Laura Leslie puts Mary Easley's trip into perspective.

The WUNC reporter writes on her blog Isaac Hunter's Tavern that the $109,000 spent by the first lady on trips to Estonia, Russia and France is a drop in the state budget's bucket.

But it would be worth a lot as arts spending.

Just for context's sake, here’s a few of the House’s proposed cuts to operational program budgets in the Dept of Cultural Resources - the agency that paid the $109K bill:

Basic Grants Program – loses $42K
Grassroots Arts Program- loses $29K
NC Symphony Society – loses $11K
Lost Colony – loses $2500
NC Shakespeare Festival – loses $2500
Quiz Bowl – loses $3000
CSS Neuse – loses $1500
Maritime Museum – loses $1500
Vagabond School of Drama – loses $465
Charlotte Hawkins Brown Memorial – loses $500

Leslie notes that adds up to $94,000 worth of cuts to groups that employ North Carolina artists and cultural experts. Though some may get funding from other sources, she notes most will end up with a net loss from the cuts.

Kathleen Sebelius is returning to North Carolina.

The Kansas governor, an oft-mentioned potential running mate for Barack Obama, will be at a private fundraiser in Chapel Hill at noon today, Laura Leslie reports on her blog, Isaac Hunter's Tavern.

Sebelius and more than a dozen other governors are in town for a meeting arranged by former Gov Jim Hunt. The fundraiser's apparently been planned for quite some time. But what are the odds that Obama and one of his most-talked-about potential VPs end up in the Triangle on the same day?

Sebelius came to North Carolina in April for a voter-registration tour, touting his approach on the economy and avoidance of hot-button social issues.

Obama will speak at noon at the state fairgrounds.

Update: Sebelius will be at this event with Sens. Claire McCaskill and Jon Tester. 

Laura Leslie says Beverly Perdue's pledge for a positive campaign may be related to Barack Obama.

In a post on Hunter's Tavern, the WUNC reporter says that the May 6 primary will bring out a lot of Obama supporters who may be more appreciate of a positive approach.

They include first-timers, non-traditional voters, unaffiliated and crossover voters – generally speaking, people who don’t like politics as usual.  She's positioning herself in a way that allows her to harness that energy as the gubernatorial change candidate, but without alienating old friends and party faithful. 

While Obama and Hillary Clinton's ads in North Carolina have been positive so far, she also notes that the Republican gubernatorial candidates are also playing nice.

"See a pattern?" she writes. "I think Perdue did, and she’s betting the bank on it."

Laura Leslie wonders why Thomas Wright got the longest sentence.

In a post on Hunter's Tavern, the WUNC reporter points out that the former state representative got the longest sentence of any of the three legislators who've been convicted of corruption in the last two years.

Former state Rep. Michael Decker got $50,000 and a job for his son for selling his vote, and in exchange he got 48 months in a federal prison.

Former House Speaker Jim Black got a $500,000 loan and admitted buying Decker's vote, and in exchange he got a $1 million fine and 63 months in a federal prison.

Wright got a $150,000 mortgage under false pretenses and pocketed $7,400 in charitable donations and he got 70 months in state prison.

"So how is it that fraud in the service of buying a house nets you more prison time than fraud in the service of buying the House?" she writes on the blog. "Seriously — is it really more heinous to deceive a banker than a voter?"

On the other hand, she notes that Wright failed to apologize at all for his behavior, unlike Black and Decker.

Laura Leslie says Thomas Wright's testimony was damaging.

The WUNC reporter writes on her blog that the former state representative's testimony at his criminal fraud trial "got weird, then ludicrous, then absurd."

She notes he said that District Attorney Colon Willoughby doesn't know how the legislature works, claimed that someone must have tampered with evidence and claimed that he was being targeted by politicians angry about his work on the 1898 Wilmington riots.

I'm certainly no jury expert, but I'd guess from their expressions they weren't buying it. By the end of the day, Wright was grinning and laughing at Willoughby from the stand, but they weren't laughing with him. He even tried to joke about his wife's (very sympathetic) testimony, but it fell completely flat.

Leslie says that Willoughby refuted or challenged Wright's statements with evidence.

Laura Leslie says Mike Easley's explanation doesn't add up.

In a post on Dome yesterday, Governor Easley was quoted saying he had received a handwritten letter from former N.C. Health and Human Services Secretary Carmen Hooker Odom explaining why she didn't want to meet with the press, but he threw it away.

On Isaac Hunter's Tavern, the WUNC reporter says she doesn't get it: 

Hold on. You're in the middle of a firestorm over the collapse of the state’s mental health system. You fire a longtime, highly-respected agency spokesperson for, you say, convincing the former agency head not to talk to the press. You get a letter from that agency head in which she explains why she doesn't want to talk to the press. You throw the letter away.  

Leslie says that the letter, as he describes it, presumably would have backed up Easley's complaint about spokesman Debbie Crane, whom he fired.

"Am I the only one to whom this makes no sense?" she writes. "Or am I missing something here?"

Several bloggers have raised questions about Richard Moore's ads.

On Isaac Hunter's Tavern, WUNC reporter Laura Leslie notes that the Democratic gubernatorial candidate has been buying ads on basic cable.

"Okay, Mr. Treasurer, I get CNBC — but the Food Network? Why?" she writes.

On This Old State, Charlotte Observer editor Jack Betts argues that the YouTube ad about a bridge in Beverly Perdue's home county missed the mark with people who have driven in that area.

...that ad may have lost Moore votes from folks who remember the bad old days when it could take an hour or more to crawl through New Bern on the way to hunting, fishing or sailing somewhere Down East. 

Earlier: Political consultant Gary Pearce calls Moore's ads "guy talk."

Bob Orr really blogs.

In a segment on NBC 17's new "At Issue" program Sunday, your Dome correspondent and the Charlotte Observer's Mark Johnson discussed political blogs run by the gubernatorial campaigns.

Regularly updated features on the Web sites of Richard Moore and Fred Smith just look like blogs, we said, while "More from Orr" really reads like his personal blog.

We noted that there is a risk that Orr could offend voters (as when he referred to a black teacher as "articulate" and "attractive"), it's also more likely to be seen as authentic. (Laura Leslie agrees.)

On his blog last night, Orr wrote that he has imposed a "2 glasses of wine" rule and no late-night blogging. (Weren't those the rules for Gremlins?)

"I confess, however, to have violated that rule once but fortunately woke up at 5:30 a.m. and edited the entry before anyone actually read it," he writes.

What is Mike Easley campaigning for?

For the second time, a North Carolina political observer has noticed the term-limited governor shift rhetorical gears into High Campaign Mode.

Announcing a new hybrid car battery initiative at the Emerging Issues Forum today, Easley's feisty style raised the "national ambitions" question anew, Charlotte Observer editor Jack Betts writes on his blog:

For a politician who professes no interest in running for higher public office, Gov. Mike Easley sure sounded like a candidate with a message and a healthy dose of ambition to move on up in the political world Tuesday.

Earlier this month, WUNC reporter Laura Leslie noticed the same shift to a "more animated, more rhythmic" preacherly style at an educational meeting.

"It's hard to explain here, but if you're in the room when he shifts into campaign style, it's as palpable as a transmission shifting gears," she wrote.

Easley can't run for governor and he has ruled out a Senate run. But the hybrid battery and education are two issues he certainly hopes to be remembered for.

Is it possible to campaign for a legacy?

Did Pat McCrory have a mental lapse?

Both Mark Binker and Laura Leslie think that the Republican gubernatorial candidate blew a question on mental health reform at last night's debate. (Dome agrees.)

Moderator Kelly McCullen asked how the candidates would structure the state's mental health system.

McCrory, who went first, noted the recent bill to require insurance companies to cover mental illness, saying he supported it but has concerns about any further mandates. Then he spoke generally about reform, saying it put decision-making at the local level and not a "centralized bureaucracy."

"I think there have been some good trends in that area during the past two or three years, including in Mecklenburg County, where some of the decision-making on what type of care is needed on individual circumstances is done at the local level by health-care providers closest to the patient," he said.

The other candidates smacked down talk of success elsewhere in the state, but it's also worth noting that the strategy has not been the concern on mental health reform as much as the implementation.

After the jump, McCrory's full response.

   Comments (0)