ELON -- Former President Bill Clinton spoke for nearly 45 minutes this afternoon to a crowd of several hundred curious college students and longtime fans at Elon University in Alamance County.

Clinton urged students to throw North Carolina to his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in the May 6 primary, saying she would be best for college students, reports Barb Barrett.

As proof, he mentioned her work on student loan legislation, her quest to create thousands of new jobs by making American energy independent.

"She will give the young people in this audience their future back, and I hope you agree," Clinton said.

He also slammed the federal No Child Left Behind program and said his wife would best be able to end the war in Iraq and provide health care to returning troops.

Read more after the jump.

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Hunter Bacot uses polls as a learning tool.

As head of the Elon University Poll since 2005, the professor of public administration has used four student interns, members of a class on polling and paid student workers to poll North Carolinians.

That suits Bacot just fine. A native North Carolinian, he taught public administration at UNC-Charlotte and still teaches two courses a semester at Elon.

The university conducts an average of five polls during the academic year. Randomized phone numbers from a Connecticut firm are used to generate a list, while live operators read questions with rotating wording to reduce wording bias.

Elon's polls are not done for any client, so Bacot focuses more on general issues than specific campaigns. An exception is during major election years, when he'll craft questions about the races for president, governor and U.S. Senate.

Bacot, 46, says they do not screen for registered or likely voters. That makes them slightly less reliable for predicting elections, which often hinge on turnout, but Bacot says that's not the purpose.

"Our perspective is that everyone is a part of the democratic process, whether they participate or not," he said. "Some people think that's a bad thing, but we think that if you live in the state you deserve a voice."

The most unlikely political metaphor Dome has come across in a long while.

From Tim Boyum's Political Connections blog, where he is checking in with Elon University pollster Hunter Bacot:

He says if Edwards doesn't get 20% it's pretty much night night for his campaign unless he can somehow remarkably win in South Carolina (where he did win in 2004 but is polling poorly now).

A voice for open government in North Carolina has new financial backing from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

A challenge grant from the foundation will help the North Carolina Open Government Coalition toward its goal of a $500,000 endowment for the Sunshine Center at Elon University, Jane Stancill reports.

The coalition, made up of media organizations, foundations, universities and nonprofit groups, hopes to raise an additional $250,000 during the next two years. The Sunshine Center was established at Elon's School of Communications in February as the educational outreach unit of the coalition. It aims to be a permanent nonpartisan advocate for open government in the state.

The center will educate North Carolina citizens about the state’s laws that provide the public access to government records and meetings. This year, the Sunshine Center developed a set of multimedia learning tools for North Carolina high school students and hosted the state’s celebration of open government during Sunshine Week.

The gubernatorial candidates have agreed to three UNC-TV debates.

The public television station will hold a series of forums at 8 p.m. on Thursdays in Research Triangle Park starting in January.

This afternoon, the station announced that all five candidates — Republicans Bob Orr, Bill Graham and Fred Smith and Democrats Richard Moore and Beverly Perdue — have agreed to attend.

The subjects will be based on the results of an Elon University Poll that identified North Carolinian's top concerns: The economy, health care and education.

Each forum will be 60 minutes long, with the time divided equally between Republican and Democratic candidates. A coin toss will determine who goes first.

More than two-thirds of North Carolinians oppose the transfer tax.

But nearly 50 percent would support the tax if its proceeds went entirely to schools, according to a recent survey.

A new state law allows counties to levy a tax, if voters approve in a referendum. More than a dozen counties have put the transfer tax on this fall's ballot.

But the Elon University Poll shows the tax's fate rests on where people think the money is going.

When asked if they would support a transfer tax for local government, 67 percent of respondents said they would oppose or strongly oppose the idea.

But when they were asked if they would support the tax if all of the revenue went to education, only 43 percent were opposed or strongly opposed, and almost 50 percent were in favor of it.

The poll of 664 North Carolina residents was conducted Sept. 24-27 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percent.

Roughly half of the state likes the job Elizabeth Dole is doing in the U.S. Senate. The other half is either unhappy or unsure about how the Salisbury Republican is doing.

Those are the findings of the latest statewide poll by Elon University.

The poll. conducted Sept. 24-27 of 664 North Carolina residents, found that 53 percent of those surveyed either are satisfied or very satisfied with Dole's performance. Almost 24 percent disapproved or strongly disapproved of her performance. The rest were uncertain.

The margin of error on the poll is plus or minus 3.9 percent.

Can't get enough of that polling debate? You're in luck.

News 14 Carolina will host pollsters from Democratic firm Public Policy Polling and Elon University on its Political Connections show this weekend.

The show airs at 6 p.m. Friday and 11 a.m. Sunday. 

The recent argument over the reliability of polls on U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole is sure to come up, since Elon will be announcing the results of its latest survey today. 

Someone finally cited the most reliable poll on Sen. Elizabeth Dole.

But she got it wrong anyway.

In her inaugural post on BlueNC, state Democratic Party spokeswoman Kerra Bolton completely misreads the results of Elon University's April 2007 poll, claiming it shows only 39.3 percent approve of Dole's job.

That leaves out the 12.7 percent who said they "strongly approve," which means her overall approval rating is actually 52 percent, according to that poll.

The Elon poll is the only one by an impartial source using live operators and providing detailed information on its questions and methodology.

Still, it's from April, predating the Senate fight over illegal immigration, Dole's recent shift on the Iraq war, heck, even that Bojangles ad — all factors that could affect her approval rating.