Mark Binker says that Kay Hagan's appropriations bills need some context.

The Greensboro News & Record blogger takes issue with a recent Dome post on the bills sponsored and co-sponsored seeking $48 million from the state budget this session.

"Yes, Hagan has a long bill list but so do other appropriators. I came up with roughly $45 million in spending requests when I looked at Sen. Charlie Albertson's filings, and he was just appointed to the chairman slot Hagan used to occupy," he writes.

Binker also argues that such bills are "not a slam dunk," points out that several of her projects are of "statewide significance" and notes that the furniture market and the civil rights museum are long-standing Guilford County projects. He also notes she only sponsored one bill.

"The rest she signed on to as a co-sponsor, a status that means she's supportive of the effort but not carrying it's water," he writes. 

Dome didn't intend the post to be a critique, as Binker and a commenter have said. And we'd add that these are by no means the only projects Hagan is seeking money for, since unattributed earmarks often end up in the budget as well.

But we still intend to look at all of the appropriations bills from any statewide candidates this year, so we're not "singling out" anyone.

Mark Binker says the Senate race is competitive.

In a post on the Decision 2008 blog, the Greensboro News & Record reporter notes several factors that may make U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole's re-election bid tougher.

State Sen. Kay Hagan, the Democratic nominee, escaped the primary mostly unscathed but with greater name recognition. She is backed by Senate leader Marc Basnight and the national Democratic Party machine. And Dole is tied closely to an unpopular president.

On the other hand, Binker says there are several reasons to doubt Dole will lose.

For one, she is an incumbent who has paid attention to smaller media markets. She has $3.2 million in the bank without breaking a sweat. She's been building up her credibility on illegal immigration, and people are not paying attention to the race yet.

"You'd be foolish at this point to write either side off, so yes, ladies and gents; we have a race on our hands," he writes.

Reps. Larry Womble and Maggie Jeffus explained their votes.

Womble, a Winston-Salem Democrat, voted for censure, and when that failed, against expulsion. He told the Associated Press he agreed with Thomas Wright's arguments.

"Not only has he not been convicted, but he has not had his day in court," Womble said.

Jeffus, a Greensboro Democrat, voted against censure, and when that failed, for expulsion.

She told Mark Binker of the Greensboro News & Record that she has sat next to Wright for at least two sessions.

"I felt like we might give that a chance and see. In my own mind I think censure and expulsion are both very serious and in the end would have the same kind of result," she said.

Beverly Perdue is raising money in New York City today.

The Democratic gubernatorial candidate is in the Big Apple, according to Mark Binker's Capital Beat blog. He quotes an e-mail from Perdue spokesman David Kochman:

She went to New York to visit the White House Project, a national non-profit that helps elect women candidates. While she was there, she met with several Democratic donors, some of whom are in the financial industry.

Perdue has attacked rival Richard Moore, who as state treasurer manages the $77 billion pension fund for government employees, for accepting donations from Wall Street investment firms that help manage the fund.

The Perdue campaign also recently produced a Web video showing the New York addresses of some Moore supporters.

Contacted this afternoon by phone at her Washington, D.C., office, Perdue's fundraising consultant, Stephanie Berger said she knew nothing about the matter and referred further questions to the Perdue campaign. The campaign did not return phone and e-mail messages Wednesday afternoon.

Mark Binker says Gov. Mike Easley's not running for anything.

The Greensboro News & Record reporter picked up on the same High Campaign Mode speechifying at the Emerging Issues Forum that Dome and others heard.

Now the man says he doesn't have an interest. He's been asked three years in a row about a U.S. Senate run and put the kibosh on that. He's never really jumped up and said, "heck yes," when asked about cabinet level work. I think talk of a VEEP slot may actually make him break out in hives.

After the speech, Easley was asked if he had national interests, Binker writes on his Capital Beat blog. He says that Easley told him it was just a speech.

"I think energy is a national issue," Easley said.  

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.

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Fred Smith bragged about his company's health care plans.

At the UNC-TV debate tonight, the Republican gubernatorial candidate talked about his businesses' efforts to stress medical testing for its workers.

He then told a story about one employee thanked him for it because he learned that he had high cholesterol during one of the rounds of testing.

Back in the press room, Dome's colleague, Greensboro reporter Mark Binker, wondered aloud how much high cholesterol Smith's statewide barbecue tour has caused in North Carolinians.

North Carolina's Senate race has been getting a lot of press in New York.

First, there was the New York Post, which inaccurately promoted Jesse Helms to the next world. Now, there's the Village Voice, which skims over the whole primary issue to declare Jim Neal the Democratic candidate against U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole. (Sorry, Kay.)

The interview with gay columnist Michael Musto has drawn attention for this exchange on Dole:

"She's not as polarizing in terms of her stance on social issues," said Neal. "Jesse Helms will be remembered as being a very polarizing, mean person. An old-line party activist in North Carolina named Betty McCain said, 'Helms is so mean that when he was a boy, his mother had to tie a pork chop around his neck so the dogs would come play with him.' " "I thought that was to keep away the Jews," I remarked, saucily. "There aren't any!" replied Neal, laughing.

As Mark Binker points out, there are more than a few Jews in North Carolina, and Neal's characterization of his sexual orientation as essentially uncovered by the news media rings a bit hollow. 

And then there's this line, the sort of gay slang that goes well in Greenwich Village but doesn't play quite the same in the Piedmont:

"Yes, I was a breeder," he says, using the slightly derisive '90s era term for heterosexuals. "When I did meet someone and fell in love with him, call it an epiphany or whatever, but I couldn't live with myself any other way than who I am!"

Mark Binker reminds us of an important distinction.

In a story in the Greensboro News-Record, Binker quotes UNC-Chapel Hill health policy professor Thomas Ricketts on the difference between "universal coverage" and "universal care."

"Talking about universal coverage is one thing, and talking about government-run health care is another," Ricketts said. Government-run health care, like that offered in Canada, is seen by many conservative politicians and voters as undesirable because it eliminates choices and puts medical care in the hands of the government.

In debates, however, government-run health care (or socialized medicine) and universal coverage are often conflated by candidates arguing against the expansion of government insurance programs.

Neither of the Democratic gubernatorial candidates have called for universal care, though both have offered slightly different plans for increasing coverage. The Republicans have called for a "market-based approach" and decried government-run health care.

We'll see if the candidates make that distinction tonight.

Mark Binker says it doesn't matter if John Edwards endorses.

The Greensboro News-Record reporter writes on the Decision 2008 blog that most supporters of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had nice things to say about Edwards, but rarely about the other candidate.

He said that he thinks most Edwards' backers, however, will go with Obama. 

Edwards supporters I talked to today and over the past month find themselves more philosophically aligned with Obama. Some think Clinton would exasperate the angry back-biting that has come to characterize Washington politics while others just don't think she's carried the torch for the working poor well enough.

That makes an Edwards enodrsement "moot," he argues.

"His supporters are going to go where they're going to go," he writes.