Bob Dole said the November elections at the state and federal level will be important.

Speaking at a Raleigh rally this evening, the former U.S. Senate majority leader said this fall's elections will be the most important in his lifetime — though he pointedly refused to "name names" on who voters should support.

"I'm not here to name anybody, criticize anybody," he said, though he noted that voters should consider that some of the candidates want "more taxes," "more regulation" and "more programs."

Dole, who won North Carolina in his 1996 bid, told jokes about Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan, shared a few personal anecdotes and talked about his general political philosophy. In his most pointed remarks, he argued the Democratic majority in Congress had hurt the economy.

He mentioned the re-election campaign of his wife, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, twice. The first time came after reminiscing about his long career in the Senate.

"I've never been before the Ethics Committee and I can guarantee you Elizabeth's never been before the Ethics Committee," he said, to loud cheers.

As he ended his speech, he mentioned his wife again.

"I know this is a nonpartisan event, but I do hope you'll take a good look at Elizabeth," he said.

He was followed by a speaker who attacked the "cap and trade" bill on global warming, which Elizabeth Dole supported.

There have been five presidential spoilers in N.C. in the last century.

Since 1908, third-party candidates in the presidential race have earned enough votes to affect the race between the Republican and the Democrat on the ballot in 1912, 1968, 1980, 1992 and 1996.

In the first two cases, the third-party candidate came in second.

George Wallace was the most successful, earning 31.3 percent of the state vote in the 1968 race as the nominee of the segregationist American Independent Party. The winner, Republican Richard Nixon, won 39.5 percent, while Democrat Hubert Humphrey came in third with 29.2 percent.

The next most successful was former president Teddy Roosevelt, who ran on the Progressive or "Bull Moose" Party in 1912, earning 28.4 percent. Democrat Woodrow Wilson won the state with 59.2 percent, while Republican incumbent William Howard Taft came in third with 12 percent.

In the other races, the third-party candidates came in third, but got more votes than the margin of difference between the Democratic and Republican candidates.

In 1992, Texas businessman Ross Perot earned 13.7 percent of the vote, far more than the 0.79 percent margin that incumbent George H.W. Bush beat Bill Clinton by in North Carolina, despite losing the national race.

Four years later, Perot was roughly half as popular — picking up just 6.7 percent — but he still drew more votes than the 4.7 percent difference between winner Bob Dole and Clinton.

And in 1980, Independent candidate John Anderson won 2.9 percent, slightly more than the 2.1 percent difference between winner Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.

The N.C. Congressional Club didn't just promote Sen. Jesse Helms.

As a reviewer in the Wall Street Journal notes, the conservative political organization also boosted the Republican Party's fortunes in North Carolina.

In a review of "Righteous Warrior" by William Link, Washington Examiner associate editor Quin Hillyer writes that the group used "smashmouth political tactics, massive fund-raising efforts and all the tools of mass media" to beat its opponents. But it also boosted GOP registration:

Between 1982 and 1984, as the Congressional Club geared up for Mr. Helms's epic re-election battle against Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt, the percentage of all eligible voters who were registered in North Carolina grew to 77% from 58%, with Republicans outpacing Democrats among new enrollees. By one estimate, Republicans registered 150,000 white evangelicals in that short time, with total GOP registration soaring by 24%.

The Congressional Club also helped rescue the career of Ronald Reagan with a key victory in the 1976 presidential campaign in North Carolina, Hillyer notes.

Some supporters of John Edwards' still hope for a comeback.

Ed Turlington, a Raleigh lawyer who managed Edwards' campaign in 2004, told the Winston-Salem Journal yesterday that Ronald Reagan didn't win the presidency until his third attempt.

Comparisons with former presidents are familiar territory for the Edwards camp. Some Republicans predicted that the former senator's career was over after he and John Kerry lost the 2004 race, arguing that failed veeps rarely win the top job.

Edwards supporters were quick to point out that Franklin Roosevelt lost his 1920 vice presidential attempt but later became the only four-term president.

But the similarities end with the failed vice-presidential races because Roosevelt didn't attempt another national campaign until he won the presidency 12 years later.

Edwards '16 anyone?

Which critic is running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination?

At the debate last week and again at the WRAL debate tonight, state Sen. Fred Smith referred to a "critic" presumably running for office.

Dome has said before that we think this is a veiled shot at rival Bill Graham, an attorney who has never served in elected office but did run a statewide campaign to cap the gas tax—and, to a lesser degree, fight illegal immigration.

Tonight, it became clear, just after Graham finished speaking about his work on the gas tax, taking a page from the "Reagan playbook," to go over the heads of the politicians and straight to the people.

Smith spoke next. "All I hear is criticism and talk," he said. "Criticism and talk is not going to solve our problems. We need a leader."

Tom Ellis will be honored next week in Raleigh.

Ellis, a Raleigh attorney who was chief architect of the Republican Party's rise in North Carolina, will receive the Freedom Leadership Award for at a dinner sponsored by Hillsdale College at the N.C. Museum of Art on Wednesday, Oct. 3.

As the chief strategist for former Sen. Jesse Helms and his political organization, the National Congressional Club, Ellis helped rescue the career of Ronald Reagan as well as elevate John East and Lauch Faircloth to the Senate, Rob Christensen reports.

Among the sponsors of the event are former Raleigh Mayor Tom Fetzer; John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation; businessman Bob Luddy and philanthropist Assad Meymandi.

Larry P. Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, will speak.

Will Democratic in-fighting hand the Governor's Mansion to the GOP?

Some Democrats are concerned about the precedent set by the only two Republican governors elected in the 20th century in North Carolina: Jim Holshouser and Jim Martin.

Both won elections after brutal Democratic primaries. (Holshouser in 1972 over Skipper Bowles, who fought Pat Taylor in a tough primary; Martin in 1984 over Rufus Edmisten, who fought Eddie Knox in a crowded Democratic primary.)

With Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue and state Treasurer Richard Moore already getting down and dirty, some Democrats fear and some Republicans hope that history will repeat itself.

Not so fast, says Ferrell Guillory, a former political reporter who now heads the program on public life at UNC-Chapel Hill.

More after the jump.

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Michael Reagan will speak in Raleigh Thursday night.

The oldest son of President Ronald Reagan and a syndicated talk show host, he will appear before a Federalist Leadership School sponsored by the Civitas Institute for high school and college students.

His adoptive mother, Jane Wyman, died Monday.

The event will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the Woman's Club of Raleigh. It is open to the public.

Even prison hasn't earned Rep. Michael Decker any sympathy.

In a column in the Greensboro News & Record, one of Decker's former Republican colleagues is quoted letting out a few more complaints about the former state representative, who is now in a federal prison for accepting a bribe from former Speaker Jim Black to switch parties.

Former county Republican chairman and state Rep. John Cocklereece recalls thinking "Friend, you don't have a chance," when Decker first ran in 1982 and 1984. He says Decker worked hard in the campaign, but he credits President Reagan for the wins.

In office, he says Decker was never popular with fellow Republicans because he "talked too much on the floor, often said the wrong things and was overly pious."

"It came to be a saying that "if you wanted to get a bill killed real fast ... get Decker to sponsor it,'' Cocklereece said.

A former North Carolina Congressman claims that President Reagan ignored evidence that Vietnam still held MIAs in the mid 1980s.

According to the recently published "An Enormous Crime," then U.S. Rep. Bill Hendon writes that he told Reagan during a Jan. 9, 1986, meeting that he had heard a report that the Southeast Asian country had asked for $4 billion for the return of captured prisoners.

His source for the information was an unnamed Secret Service agent who said he overheard a discussion while stationed outside the Oval Office in 1981.

"Hendon asked Reagan, 'Respectfully, Mr. President, is it true? Did the Vietnamese offer to trade the prisoners back for $4 billion?"

Reagan said he didn't remember, according to Hendon's book. (In his diary, however, he wrote that Hendon was "off his rocker.")

More after the jump.

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