A research center on alcoholism could lose funding.

For more than 26 years, the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill has conducted scientific research on the genetic and physiological causes and effects of chronic alcohol abuse.

Its $500,000 annual appropriation is among 20 programs that Gov. Beverly Perdue proposed eliminating as part of her $21 billion budget. 

Recent studies by the center have looked into how some former alcoholics train their brains to think harder about long-term consequences, how binge-drinking impairs the brain and how an injectable drug could reduce alcohol dependence.

Reducing the state's contribution to the center would hurt, but the research would continue thanks to regular grants from the National Institutes of Health and other sources.

"Very little of our overall funding comes from the state," said spokeswoman Elizabeth Thomas. 

Perdue's proposed budget also includes a 5 percent increase on the tax on alcohol. The center is named for Hargrove "Skipper" Bowles, father of UNC system president Erskine Bowles.

Did Republicans Jim Holshouser and Jim Martin become governor because of Democratic infighting?

That's the argument made by D.G. Martin in a column in the Chatham Journal Weekly. He says that splits between Democrats in the 1972 and 1984 primaries led to acrimony in the general elections, allowing the Republican candidates to win.

In '72, the split was between Lt. Gov. Pat Taylor and Skipper Bowles. Though Bowles won, Taylor backers were disinclined to vote for him, Martin argues.

In '84, former Charlotte Mayor Eddie Knox bitterly fought Attorney General Rufus Edmisten. Though Edmisten won, Knox and some of his supporters did not back the winner, Martin says.

Martin makes the case that the same could happen because of the fierce battle between Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue and state Treasurer Richard Moore for the Democratic nomination.

A couple quibbles: 1) The analysis is a bit blue-centric. Democrats lost, but Republicans also won. 2) In both cases, Martin's own history suggests the key test was after the primary, when Bowles failed to reach out and Knox refused to endorse. 3) With four candidates, the GOP may also split.

Hat Tip: Tom Jensen

How much did Jim Neal raise for Erskine Bowles?

The Chapel Hill investment banker, who is running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, says he doesn't remember offhand.

But he says it was a "big-ticket event" that drew between 50 and 75 people to his apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to support Bowles' 2004 bid for U.S. Senate.

Neal co-hosted the cocktail and hors d'oeuvres event with Jay Alix, found of a Michigan firm that specializes in corporate turnarounds.

The guest speaker was retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, who had by then dropped out of the presidential race. Neal had raised money for Clark and donated to his campaign.

Neal said he didn't know Bowles personally, though as a teen-ager he volunteered for his father Skipper Bowles' unsuccessful 1972 gubernatorial campaign.

"He was a hell of a guy," he said. "Everybody loved Skipper."

Update: The fundraiser was held on June 28, 2004. Tickets cost $1,000 to $4,000, and the event raised about $100,000 overall.

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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Political observers are mourning the passing of T.G. Joyner.

The longtime yellow-dog Democrat, nicknamed "Sonny Boy," was a key advisor and staffer for Govs. Terry Sanford and Bob Scott and a longtime party activist.

On his Talking About Politics blog, Democratic strategist Gary Pearce writes that Joyner helped put Northampton County in George McGovern's camp in the 1972 election, making it one of only two North Carolina counties not to vote for Richard Nixon.

"Like his name suggested, he was a country boy," he writes. "All smiles and laughter. Pumping everybody for political gossip. Pounding on people in Raleigh to get things done for his neighbors."

On This Old State, Charlotte Observer columnist Jack Betts laments the decline of the political nickname, noting U.S. Rep. Wilmer "Vinegar Bend" Mizell, state Sen. J.J. "Monk" Harrington and gubernatorial candidate Hargrove "Skipper" Bowles, among others.