial touch existed long before The New Yorker piece below raised his profile. In case you missed it, check out Rob Christensen's story on how Pope's involvement in locating a constitutional law center at N.C. Central University doomed the pitch:

"A proposal to create a constitutional law center at N.C. Central University in Durham has been withdrawn after generating controversy because it would have been financed by a foundation with close ties to Raleigh businessman Art Pope.

"The project was the brain child of Robert Orr, a former N.C. Supreme Court justice and former GOP candidate for governor, who hoped to create one of the few centers in the country devoted to the study of state constitutional law. Orr's proposed source of funding for the center was $600,000 in grants from the John William Pope Foundation, the family foundation headed by Art Pope, who has overseen the expenditure of millions of dollars to finance conservative causes and Republican politics."

Read more here.

The New Yorker debuted its must-read profile of conservative magnate Art Pope on its website today. It starts:

"In the spring of 2010, the conservative political strategist Ed Gillespie flew from Washington, D.C., to Raleigh, North Carolina, to spend a day laying the groundwork for REDMAP, a new project aimed at engineering a Republican takeover of state legislatures. Gillespie hoped to help his party get control of statehouses where congressional redistricting was pending, thereby leveraging victories in cheap local races into a means of shifting the balance of power in Washington.

"It was an ingenious plan, and Gillespie is a skilled tactician—he once ran the Republican National Committee—but REDMAP seemed like a long shot in North Carolina. Barack Obama carried the state in 2008 and remained popular. The Republicans hadn’t controlled both houses of the North Carolina General Assembly for more than a century. (“Not since General Sherman,” a state politico joked to me.) That day in Raleigh, though, Gillespie had lunch with an ideal ally: James Arthur (Art) Pope, the chairman and C.E.O. of Variety Wholesalers, a discount-store conglomerate. The Raleigh News and Observer had called Pope, a conservative multimillionaire, the Knight of the Right. The REDMAP project offered Pope a new way to spend his money."

Read the entire New Yorker profile here.

    Art Pope, the Raleigh businessman and conservative donor, is about to get some national exposure.

A profile of Pope is set to appear in The New Yorker Magazine, written by Jane Mayer, a veteran staff reporter who among many other things wrote an article for the magazine about the influence of the conservative Koch brothers that received a lot of attention.

The article is set to go to print next week.

Pope, a retail executive, is a former state legislator, former candidate for lieutenant governor, who through his family foundations has invested millions in a network of foundations and think tanks, and advocacy groups, both in North Carolina and nationally, that are designed to further conservative and free market ideas. He has also been a major financial backer of Republican Party candidates.