State GOP Chairman Tom Fetzer said Tuesday's election results are good news for Republicans.

"I think the pendulum is turning back as it always does," Fetzer said in an interview with reporters and editors of The News & Observer. "I think there is a wave cresting right now that bodes well for Republicans."

Fetzer said Tuesday's elections, in which Republicans captured the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey, reminded him of the run up to the 1994 elections which turned into a national GOP landslide led by Newt Gingrich, reports Rob Christensen.

Fetzer said the N.C. Republican Party would focus on the re-election of U.S. Sen. Richard Burr and winning control of at least one chamber in the state legislature during the 2010 mid-term election. He said the key issues will be ending the "culture of corruption" in Raleigh and better management of taxpayer's money.

Best-selling author Daniel Pink, an expert on innovation and competition, will speak at the Emerging Issues Forum next year.

Pink’s best-known work is “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will the Future and “The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need.”

He will discuss how the country is moving away from analytical thinking into a conceptual age in which creative, flexible thinkers are important.

The 25th annual Emerging Issues Forum will focus on how to develop and enhance North Carolina’s climate of creativity in order to improve the state’s global competitiveness.

The forum is sponsored by the Institute for Emerging Issues, a think tank at N.C. State University created by former Gov. Jim Hunt, that has brought such people as former President Bill Clinton and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to Raleigh for its two-day conferences. The next forum is scheduled for Feb. 8 and 9th.

Pink worked previously as Vice President Al Gore’s chief speechwriter from 1995-97, and before that as an aide to Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr has a long history with the FDA.

As a freshman Congressman in 1995, the Winston-Salem Republican attempted to privatize the Food and Drug Administration's review of new products, saying the process took too long to get valuable products on the market. 

"The FDA is riddled with mismanagement, abuse and no clear focus as to what its core mission is," he said in an article on Nov. 13 of that year.

Burr had the backing of House Speaker Newt Gingrich in that mission, which he said was unrelated to the agency's desire to regulate cigarettes. (That effort fizzled when the U.S. Supreme Court said in 2000 that the agency did not have the authority.)

His stance on the agency briefly became a campaign issue in 2003, when a buyout of farmers with tobacco quotas stalled over attempts to link it to FDA regulation. Burr said he would vote for the bill anyway.

Though the quota bill eventually passed without the FDA issue attached, Burr's opponent in the Senate race, Erskine Bowles, charged that Burr cost state tobacco farmers hundreds of millions of dollars by not supporting the earlier version more strongly.

Previously: Burr, Hagan oppose FDA tobacco oversight. 

The long-time political consultants to Congressman Walter Jones are parting ways.

Rotterman and Associates has "severed their day-to-day relations" with the Jones Committee, according to Marc Rotterman.

Rotterman and Associates have helped Jones since he was first elected to Congress during the Gingrich Revolution of 1994, making his TV ads, setting strategy and raising money, Rob Christensen reports.

"At this stage in our career, our focus be primarily doing television ads," Rotterman said.

The Rottermans helped raise $8 million for Jones, the Farmville Republican. Jones won by an average of 64 percent of the vote.

"We wish him well," Rotterman said. "We think he needs someone to help him focus full-time on raising money."

Glenn Downs, Jones' chief of staff, said the split was mutual decision. He said the Rottermans may still help Jones make some TV ads, but will no longer be involved in fund raising.

"It was a mutually arrived at decision not to have a general consultant," Downs said. "We still have a relationship."

Matt Towery says Bob Barr could hurt John McCain in North Carolina.

In an interview with the Washington Times, the Atlanta-based pollster and one-time adviser to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich noted a recent poll showing the Libertarian presidential nominee drawing 6 percent here.

"Barr does throw a monkey wrench in Republican plans in states people otherwise take for granted as Republican states," said Matt Towery, chief executive officer of InsiderAdvantage, an Atlanta-based polling and political analysis firm that conducted the Georgia poll, and one-time political adviser to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Mr. Towery said North Carolina and Georgia have large black populations that Mr. Obama can tap to boost his turnout numbers, and both have conservative-leaning voters whose dissatisfaction with President Bush could lead them to a third-party candidate.

The paper also quotes N.C. Republican Party spokesman Brent Woodcox saying "it's too early to tell" whether Barr will be a spoiler like Ross Perot or more like previous Libertarian candidates, who didn't crack 1 percent here.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich helped $70,000 Thursday night for U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, according to the Jones campaign.

More than 160 people attended the event at the Pitt County home of former state GOP Chairman Ferrell Blount and his wife Lynda.

The event is likely to help Jones, who represents the 3rd district, beyond just the cash. Jones faces a primary challenge from his political right, Joe McLaughlin. And Gingrich is well regarded in conservative circles.

U.S. Rep. Walter Jones is getting some help from the GOP establishment.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will attend a fundraiser next month for Jones, his campaign announced. The event will be held in the Pitt County home of Lynda and Ferrell Blount, the past chairman of the state Republican Party.

The Gingrich event comes on top of a recent Jones fundraiser in Washington that was attended by Rep. Tom Cole, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Rob Christensen reports.

Rep. Spencer Bachus, the ranking member of the House Comittee on Financial Services, will be the star attraction at a Jones fund raiser on Feb. 26th in D.C.

Jones is being challenged by former Onslow County Commissioner Joe McLaughlin, who has been critical of Jones' opposition to the war in Iraq and for not being supportive enough of President Bush.

McLaughlin's candidacy has been been praised by David Frum at the conservative National Review and by Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

Norquist will be in Greenville, New Bern and Morehead City on Monday, Feb. 18, stumping for McLaughlin.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich hinted at a 2008 presidential run.

But if he does run, Gingrich said today, he won't take part in any of the crowded televised debates like the one held earlier this week in South Carolina.

"Any time you see 10 or 12 people lined up like game show contestants, you know there is something wrong about how we are running for president," Gingrich said in an interview in Raleigh today with reporter Rob Christensen.

Gingrich said he will not make a decision on a presidential run until after he holds national Internet workshops on the country’s future on September 27 and 29th aimed at how to transform government. After that, he will weigh a bid.

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Novelist and possible presidential candidate Newt Gingrich will be in Raleigh this week plugging his new book, "Pearl Harbor: A Novel of December 8th."

Though factually based, the novel takes an alternative ending, imagining a much more deadly surprise attack on Hawaii.

"How this affects the war's outcome will be revealed in the sequel," notes Publisher's Weekly. (Presumably it won't be called "The Man in the High Castle.")

The second novel could be delayed somewhat if the former House speaker decides to jump into the Republican presidential contest, as he has been hinting he might do after September.

Gingrich will give a free reading of the novel at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh.

On Thursday, he will speak at a John Locke Foundation luncheon at noon at Sister's Garden and Catering Co. in North Raleigh. The cost of the lunch is $50.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former U.S. Sen. John Edwards are the presidential front runners in North Carolina, according to a new poll.

Giuliani has the support of 32 percent of Republicans in the state, leading Arizona Sen. John McCain with 22 percent and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 10 percent, according to a poll conducted for the Civitas Institute, a Raleigh-based think tank.

If former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich are added to the mix, Giuliani still leads with 26 percent, followed by McCain (16 percent), Thompson (13 percent) and Romney (6 percent).

On the Democratic side, Edwards leads with 26 percent, followed by New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, each with 20 percent.

In the governor's race, Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue leads state Treasurer Richard Moore, 34-23, in a poll of Democratic voters. On the Republican side, state Sen. Fred Smith of Clayton and former Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr of Raleigh each have 13 percent, followed by Salisbury attorney Bill Graham with 7 percent.

The survey of 800 likely voters was part of a monthly poll conducted for Civitas by TelOpinion Research of Alexandria, Va. It had a margin of error plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.