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BIG JOBS DEAL PUTS McCRORY IN THE SPOTLIGHT: The Charlotte law firm Moore & Van Allen, where Gov. Pat McCrory was employed until just days before taking office, helped the New York-based insurance company negotiate with state and local governments to receive more than $94 million in taxpayer-funded incentives in return for the promise to add more than 2,600 jobs in the next three years. The connection raises questions in the minds of Democrats about McCrory’s role in the deal and again shines light on his employment at the law firm, which also runs a lobbying practice in Raleigh. Republicans used similar concerns to reject a major economic development project under Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue, citing how the company hired a Raleigh law firm that employed her son.

TODAY IN POLITICS: McCrory will tout the MetLife deal at another event in Charlotte Friday. The U.S. Labor Department reports the national unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent, a four year low. The full N.C. Mining and Energy Commission meets Friday as the debate about what to do with fracking waste remains unresolved and lawmakers are getting involved.

Thanks for reading the Dome Morning Memo. Much more on the MetLife deal and the political implications below. Send news and tips to dome@newsobserver.com. Have a good weekend and Go Heels!

The insurance giant MetLife plans to add more than 2,600 high-paying jobs in Cary and Charlotte over the next three years after being awarded a state incentives package worth more than $94 million this morning. MetLife expects to invest $125.5 million as part of the project.

“We’re proud that a strong corporate partner like MetLife has decided to invest in North Carolina,” said Gov. Pat McCrory in a statement. “These jobs will complement our financial services sector in Charlotte and our high-tech hub in Wake County, two distinct sectors we want to expand.”

The state’s Economic Investment Committee approved an incentives package for the company at its meeting in Raleigh this morning. MetLife received a 12-year state Job Development Investment Grant worth as much as $87.3 million if it meets hiring and investment goals. MetLife also must retain the 143 employees it now has in Charlotte.

The company is also receiving millions in training credits and a $2 million grant from the One North Carolina fund. More here.

On Wednesday, the General Assembly returns to Raleigh to begin the long session, which is expected to last about five months. In today's paper we take a comprehensive look at the people and the issues that will be making the news, and the laws, in the months ahead. From lawmakers to lobbyists -- and lawmakers turned lobbyists -- plus key staffers behind the scenes, and an army of competing interests, the statehouse on Jones Street is about to begin whistling like a kettle.

State Rep. Tom Murry is planning a western Wake jobs tour this coming week. He has scheduled three meetings in which he hopes to hear from business owners and other constituents fresh ideas for stimulating the economy.

It’s part of the Morrisville Republican’s new role as chairman of the House Committee on Commerce and Job Development.

Here’s the schedule:

2:30 p.m. Monday at Cloer Family Vineyards, 8624 Castleberry Road, Apex, for a walking tour.

8 a.m. Thursday at the Cary Chamber of Commerce, 307 N. Academy St., for a discussion of tax reform and other issues the legislature may take up this session.

9 a.m. Friday at Crowder Construction, 1111 Burma Drive in Apex, for a discussion with small business owners, builders and contractors.

In profiles of the candidates for governor, two distinct men emerge:

On the stump, Walter Dalton invoked the names of famous Democratic governors: Jim Hunt, Terry Sanford and O. Max Gardner. But as he  tries to call up the ghosts of Gardner, Sanford and Hunt, he is shackled by the more recent past. After 20 straight years of Democratic governors, his party’s brand has been tarnished by controversies and scandals. Full profile here.

Pat McCrory's second run for governor looks and feels different than his first. “What happened in between 2008 and 2012 was the tea party insurgency,” says Michael Bitzer, a political scientist at Catawba College, McCrory’s alma mater. “McCrory has had to make some philosophical adjustments.” McCrory insists he hasn’t “moved a bit” in his positions or beliefs. But he and his party have made mutual accommodations. Full profile here.

Many more political headlines below.

Fresh from the debate, Mitt Romney is airing a new TV ad in North Carolina that touts his jobs plan.

Romney promises to create 12 million jobs with drilling, tax cuts and other proposals. But fact checkers find the pledge is not as impressive as it sounds.

The campaign of President Barack Obama has gone up with a new TV ad in North Carolina and eight other battleground states, saying that former Gov. Mitt Romney has never actually stood up to China. The ad accuses him of investing in firms that specialize in relocating jobs to low-wage countries like China.

Vice President Joe Biden will be in Winston-Salem on Wednesday morning to talk about manufacturing jobs.

Biden will be at Wake Forest Biotech Place, a research center in the Piedmont Triad Research Park in downtown Winston-Salem. This is the latest North Carolina visit by a White House official as the Obama administration continues to shower attention on the state this election year. 

The state's unemployment rate in April was 9.4 percent, above the national average.

Gov. Bev Perdue signed a bill into law Thursday that could help two large craft breweries to open operations in western North Carolina. The legislation -- House Bill 796 -- won nearly unanimous support among lawmakers.

Perdue issued this statement: "My top priority is creating jobs, and this bill will fuel the expansion of an industry that has already put down roots in North Carolina," Gov. Perdue said. "North Carolina’s top-ranked business climate helps us attract new businesses and help existing ones grow and thrive."

"The legislation will allow all breweries to offer tastings and sell their products on site, a change aimed at drawing new breweries – and new jobs – into North Carolina. In recent years, the state has seen a sharp growth in small craft breweries, and the new law will help attract new operations interested in opening breweries that also serve as tourist destinations." For more on the bill read here.

Former state Supreme Court Justice Robert Orr, who last month left his position as founding executive director of the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law, says he wishes he had fought the battle against corporate incentives differently. And he says politicians have become afraid to oppose the practice of luring companies with tax breaks.

Orr made the remarks in a lengthy Q&A with North Carolina Lawyers Weekly published today. Orr says it was probably a mistake to bring broad litigation to attack the 1996 N.C. Supreme Court decision allowing taxpayer-funded incentives. That approach ended up pitting a couple of lawyers with the institute against a phalanx of attorneys from public entities across the state.

"In retrospect I think a better strategy would have been to start out with smaller, more limited challenges to incentives, rather than this sort of huge, broad-based approach," Orr said. "But who knew at that point in time what the best strategy would have been? If I had to do it all over again, though, I would have approached it in a strategically different way."

Orr says it forced the controversy into the public discourse. "And consistently everybody says, 'I really hate incentives, I wish we didn't have to do them. They're bad public policy,' " Orr said. "It's just that there's no vehicle to limit them legally. And from a policy standpoint, everybody's terrified of the four-letter word 'jobs.' They're not willing to do anything that would be perceived politically as reducing North Carolina's opportunity, even though they consistently say it's bad policy."

Read more about how states are approaching the incentives game -- in light of the Chiquita deal -- in this piece from The Charlotte Observer.