A Democratic candidate might seem the unlikeliest sort to bring up the name of disgraced former House Speaker, and fellow Democrat, Jim Black in the middle of a campaign.

Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, however, is giving that strategy a whirl in either a bold counter-conventional wisdom attack...or simply to stick Black to Republican candidate Pat McCrory before he does the same to her.

Perdue dispatched a press release Monday afternoon trashing McCrory, mayor of Charlotte, as "golfing buddies" with Black, who's currently serving a five-year federal prison sentence on corruption charges. She also criticizes McCrory over Stan Campbell, who headed Black's "secretive" legal defense fund, and was a paid campaign advisor.

"Pat McCrory talks about the 'culture of corruption' in Raleigh," said Perdue spokesman David Kochman, "yet he hires its biggest defender as a top consultant and spokesperson for his campaign."

Reached Monday afternoon, McCrory said Perdue was trying to deflect criticism about one of her fundraisers.

"It's an arrogant attempt to transfer the corruption and blame to people outside of state government. She's a part of the state government culture and now is pretending there are no fingerprints." 

McCrory said he has played golf with Black once or twice and that he has played with other members of the Mecklenburg legislative delegation. 

Campbell fielded news media questions when McCrory filed for the governor's race. He was a trustee of Black's legal defense fund.

"I haven't worked with the McCrory campaign since the end of the primary so I
guess they're wrong there," Campbell said.

The release also links to a 1999 episode of McCrory's cable TV chat show, "Agenda Charlotte," during which McCrory interviews Black after gushing with compliments about Black's bipartisanship, calling him a "personal friend" and noting that Black is McCrory's eye doctor.

McCrory's campaign dismissed Perdue's attack as an attempted distraction from an News & Observer story about a Perdue fundraiser steering road work to streets adjacent to commercial properties.

"Beverly Perdue was chairman of the appropriations committee, meeting behind closed doors, inserting special provisions into the budget to pay off contributors when Jim Black became speaker," said McCrory strategist Jack Hawke. "I could argue he learned how to operate from Beverly Perdue. She not only served with him in the legislature, as lieutenant governor she became an enabler by never asking a question when Jim Black took payoffs in bathrooms."

Perdue's salvo helps her get ahead of any efforts by McCrory to highlight how they were both top leaders in the Democratic Party and the legislature and how Perdue refused to call for Black's resignation during months of worsening scandal.

Update: Post has been updated to include additional information.

At his campaign kickoff, Pat McCrory called on his relatives for help.

"To the other members of my extended family, my brothers and sisters, and nieces and nephews, you'd better get ready to help Uncle Pat and Aunt Ann," he said.

As it turns out, one relative has been helping for a while.

McCrory's nephew, Patrick Sebastian, has posted a dozen comments on Under the Dome and The Charlotte Observer's Web site and even wrote a letter to the Greensboro News-Record on his uncle's behalf, as first noted by Tom Jensen on the Public Policy Polling blog.

The comments were made under the screen name packpat1, which is part of an e-mail address used by Sebastian and until recently was listed on his Facebook page.

Sebastian, a sophomore at East Carolina University, called for Republicans to recruit a candidate for governor with "good name ID," defended a poll by McCrory, called McCrory's mayoral rival Beverly Earle "corrupt" and another Republican gubernatorial candidate "a desperate man."

He also called Mike Easley a "do-nothing governor."

"Agree with that," said McCrory advisor Stan Campbell. He said that Sebastian doesn't start work until next week. He said any comments were not done officially for the McCrory campaign.

"He likes politics, and he's probably inclined to help his uncle," he said.

After the jump, Sebastian's comments on Dome.

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