Four state Democrats want the legislature to honor John McCain.

But not that John McCain.

State Reps. Jean Farmer-Butterfield of Wilson, Joe Tolson of Pinetops, Marvin Lucas of Spring Lake and Martha Alexander of Charlotte filed a bill to honor Dr. John L. McCain, a Wilson County physician who died in 2005.

Dr. McCain has at least one thing in common with his namesake. Like the Republican presidential candidate, he served in the Navy, although it was during World War II, not the Vietnam War. 

Unlike the other McCain, he was once appointed to a national advisory board by President Jimmy Carter. 

George W. Bush is not the only president or ex-president  in the Triangle today.

Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter were spotted on a Durham walking trail Friday morning — along with big guys in suits with ear pieces, Rob Christensen reports.

It was not clear why the Carters were in Durham. A Duke University spokeswoman said Carter was not scheduled to speak there.

Bush will be in Raleigh this evening for a fundraiser for Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, the GOP candidate for governor.

There have been five presidential spoilers in N.C. in the last century.

Since 1908, third-party candidates in the presidential race have earned enough votes to affect the race between the Republican and the Democrat on the ballot in 1912, 1968, 1980, 1992 and 1996.

In the first two cases, the third-party candidate came in second.

George Wallace was the most successful, earning 31.3 percent of the state vote in the 1968 race as the nominee of the segregationist American Independent Party. The winner, Republican Richard Nixon, won 39.5 percent, while Democrat Hubert Humphrey came in third with 29.2 percent.

The next most successful was former president Teddy Roosevelt, who ran on the Progressive or "Bull Moose" Party in 1912, earning 28.4 percent. Democrat Woodrow Wilson won the state with 59.2 percent, while Republican incumbent William Howard Taft came in third with 12 percent.

In the other races, the third-party candidates came in third, but got more votes than the margin of difference between the Democratic and Republican candidates.

In 1992, Texas businessman Ross Perot earned 13.7 percent of the vote, far more than the 0.79 percent margin that incumbent George H.W. Bush beat Bill Clinton by in North Carolina, despite losing the national race.

Four years later, Perot was roughly half as popular — picking up just 6.7 percent — but he still drew more votes than the 4.7 percent difference between winner Bob Dole and Clinton.

And in 1980, Independent candidate John Anderson won 2.9 percent, slightly more than the 2.1 percent difference between winner Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.

Over the past century, North Carolina has rarely been a battleground.

Since 1908, the average margin of victory in the presidential race here has been 18 percentage points, and the median has been 12.4 points.

The closest race out of those 25 elections was Bill Clinton's challenge to incumbent President George H.W. Bush in 1992. As a Southern governor running on the economy, Clinton campaigned heavily in the state, but he was helped by a strong third-party showing by Ross Perot.

Bush only won by 0.79 percentage points, beating Clinton 43.4 to 42.7 percent. (Perot got 13.9 percent of the vote, the third-best showing for a third-party candidate in North Carolina after George Wallace in 1968 and Teddy Roosevelt in 1912.)

The next closest race was 1956, when Democrat Adlai Stevenson edged Dwight Eisenhower by 1.32 percentage points despite losing the national election.

In third place was Ronald Reagan's 2.12 point win over Jimmy Carter in 1980. In fourth place, John Kennedy's 4.22 point win over Richard Nixon in 1960. And in fifth place, Bob Dole's 4.69 point win over Clinton in 1996 despite losing the national election.

Otherwise, North Carolina was reliably Democratic from 1908 to 1964, and reliably Republican from 1968 to 2004 (with the exception of Carter's post-Watergate win in 1976.)

In choosing North Carolina as one of his first general election appearances, Barack Obama was sending a signal that he is seriously looking at contesting the Tar Heel state.

"North Carolina is in play," said Congressman G.K. Butterfield of Wilson, a key Obama leader. "We are a purple state. We are neither red nor blue."

North Carolina has long been regarded as a red state, or a Republican-leaning state in presidential politics. Only once in the past 40 years, in 1976 when Jimmy Carter was the nominee, has the state voted Democrat, Rob Christensen reports.

But Obama spent considerable time and resources in the state during last month's Democratic primary.

Butterfield said one goal of Obama's visit here was to reach out to the 20 percent of the electorate that is registered as unaffilaited. But he also said the Illinois senator needs to take his message to working people of all colors.

During the primary here, Obama did poorly among white working Democrats, losing that demographic to Hillary Clinton.

North Carolina and Indiana's primaries are today. How do they compare? 

North Carolina has 8.9 million residents; Indiana, 6.3 million.

North Carolina is 21.7 percent black; Indiana, 8.9 percent.

North Carolina is 48,711 square miles; Indiana, 35,867.

Bush won both states in the 2004 election.

The last time Democratic presidential candidate to win Indiana was Lyndon Johnson in 1964. The last Democrat to win North Carolina was Jimmy Carter in 1976.

North Carolina has 115 delegates up for grabs and Indiana has 72.

North Carolina race fans go to Lowe's Motor Speedway. Indiana's fans go to Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

North Carolina's biggest industry is banking, with the headquarters of Bank of America, Wachovia and BB&T headquartered there. Indiana's industry is health care products and drugs, with the headquarters of Eli Lilly and Co., Anthem and Guidant.

Both states have a rich basketball tradition. Indiana has Larry Bird, Notre Dame, Butler and Purdue. North Carolina has Michael Jordan, UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke University and N.C. State.

Famous Hoosiers include David Letterman, John Mellencamp and Steve McQueen. Famous Tar Heels include Billy Graham, Andy Griffith and Thomas Wolfe.

Jimmy Carter thinks the Democrats could carry North Carolina in 2008.

The former president, who was the last Democratic candidate to win the state's presidential contest in 1976, said in a phone interview today that he thinks the party has a shot this year again, Peggy Lim reports.

"I think we have a good chance to carry the Southern states," he said.

A supporter of Barack Obama, he also said that he did not think that race would cut against the Democratic nominee this time around.

"The race issue — it's still important, but for a lot of people it's fading away," he said.

Carter argued that the connections between Obama and his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, have been oversold.

"It's been greatly exaggerated on CNN and in news coverage," he said. "I think in a week or two, it's going to fade away."

Clarification: Carter has not officially endorsed Obama, although he has made favorable comments about him. 

U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, a Charlotte Republican, has called for former President Jimmy Carter's passport to be pulled over his meeting with Hamas leaders in Palestine.

U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott says that Barack Obama could put North Carolina in play.

The Virginia Democrat, an Obama supporter since before the Iowa caucuses, says that the state has similar demographics to his home state, which Obama won in the Democratic presidential primary.

In Elizabeth City for a voter drive, Scott told Dome he believes Obama would carry the same vote that Sen. Jim Webb and Govs. Doug Wilder and Tim Kaine have gotten in Virginia, and that could mean a fight for North Carolina as well.

That would cut against the grain of recent elections. Virginia hasn't gone for a Democrat for president since Lyndon Johnson; North Carolina since Jimmy Carter.

"If we can carry one or two southern states, it would be hard to write a list of states the Republicans could win to add up to 278 electoral votes," he argued.

Scott said that would force Republican nominee John McCain to campaign in the South, instead of spending his time in traditional swing states like Missouri and Ohio. 

With North Carolina in play, will John Edwards endorse?

Earlier, state political commentators argued that the former Democratic presidential candidate had waited too long to make an endorsement of either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.

Now it looks like he may have strengthened his hand.

Time's Mark Halperin included Edwards on a list of 13 prominent Democrats who could call for Clinton to drop out of the race and have an effect on the media and other Democrats (if not Clinton).

Edwards was No. 3, right after Al Gore and Jimmy Carter, and above Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

As a former North Carolina senator, an Edwards endorsement would carry some weight here, though it would be unlikely to be as important as the national media may make it out to be. 

For his part, Edwards has not made any moves that would indicate that he intends to endorse either candidate until the dust settles, though he recently began working with a group attacking Republican John McCain.