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Democratic National Convention organizers paid to use the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte from an account that accepted corporate donations, reports the Charlotte Observer.

President Barack Obama told organizers not to use corporate money to for the convention.

But Dan Murrey, head of the convention host committee, told CharO reporter Tim Funk that contracts signed in early 2011 said the committee could pay the arena fee from either of two funds, one that accepted corporate money or one that didn't.

All the big convention speeches were given from the arena. It cost $5 million to use.

The Charlotte Observer this morning has written a “Dear Erskine” editorial, urging him to enter the Democratic primary for governor.
Here is what it said:
"Dear Erskine,
We hear you're thinking hard about whether to run for governor of North Carolina.
We fully understand your ambivalence. Politics is a snake pit, and you might think you have better things to do than subject yourself to that venom. You've run for the U.S. Senate twice in North Carolina and lost both times, and you were subjected to negative advertising that attacked your reputation. Besides, you are 66, you've been working hard for more than four decades, and you've earned a little downtime with your kids and grandkids.

The American Beverage Institute will run full-page ads against liquor taxes.

The ads, which will run Sunday in the Charlotte Observer and the News & Observer, advertise a Web site, NoDrinkTax.com.

"Want to send more tax revenue out of state?" says one ad, above a picture of a Welcome to South Carolina sign. "North Carolina's liquor prices are already 30 percent higher than South Carolina's. Now politicians want to raise them even more to help fund their bloated budget."

The other ad says state legislators want taxpayers "shaken, not stirred."

The state budget includes a 1.5 percent increase on the liquor tax, the only one of several proposed "sin taxes" on alcohol and tobacco that were proposed that has not been cut.

The American Beverage Institute is run by a lobbyist or the restaurant, alcohol and tobacco industries.

Newspaper publishers oppose a bill to allow meeting notices be posted online.

Rep. Paul Stam, an Apex Republican, sponsored the legislation to allow certain cities and counties to stop buying classified ads to announce public hearings. 

An earlier version of the bill would have exempted all local governments, but Stam scaled it back to just towns in Wake and Mecklenburg counties after it met resistance.

Stam said the bill would give government a break on its expenses.

"Let's look for the things that would save counties and cities money while we're cutting the heart out of their budgets," he said.

Publishers and editors at the N&O and the Charlotte Observer lobbied against it, saying many people don't have Internet access. (N&O)

Welcome to North Carolina, D.C. Reporter.

We're glad that your national publication found our state worthy of coverage, especially with all that stuff going on in your usual haunts: New York, California and Iowa.

In the past, some of your colleagues have made dumb mistakes when writing about North Carolina, so here are a few tips:

THE OBSERVERS: A lot of our newspapers have similar names: The Charlotte Observer, the Raleigh News & Observer and the Fayetteville Observer. Try to keep them straight.

RALEIGH, DURHAM: Yes, the hyphen at the airport is confusing. But there is no such place as Raleigh-Durham. They're separate cities. (Winston-Salem is one city, though.)

TAR HEEL: That's two words. It's the name of UNC-Chapel Hill (called Carolina or North Carolina in sports) team and one name for residents of the state.

NORTH, SOUTH: We're not South Carolina, and we hate being confused with it. For starters, Charleston is in South Carolina; Charlotte, in North Carolina.

BARBECUE: That's a noun, not a verb. It's made with pork. There's two kinds: Eastern style has a vinegar sauce; Lexington style, a tomato-based sauce.

That should cover the basics. Now get to reporting!

Federal authorities are looking into a former land deal by Gov. Mike Easley, according to the company that marketed the property.

Easley purchased a lot in the Cannonsgate development for $549,880 at the end of 2005, according to property records. It was assessed at a tax value of $1.2 million a year later, though it would sell for less today.

Separate reports in 2006 by the Charlotte Observer and the Carolina Journal, a publication of the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, compared the Easley sale with others nearby and concluded that he got a good deal.

The project was developed and marketed by brothers Randy and William Allen, whom Easley appointed to the state Wildlife Resources Commission. Another Easley appointee, transportation board member Lanny Wilson, helped finance the project with a $12.5 million loan.

All three were major campaign contributors to Easley. (N&O) 

Jack Betts was bullish on Garrett Perdue in 2007.

In an Oct. 7 piece, the Charlotte Observer columnist said the son of Gov. Beverly Perdue did well when introducing her at the formal kickoff of her campaign.

"The younger Perdue has presence, poise, timing and wit that Bev Perdue ought to put to good use on the campaign trail between now and next spring, when she hopes to become the Democratic Party's nominee in the May 6 primary election," he wrote.

He wrote that Garrett Perdue was "a first-rate speaker" who "might just have a glowing political future."

Previously: Perdue hired as federal lobbyist, spotted at legislature and state political event, members of Congress haven't heard from him.

Legislative guru Gerry Cohen has his own memory of former Gov. Bob Scott.

As a sophomore at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1970, Cohen got a call from a reporter from the Charlotte Observer. 

As he recalls, Scott had made a campaign promise that his office door would always be open. The reporter offered Cohen and a few other people with no political connections $25 each to try to get an appointment with the governor.

"I drove over from Chapel Hill to see if I could meet with the governor," Cohen wrote in an e-mail to Dome. " I got ushered in to see Ben Roney, who I think was chief of staff. Roney offered to set up an appointment, but said the next availabe time for me to meet with the Governor would be three or four months in the future."

Cohen said he declined, but the door was open.

Doug Rader has criticized drilling before.

As noted previously, one of the co-chairs of a legislative task force studying offshore drilling editorialized against it last year.

But he's also been quoted opposing it over the years:

* "Although it is questionable whether any drilling at all is compatible with North Carolina's sensitive coastal resources, there is absolutely no way any oil or gas activity should ever be permitted in this unique and valuable region of the Atlantic." — Wilmington Morning Star, June 16, 1998.

* About Chevron's decision to put off drilling: "That's a very important development, especially at a time when so many other threats stand at the gates of North Carolina's coast. ... That's among the worst places in the world to drill for oil." — News & Observer, Feb. 4, 1999.

* About the U.S. Supreme Court taking a case involving offhosre drilling: "We welcome a final resolution of the outer continental shelf drilling mess off the North Carolina coast. ... The Supreme Court hearing of this case provides an opportunity to correct mistakes of past administrations, which allowed leases where they never should have been." — Charlotte Observer, Nov. 16, 1999.