Speaking to students at a private school in Asheville Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler said Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not the evil boogeywoman some on the right like to make her out as.

"She's the most misunderstood person in Washington," said Shuler, who often breaks with the House leadership to maintain his status as a conservative Blue Dog Democrat.

According to the Asheville Citizen Times, Shuler told students about a meeting he had with Pelosi during his first term when he told her never to ask him to vote against his constituency.

"She’s held true to that promise," he said. Pelosi is a devout Catholic and Shuler advised against trying to "get in a Bible discussion with her." He also recalled a time when his daughter, Island, was a baby and started crying on the floor of the House.

"She [Pelosi] raced down, picked her up and took her to her mother Nikol," he told the students. "Her grandma instincts kicked in."

The National Republican Congressional Committee quickly — and figuratively — dogged on the former Redskins quarterback for speaking nice about the often maligned Democratic leader.

"Heath Shuler is the one who's 'misunderstood,'" NRCC spokesman Andy Seré said. "He may call himself a Blue Dog, but Shuler’s lavish Pelosi-praise has revealed him to be little more than a lap dog for the most liberal speaker in U.S. history. She may have let him off the leash this weekend in a vain attempt to salvage his re-election bid, but his political affair with Nancy Pelosi is destined to land him in the doghouse with Western North Carolinians."

Former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee sees big gains for Republicans in the U.S. House next year.

Huckabee will be in Raleigh Thursday night to sign copies of his new book "A Simple Christmas" at Quail Ridge Books and Music on Wade Avenue and the N&O's Ray Martin caught up with him.

Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses in 2008, and is considered by many to be the early favorite for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. He also hosts his own Fox News show that airs on weekends at 8 p.m. In a brief interview, Huckabee reflected on his book, playing the guitar and the state of the Republican Party. He remained ambivalent about a potential White House run.

This is your seventh book. What motivated you to write a book about Christmas?

It was mentioned by my publisher, and I kicked the idea around and decided to go with it. It's turned out fabulously. This has been by favorite book. When people read it, it makes them think of their own lives and their own Christmas stories, which was exactly my intention.

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Paul Kirk, who was named Thursday as the late Ted Kennedy's replacement in the U.S. Senate, once defeated North Carolina's Terry Sanford in the race for Democratic National Committee chairman.

Kirk, a former Kennedy aide, was the frontrunner to become party chairman in 1985, when Sanford entered the race, reports Rob Christensen.

At the time, Sanford was nearing the end of his tenure as president of Duke University. But he was political veteran, having served as North Carolina governor (1961-65) and having run for president in 1972 and 1976.

Sanford tried to put together a coalition of Southern and western Democratic party chairs.

"A great many people in the South feel it is time for the Southern Democratic Party to exert greater national leadership," Sanford said. "The Democratic party cannot do without a strong base in the South."

More after the jump.

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NUMBERS GAME: Gov. Beverly Perdue didn't give any numbers in her big State of the State speech Monday, but she promised to cut spending just about everywhere but education. Her budget director said the state will end the year about $2.2 billion in the red, and Perdue then drained $787 million from reserves.

BRING 'EM DOWN: U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry got into some hot water this week when he told the National Journal that the GOP's goal is to "bring down approval numbers" for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats. Liberal bloggers piled on. But it's too soon to tell if McHenry brought down Pelosi's numbers or his own.

DISTRICT NUMBERS: How about these numbers: 5-4 and 18. The first was the split on the U.S. Supreme Court directing North Carolina to reconsider its legislative districts. The second is the House District the case centered on. The legislature drew the district to give minorities in the area more of a voice, but the court said it was too much of a stretch.

IN OTHER NEWS: Months after former Raleigh mayor Tom Fetzer closed his political consulting shop, he's joined the race for state Republican Party chair. Just when he thought he was out of politics. ... After 118 days, U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler decided he wasn't going to run for Senate in 2010 after all. Who says quarterbacks make snap decisions?

U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler has made an interesting enemy.

Washington-based newspaper The Politico writes that the Waynesville Democrat is No. 1 on the bad list of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Shuler got on her bad side by voting against both bank bailout bills and the stimulus package and telling a Raleigh audience that House leaders "failed." 

The thing that riles Pelosi most, according to several House aides, is that she believes Shuler's motives are as much political as they are ideological — and that he's picking a fight with her to position himself for a run against Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) next year.

As the paper notes, Shuler was portrayed as "a Pelosi acolyte" by his 2006 opponent, then Rep. Charles Taylor.

He beats out conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, Republican Rep. Eric Cantor and another Blue Dog Democrat, Rep. Jim Cooper, for the top spot on Pelosi's list. 

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims a stimulus package would create 132,350 jobs in North Carolina.

Pelosi and Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com and former adviser to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, released an analysis of the package this afternoon.

Overall, their analysis claims that the stimulus package would create 4 million jobs and lower the unemployment rate by 2.2 percentage points. 

Its state-by-state figures includes projections of 132,350 new jobs in North Carolina and a reduction of the state's unemployment rate by 1.6 percentage points.

That is compared to what the number of jobs and the unemployment rate would be in 2010 without the stimulus package. 

Sen. Kay Hagan said that women have made progress, but not enough.

Speaking at a pro-choice women's luncheon in Washington Sunday, the Greensboro Democrat noted that she was taking the seat of former Sen. Jesse Helms, drawing brief boos from the audience.

She related that in 1999 Helms kicked now-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and nine other Congresswomen out of a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after they tried to present him with a petition to sign an international treaty against the discrimination of women.

"That's whose seat I am taking," she said. "Looking around this room today, I know that you would agree that a lot has changed in this country and a lot has changed in the great state of North Carolina."

Speaking at an event sponsored by EMILY's List, Hagan repeated her support for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would extend the time period for filing a discrimination claim. It is the first bill Hagan has cosponsored and was the subject of her first speech in the Senate.

She also noted a smaller, but still irritating, act of discrimination.

"Imagine my surprise when I tried to use the Senate members' gym recently and found out that there is a pool, but — guess what — it's only for the men," she said.

Sen. Kay Hagan and Gov. Beverly Perdue will join Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton and a handful of other high-powered women at a Democratic pro-choice luncheon Sunday in Washington.

The EMILY's List luncheon is among dozens of events going on this holiday weekend to honor the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama and a slate of women who favor abortion rights. Tickets for the luncheon, at the Hilton Washington, sold at a range of $150 to $5,000.

The luncheon also features Obama Cabinet nominees Janet Napolitano and Hilda Solis; Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi; and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who was just elected in New Hampshire.

The political organization works to elect pro-choice Democratic women to office.

EMILY's List was Hagan's No. 2 contributor in her recent campaign, donating nearly $270,000 to her effort to defeat former U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The group also supported Perdue, running an ad in last May’s primary campaign touting her record on child predators.

Should Harry and David pay taxes in North Carolina?

Right now, if you order a gourmet gift basket as a holiday present over the Internet or through a catalog from the Oregon-based retailer or other out-of-state companies, you don't pay North Carolina sales tax.

House Speaker Joe Hackney would like to change that.

Since the late 1990s, North Carolina and other states have worked to streamline their sales taxes — often a hodgepodge of different rules and confusing legal language — into a more uniform system.

(Dome readers may recall this was the reason for the 2003 soda tax hike.)

More uniform rules would make it easier for states to collect sales taxes from transactions handled in other states. But since the tax collection would go across state lines, it needs Congressional approval.

Hackney said he will talk to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this afternoon about granting states the rights to interstate sales tax collection. He said it would bring in an additional $400 to $500 million a year for North Carolina's state budget, especially helpful given the current budget crunch.

"It's a tax that is already on the books, so it is not a new tax," he said. "It's just collecting the one that's there."

Correction: Harry and David pay taxes in North Carolina after all. See a complete explanation here.