Should Elizabeth Edwards bear some responsibility for the marital infidelities of her husband, former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards?

Two high profile women, Sally Quinn and Lee Woodruff, have been debating the question in the blogosphere, Rob Christensen reports.

Quinn, an author and former Washington Post columnist, wrote in the Huffington Post that Elizabeth Edwards may have been an enabler.

Quinn said Edwards' infidelities were not different from those of former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer or former President Bill Clinton. She called them "enabling wives."

"Nobody has more respect for Elizabeth Edwards than I do," Quinn writes. "First of all, any woman who has lost a child gets a pass for life from me. Nothing could be more horrible. Not only that, she is brilliant, clever, capable, decent and courageous."

But the problem, Quinn writes, is "she let him do it."

More after the jump.

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Linda Daves had some harsh words for Sarah Palin.

At a recent question-and-answer session with top-ranking Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, the North Carolina GOP chairwoman brought up a lingering issue from the 2008 campaign, according to MSNBC:

Another interesting moment during the question-and-answer session came when North Carolina Party Chair Linda Daves rose to ask if there was a budget for clothing candidates, an obvious -- and sharp-edged -- reference to Sarah Palin's paid-for campaign wardrobe.

In response, a Republican National Committee member in charge of the budget blamed the McCain campaign, which had blamed the RNC during the campaign.

Politico says the Senate race was among the top 10 upsets.

The D.C.-based political newspaper said Sen.-elect Kay Hagan "wasn't expected to have much of a shot" at beating Sen. Elizabeth Dole because of the incumbent's "star power and imposing fundraising skills."

But Dole’s national profile proved to be a double-edged sword. Hagan used it to portray the incumbent as a Washington politician who had lost touch with North Carolina. She gained steadily throughout the summer and the fall, leading Dole to unleash a barrage of blistering attack ads that ended up hurting her own image even more than they damaged Hagan.

The result on Election Day? A nine-point win for the Greensboro legislator. 

Others on the list included Barack Obama's November win in Indiana, Mike Huckabee's win in Iowa, Hillary Clinton's in New Hampshire, John McCain's in South Carolina, and Congressional races in Louisiana, Alaska, Virginia and Illinois.

Democrat Barack Obama Monday officially won North Carolina's presidential vote Monday, in an electoral college ceremony that made up with history and emotion what it lacked in suspense.

The 15-members of the state’s Electoral College met in the Old House Chambers in the Capitol at noon — at the same time that similar groups were meeting in  the nation’s other 49 state capitals to choose a new president, Rob Christensen reports.

There was no suspense to the outcome. All 15 members were required by law to vote for Obama as a result of Obama’s narrow victory over Republican John McCain by a 49.7 to 49.3 percent last month.

But moment was packed with powerful emotions, as electors cast ballots to help make Obama the nation’s first president of black descent. The event packed not only the House chambers, but the overflow crowd nearly filled the nearby Senate chambers as well.

Virginia Tillett, an elector from Manteo and an African-American, urged the crowd to "remember the voices from your past."

Tillett, a 67-year old Dare County commissioner, said she remembered the voices saying "to hang in there...change is coming."

"I remember my grandmother who lived to be 89 years old," Tillett said later in an interview. "I heard people like my  deceased father-in-law who lived to be 100. I heard voices like my mother who is now 87. I heard all these voices say: 'Didn't I tell you?'"

Sen.-elect Kay Hagan has already cast her first vote.

Although the incoming freshman senator has not yet been sworn in, she was allowed to vote as part of the Senate Democratic caucus Tuesday.

The question: Should Sen. Joe Lieberman be allowed to remain chairman of the Homeland Security committee?

Some had argued that the Connecticut independent should be stripped of his chairmanship for making disparaging comments about President-elect Barack Obama and supporting Sen. John McCain. But Hagan said he should keep the post.

"We've gone through a rancorous campaign not only in North Carolina but across the country," she told Dome. "I am not here to divide people and parties, and I want to work across party lines. I think the worst thing to do would have been to kick somebody out of the caucus on the first day of business."

The caucus decided in a secret 42-13 vote to keep Lieberman in place but issue a statement condemning his remarks.

Hagan would not share any details about the discussion, which was held behind closed doors, but she did say it was "the most fascinating caucus" she's ever attended.

Bob Barr was a spoiler in North Carolina after all.

Though the Libertarian presidential candidate made only token appearances in the state and received a miniscule number of votes in November, he still got more votes than the margin of difference.

Barr's 25,722 votes were more than one and a half times the 14,192 margin that made Barack Obama winner of the state over John McCain. Put another way, Barr had about 0.6 percent of the vote, while the margin was about 0.3 percent.

That puts Barr into elite company in North Carolina.

As previously noted, there have been five third-party candidates who earned enough votes to affect the race between the Republican and Democrat in North Carolina since 1908.

They are: George Wallace in 1968, Teddy Roosevelt in 1912, Ross Perot in 1992 and in 1996 and John Anderson in 1980. (Technically, Roosevelt did not earn more than the margin of Woodrow Wilson's win, but he came in second so we count him.)

However, Barr earned the smallest percentage of any of the other spoilers, and the number of write-in votes was close enough to the margin this year to almost qualify on its own.

Update: Greensboro blogger Ed Cone called it in mid-May.

President-elect Barack Obama carried North Carolina in a squeaker.

With all the provisional votes counted, Obama broadened his narrow lead over Republican John McCain in North Carolina, Rob Christensen reports.

President-elect Obama carried the state with 49.7 percent to McCain’s 49.38, a difference of 14,192 votes, according to the final count by the State Board of Elections staff. Before the provisional votes were counted Obama had a lead of 13,746 votes.

The vote won’t become final until the State Board of Elections meets Tuesday in Raleigh.

Obama won 2,142,649 votes, compared to 2,128,457 votes after the provisional ballots were counted.  Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate won 25,722 and there were 13,942 votes cast for write-in candidates.

This was the first time that North Carolina had gone Democratic since 1976, when Democrat Jimmy Carter defeated Republican Gerald Ford.

Barack Obama's uphill win in North Carolina was led by a veteran operative.

Marc Farinella, 50, grew up in New York and Chicago, entering the latter city's politics with a reputation as an egghead. He became campaign manager and chief of staff to Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, who defeated Sen. John Ashcroft in 2000 despite dying weeks earlier.

He worked as a strategist for Erskine Bowles' unsuccessful Senate campaign in 2002 and Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue's re-election campaign in 2004.

He started 2008 working for Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, who decided not to get into the race, then came to North Carolina for Obama in July.

The Obama organization had about 50 offices and 23,000 volunteers. Farinella spoke to former Gov. Jim Hunt as often as twice a day.

He said he is considering moving to North Carolina. (N&O)

Thomas Schaller says North Carolina is not yet really blue.

The author of "Whistling Past Dixie" tells Dome that he thinks Barack Obama's impressive ground game and the "atmospherics" of this election had more to do with his win here, a state he had urged the Democrat to ignore.

"It may stay for Obama again next cycle, but I don't think it's tipped permanently," he said. "Almost every advantage was for the Democrats, and it was still a very close win. If I were a North Carolina Democrat, I wouldn't rejoice too soon."

Schaller said Obama could win the "New South" — an area he defined as influenced by high-tech jobs in places such as the Research Triangle Park and high rates of non-native Southerners moving here. He said Obama's coalition was Northern transplants and black voters. 

"This wasn't a Nascar victory," he said. "It was a decidedly New South victory." 

Not surprisingly, Thomas Schaller was surprised he was wrong.

The author of "Whistling Past Dixie" wrote on Salon Monday that he was "somewhat surprised" that Barack Obama won North Carolina, a state he had earlier urged the Democrat to ignore. 

"It's clear that the 'new South' is arriving faster than I anticipated, or perhaps more accurately, that Obama was able to deliver it faster," he writes. 

He also noted that the three Southern states Obama won were among those with the highest median incomes for the region, except for Georgia. He also notes that the 22 counties where Obama did less well than John Kerry were in the rural and Appalachian South.

"It was a 'new South' victory won on the backs of votes cast by a lot of non-native Southern transplants," he writes. "It was not a rural Southern victory."

Next, we talk to Schaller directly.