Gov. Beverly Perdue is writing her own story.

Literally.

A new feature on Perdue's Web site includes a brief biography of each of North Carolina's governors.

"No North Carolina governor, with the exception of Zebulon B. Vance, has been as venerated as Charles Brantley Aycock (1859-1912), with whose term the Democratic Party inaugurated a seventy-two year hold on the office," reads the biography of Aycock, which also helps explain, by the way, where this weekend's Vance-Aycock dinner got its name.

It's notable, if not entirely unexpected, to find that the biography of the current governor is both longer and more boosterish than any other on the list.

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Gov. Beverly Perdue got down to business tonight.

Several times in her State of the State speech, Perdue used some variation of the phrases "getting down to business."

It began after 30 seconds of applause welcoming her to the House chambers.

"All right you all, that's enough," she said. "Let's get down to business."

Later, after a brief joke about driving to South Carolina to take stimulus money its governor said he didn't want, she returned to the main theme of the speech with "back to business."

She also said a Web site tracking stimulus money would be "taking care of the people's business, North Carolina style," called for an end to "business as usual" in the capital, argued it was time to "conduct the business of government" in more transparent ways and noted that Depression-era Gov. O. Max Gardner changed "the way the government did business."

With the state facing a $3 billion budget shortfall, the business language helps reinforce her theme of spending state money more wisely.

Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue is sparing the pleasantries in talking about Gov. Mike Easley.

Perdue, a fellow Democrat and her party's nominee to succeed Easley, has subtly been dissing Easley in her speeches for weeks.

"I'm going to be such a different governor than we've seen," she told a Concord crowd in August. "I'm going to be hands on. I'm going to be active and engaged."

Okay, not so subtly, given that she's underscoring Easley's tendency to rarely leave the governor's mansion, other than to go to Southport for a long weekend. On Wednesday, though, Perdue told the N&O editorial board how she REALLY feels. Has Easley been a good governor?

"Wow! Why don't you go for the jugular?" she responded. "I'm not in the business of judging governors."

N&O Executive Editor John Drescher pointed out that, moments before, she had praised Max Gardner, governor during the Great Depression.

"Well, he's dead," Perdue responded.

So it's okay to judge them after they're dead?

"No, John, that's not fair."

More after the jump.

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Rob Christensen says electing the schools superintendent is "democracy run amok."

In a 2000 column, the longtime N&O reporter wrote that North Carolina and North Dakota have the longest ballots in the country, electing a number of positions that are appointed in other states.

He argued that there are good reasons to elect the secretary of state, lieutenant governor and state auditor, but not the agriculture, labor and insurance commissioners or the superintendent of public instruction. Those positions, he said, should be appointed.

The only reason why the long ballot has worked traditionally is that governors and other party leaders handpicked Council of State candidates—often when an incumbent died. The party leaders knew who had the smarts and character for the job and who didn't.

He noted that the Brookings Institution recommended making the positions appointed in the 1930s, but Democratic state officials balked.

The full column after the jump.

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