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Protesters will gather around North Carolina today.

The Tax Day Tea Party events will protest government bailouts and record federal spending, among other issues, in 30 locations around the state.

An event in Charlotte is expected to draw 1,000, including Republican Rep. Sue Myrick. Another event in Edenton will draw on a 1774 protest in that city. Protests are also planned for Raleigh, Greensboro and Asheville.

The events are being coordinated in North Carolina in part by Americans for Prosperity, a small-government advocacy group. Grassroots volunteers have also set up Facebook pages and used Twitter to promote the events.

Staffers from the John Locke Foundation and the Civitas Institute will also speak at several events.

A hospital administrator who once worked in Asheville will be the state's next Medicaid director.

Dr. Craigan L. Gray will become director of the state's Division of Medical Assistance on April 27. He will make $270,000 a year, Lynn Bonner reports.

Gray is vice president of medical affairs and chief medical officer at Bon Secours Our Lady of Bellefonte Hospital in Ashland, Ky., according to the state Department of Health and Human Services. He also holds a law degree and an MBA.

Gray was chairman and managing director of Employee Benefit Trust in Asheville from 1995-2002, and was a doctor at Mission Hospital in Asheville. In 1975, he co-founded and was the senior managing physician of Asheville Women's Medical Center.

Tara Larson, the acting Medicaid director, will return to her job as deputy, a department spokesman said.

Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for the poor and disabled, is the biggest expense in the DHHS budget. The division spent more than $9 billion in the last fiscal year on services to 1.6 million people, or one-fifth of the state population, according to DHHS.

"I am excited that Dr. Gray's training and experience in medicine and the law as well as practical skills in business management, both in Kentucky and here in North Carolina, make him an outstanding choice to lead our state's Medicaid program," DHHS secretary Lanier Cansler said in a statement.

"He is exactly the type of dynamic leader that Gov. Perdue and I discussed bringing on board at DHHS to help us manage this complex program that provides much needed and necessary services to our fellow citizens."

Gov. Beverly Perdue has given a preview of her budget.

Speaking at an economic roundtable at UNC-Asheville this morning, Perdue promised new tax breaks for businesses and more spending for worker training, the Asheville Citizen-Times reports.

Among the tax breaks:

* Expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit from 5 to 6.5 percent. 

* Allowing small businesses to exempt some profits from taxes.

* Excluding initial stock investments in some startups from capital gains.

She also pledged to spend $50 million on sewer and water projects, $17 million on workforce preparedness, $7 million on "Main Street" projects in small towns, $5 million on green businesses and $2 million to a small business grant program. 

Perdue will formally present her budget Tuesday. 

Asheville reporter Jordan Schrader writes on his Capital Letters blog that Perdue did not say anything about "how she'll pay for it."

Gov. Beverly Perdue is in Asheville today and tomorrow.

Perdue is holding an economic roundtable at UNC-Asheville this morning and speaking to the Council of Independent Business Owners and touring a General Electric plant this afternoon.

On Friday, she'll tour the Bent Creek Institute biotechnology facility on the campus of the North Carolina Arboretum.

The trip is part of Perdue's ongoing efforts to be more visible throughout the state.

Ten North Carolina mayors are going to Washington this weekend.

The group will join over 250 mayors from across the country to call for local help in the upcoming Congressional stimulus package.

Expected to attend are Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, the former GOP gubernatorial candidate; Durham Mayor Bill Bell; Fayetteville Mayor Tony Chavonne; Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines; Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy; and the mayors of Asheville, Concord, Gastonia, Salisbury and Waxhaw.

They will be attending the winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

The conference will release a report this weekend on projected job losses in metropolitan areas, a particular concern for McCrory, who founded the N.C. Metropolitan Mayors Coalition to concentrate on urban issues.

Gov.-elect Beverly Perdue plans to have three offices.

Spokesman David Kochman said that Perdue will keep the two offices in New Bern and Asheville and add a third in Charlotte, in addition to the governor's main office in Raleigh.

Each of the offices will be staffed by a representative whose job it will be to serve as a link between the governor's office and the local government.

"The things they might do would be representing the governor at local events and regional meetings, so they can report back about the matters being discussed," he said.

They will also help with local constituent service and help Perdue prepare for a local visit.

Kochman said that Perdue's pledge to open a Charlotte office came long before she faced Republican Pat McCrory in the November campaign. 

Another Tar Heel has joined the Obama administration.

According to an item by the Washington Post's Al Kamen, a native North Carolinian will soon help shepherd Barack Obama's health care plan:

Former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, now tasked with overhauling the nation's health-care system and the Department of Health and Human Services, will be able to count on former aide Mark Childress to help him. Childress is to be his chief of staff and also deputy director of the new White House Office of Health Reform. Childress had been Daschle's chief counsel and policy director when he was in the Senate.

Childress, a native of Asheville, was a Morehead scholar at UNC-Chapel Hill's law school and still has family in North Carolina.

Two Asheville residents are pushing Sarah Palin for 2012.

Republican voters Randy Thomas and Richard Bernier created a Web site — draftpalinforpresident.com — on Friday to encourage the Alaska governor and former Republican vice presidential nominee to run in four years.

"As the 11th governor of Alaska, she has successfully fought the special interests, the lobbyists, the Big Oil companies and the good ol' boys network to reform a system that had bred corruption in her state," they write on the site's home page.

Bernier, a medical equipment salesman, told the Asheville Citizen-Times that they are hoping to get the same kind of "election machine" that helped Barack Obama in place early.

After appearing on CNN and MSNBC today, the site's membership jumped from 50,000 to more than 100,000 from all over the country, while it received about 15,000 pieces of electronic "hate mail," said Thomas.

He said the ultimate goal is to provide Palin with a list of supporters.

"She keeps talking about 'if God opens a door' for her, so we want to go to her and say here's a list with some names on it go for it," he said.

Thomas, who owns a Web hosting service, said he saw Palin speak in Asheville during the campaign and thought she was very approachable.

There is some precedent for this kind of effort. In February of 2007, a blogger named Adam Brickley created the "Draft Sarah Palin for Vice President" Web site.

John McCain had 36 offices in North Carolina.

The Republican presidential candidate had offices in the major cities, such as Greensboro, Asheville and Wilmington.

Though several offices were located around the Charlotte and Raleigh areas, there was only one office within the cities proper.

Unlike Barack Obama's mostly independent offices, pretty much all of the McCain campaign offices were located within a local Republican Party headquarters or in space shared with them.

In addition, another 30 local parties ran phone banks and canvassing operations on their own.

The shared offices were part of the shared financing of McCain's campaign.

"The Republican National Committee was raising a lot of money, while the DNC was not," said N.C. Republican Party spokesman Brent Woodcox. "Particularly after the public campaign financing kicked in, it made more sense for the state parties to set up these offices."

Correction: An office was missing from the list.

After the jump, a complete list.