A conservative Web site is pushing U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge to slow President Obama's budget.

In an e-mail to readers of RedState.com, editor Erick Erickson urges them to call the Lillington Democrat and four other Democrats, urging them to "slow down budget approval" in a House committee tonight.

The others are Reps. Allen Boyd of Florida, Charlie Melancon of Louisiana, Chet Edwards of Texas and John Yarmuth of Kentucky.

"Tell them to vote no on the budget tonight," he writes. "We can stop the budget if you will pick up your phone right now."

As with an earlier campaign from a liberal group, Erickson's e-mail mistakenly includes Etheridge among the Blue Dog Democrats.

He is not a member of that conservative coalition, although he is a member of the New Democrat Coalition in the House.

Two liberal bloggers came the closest to predicting North Carolina's presidential race.

Nate Silver, a statistics nut who runs the Web site FiveThirtyEight.com, and Kirk Ross, who writes the Exile on Jones Street blog about the legislature, both predicted Barack Obama would win the state. Silver said by 0.6 percentage points; Ross by 0.5 to 1.5 points.

The actual margin, according to uncertified results from the State Board of Elections, was 0.3 points.

The two were among 16 bloggers, pundits, professors and consultants who predicted an Obama win in the Tar Heel state, according to an informal tally by Dome the week before the election.

Because of the narrow margin, the 13 who predicted a McCain win (including the Eight Ball) shouldn't be too ashamed, except maybe the four conservatives who predicted a win by three or more points — Sen. Richard Burr, Red State editor Erick Erickson, blogger Ed Morrissey and editor Fred Barnes.

And no points go to the five mainstream sources who refused to make a prediction (Rothenberg Political Report, Congressional Quarterly, Cook Political Report, New York Times and MSNBC.)