Retired Gen. Wesley Clark is in North Carolina for Barack Obama.

The one-time Democratic presidential candidate appeared at a National Guard Armory in Monroe today and will speak at a Java Express in Sanford and a library in Rocky Mount Wednesday.

Check your political calendar: It's the silly equinox.

Political reporters sometimes refer to the time of year when campaigns begin reaching (and overreaching) for offenses from their rivals as "the silly season."

After hitting a high in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, it's cooled off a bit. But the leaves are turning in the general election campaign.

Today, Republican nominee Pat McCrory's campaign sent out a press release noting that Will Matthews, a junior-level aide to Democrat Beverly Perdue, donated $50 to attend a fundraiser last night in Sanford, even writing on the memo line of his check "for the future of North Carolina."

"I am giving this young man the benefit of the doubt," said Campaign Manager Richard Hudson in a statement. "Surely he wasn't engaging in campaign dirty tricks when he attended our fundraiser with a tape recorder."

Perdue spokesman David Kochman said they had a good reason.

"Pat McCrory has a habit of taking different positions in front of different groups, so he went to hear what Pat would say in a room of Republican donors," he said. 

SANFORD—Former President Bill Clinton was courting Wal-Mart Democrats Wednesday, telling that his wife was the best prepared to be the next president.

"If you vote for her, you'll make her the next president," Clinton told about 400 people at an Apex community center, Rob Christensen reports.

Clinton said he planned to stop in 40  smaller communities in North Carolina before next Tuesday's Democratic primary showdown between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

At each stop, Clinton said one unnamed pundits had belittled his campaign visits  in small towns, saying his next step will be hauling Wal-Mart shoppers to the polls.

"He thought he was insulting me," Clinton said. "I thought it was a great idea."

Clinton avoided any mention of Obama or any of the controversies involving his pastor.

He touted her plans to create more jobs, provide universal health care coverage, and withdraw the troops from Iraq in a responsibile way. He also said she was the best choice to expand pre-kindergarten programs and to make college more affordable.

"She has spent her life as a change maker,"he told several hundred people in Sanford, standing on platform under a pine tree.