The Jefferson-Jackson Dinner hasn't been this exciting in 20 years.

The Democratic Party's annual fundraiser has been going since 1930, attracting such notable guests as Vice President Lyndon Johnson in 1963.

But it's not been as big a deal as it will be tomorrow since the last time North Carolina's presidential primary was meaningful in 1988.

That year, 2,000 Democrats gathered at the N.C. State Fairgrounds to hear from three of the five active presidential candidates: Al Gore, Gary Hart and Jesse Jackson. (Note to younger readers: The dinner is not named for him.)

Michael Dukakis and Dick Gephardt, the other two candidates that year, did not attend.

According to a New York Times account of the evening by Tar Heel native Tom Wicker, "Gore backers made the most noise, though the Senator's speech did not much rouse the audience."

Gore won North Carolina on that year's Super Tuesday, but lost the nomination to Dukakis.

An independent ad campaign attacking Barack Obama will air in North Carolina.

The 60-second spot, called "Victims," will be aired later this month as part of a plan to raise the Democratic presidential candidate's negatives among Republican voters, Time reports.

It is being spearheded by a group of conservative activists led by Floyd Brown, who created the famous Willie Horton ad that helped derail Michael Dukakis' candidacy.

The ad attempts to tie Obama's record on crime to his handling of terrorism.

A narrator recounts the deaths of three Chicago residents in gang violence in 2001, when Obama was a state legislator.

"That same year, a Chicago state senator named Barack Obama voted against expanding the death penalty for gang-related murders," the narrator says. "So the question is, can a man so weak in the war on gangs be trusted in the war on terror?" 

A second ad focusing on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants will also air in North Carolina. 

The GOP's secret plan for ending 16-years of Democratic governors can be summed up in two words:

Hillary Clinton.

That's according to a fund raising letter recently distributed by Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Graham of Salisbury, Rob Christensen reports.

"Mark my words," Graham writes, "Hillary Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee for president. And she's going to be a bigger drag on the Democratic ticket than George McGovern in '72, Walter Mondale in '84 or Michael Dukakis in '88. And those are, not coincidentally, the same years, and the only years, that we have elected a Republican governor."

"Historically, we can expect Hillary Clinton to garner somewhere around 40 percent-45 percent of the vote in North Carolina," Graham writes. "And when the Republican candidate for president gets 55 percent-60 percent of the vote in North Carolina, we wreak havoc on the Democrats."