If Democrats rename Vance Aycock, who would they name it for?

State Treasurer Richard Moore, who is running for the Democratic nomination for governor, suggested renaming the party's annual dinner after former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt, former speaker pro tem Marie Colton of Asheville or the late N.C. Speaker Liston Ramsey.

But in a post on This Old State, Charlotte Observer editor Jack Betts argues that Ramsey is a bad choice because of his "ironclad control" of the House in the 1980s.

They ran a rigid pork-barrel system that so disturbed both Democrats and Republicans that a coalition threw him out of office in 1989 and installed Democrat Josephus Mavretic in his place.

Betts says other options, including the late U.S. Sen. Sam Ervin, have their own problems. He suggests naming it for the late state Sens. Herbert Hyde or Jim Richardson.

Um, how about just calling it the Grove Park Inn Dinner?

U.S. Rep. Brad Miller is becoming the Hamlet of North Carolina senatorial races.

Since late April, the Raleigh Democrat has considered a run against Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole next year, but he hasn't made a decision yet.

Democratic consultant Gary Pearce said that indecision is hurting his potential candidacy.

He even said, "A lot of my closest friends are pretty ambivalent about it. They have mixed feelings, including my wife."

Well, Brad, that makes it hard to get the rest of us excited.

Pearce notes that the last Democrat to win a Senate race in a presidential year was Sam Ervin in 1968, since the state tends to go for the Republican national candidate. Also, Dole's challenger will have to raise $40,000 a day starting July 1.

Rufus Edmisten celebrated the anniversary of Watergate with a few friends Friday.

About 100 people came to the former state attorney general's office in downtown Raleigh, including a dozen or so veterans from U.S. Sen. Sam Ervin's Senate Watergate committee.

Edmisten, who was chief deputy counsel on the committee, said he began the tradition in 1992, on the 20th anniversary of the June 17 break-in that led to President Nixon's resignation. The group has met every five years since, with a bartender in a Nixon mask serving a secret Watergate drink.

"We're all getting older now," said Edmisten, who is 65. "A lot of them brought their kids, who are teen-agers now and entering college." 

He said the conversation occasionally drifted to comparisons with the Duke lacrosse scandal, though he tried to keep down any mention of the current administration.

"I run a nonpartisan shop here," said Edmisten, a Democrat.

Is Bob Orr the next Sam Ervin?

Greensboro News & Record editorial writer Doug Clark argues that there are some parallels between the two North Carolinians, though not quite in the "Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy" league.

Orr, a former state Supreme Court justice running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, is "wise and folksy" like Ervin, the former judge and U.S. Senator.

Unlike Ervin, Orr would be an underdog against a strong Democrat, Clark says.

Ervin was also rightly famous for his handling of Watergate. Though Clark doesn't make the parallel explicit, he brings up some recent state scandals:

Orr hopes his record as a judge earns credibility with voters at a time when political scandals have sent several North Carolina politicians to federal prison. Other leaders, like the current governor, haven't had much to say about the erosion of the state's reputation for honest government.

"It's disheartening that we haven't heard more," Orr said Monday.