N.C. Supreme Court candidates Bob Edmunds and Suzanne Reynolds stayed away from partisan messages or hot-button social issues at a forum Monday night.

So how did those attending get a sense of the candidates they would be voting for? By asking a lot of questions about personal favorites, Dan Kane reports.

Former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Willis Whichard, the moderator, even had some fun with it, asking the candidates if the court survived a nuclear attack, what one book would they each bring?

Reynolds said she'd bring a law school staple: "The Nature of the Judicial Process" by Benjamin Cardozo, a U.S. Supreme Court justice who died in 1938. Edmunds said he'd bring a book of Alfred Tennyson's poetry.

Whichard then asked that if the laws of nature had been suspended by the attack and they could talk to any one person (he excluded Jesus and the Apostles), who would that be?

Edmunds said Abraham Lincoln; Reynolds said Eleanor Roosevelt.

Edmunds, 59, a Greensboro Republican, is seeking his second, eight-year term on the court. He is a former N.C. Court of Appeals judge and a former federal prosecutor.

Reynolds, 59, a Winston-Salem Democrat, is making her first run for political office. She has been a law professor at Wake Forest University for 27 years and is a recognized expert on family law.

More after the jump.

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Supreme Court Justice Bob Edmunds is receiving rescue funds from the state.

Under the state's public campaign finance program for judges, candidates can receive extra money if they are facing an independent expenditure.

Campaign Manager Andrew Brown said he received an e-mail at 2:45 p.m. from the State Board of Elections notifying him that Edmunds would receive $12,883 in rescue funds.

He said a staffer with the board of elections told him several other campaigns were also receiving money, but he did not know who was behind the independent expenditure.

North Carolina judicial races are nonpartisan, but the state Democratic and Republican parties often include their preferred candidates in mailers and other advertising.

Edmunds, a Republican, faces Democrat Suzanne Reynolds. He is the only Supreme Court justice up for re-election this year.

Update: According to the board of elections, the state Democratic Party has spent $12,883 on advertisements for Reynolds and Court of Appeals candiadtes Mark Martin, Jim Wynn, Sam Ervin, Kristin Ruth, Linda Stephens, Cheri Beasley and John Arrowood in black newspapers around the state. That spending triggered the rescue funds for Edmunds and other candidates.

Both Bob Edmunds and Suzanne Reynolds are running on experience.

In brief speeches before the N.C. Bar Association in Atlantic Beach this morning, Edmunds noted his service on the state Supreme Court since 2001 as well as his time as a criminal defense attorney and a prosecutor.

"You know with me what you're getting as a judge," he told the crowd of more than 150 attorneys. "I'm not running for re-election to pull the old switcheroo on you."

Edmunds noted that five of the seven judges on the Supreme Court are in their first term, arguing that the court needs "experienced, season justices."

Meantime, Reynolds cited her experience as a longtime law professor at Wake Forest University, an instructor for bar review and the author of a three-volume treatise on family law. She said that she has spent a lot of time reading and analyzing legal opinions.

"Some of our best appellate judges have been law professors," she said.

Suzanne Reynolds says she won't politicize the judiciary.

The candidate for the N.C. Supreme Court signed a pledge by the N.C. Bar Association swearing to avoid commenting on pending cases, preserve the impartiality of the judiciary and make only "professional comments" about her opponent.

"Preserving the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary should also be an important consideration for voters and for those who seek public office," states the pledge, which was adopted in 2002.

A professor at Wake Forest University, Reynolds is running against Supreme Court Justice Bob Edmunds. A registered Democrat, she has campaigned at some party events — while Edmunds has touted his ties to Republicans — but she said she plans to run a nonpartisan campaign.

"Removing party affiliation from the ballot was a positive step," she said in a statement. "Now it is up to the individual candidates to avoid partisan appeals and to reject efforts to elicit our positions on hot button issues. We have an obligation to conduct our campaigns in a way that instills confidence that judges will not pursue political agendas."

Update: Edmunds has also signed the pledge. 

The N.C. Association of Women Attorneys has endorsed Suzanne Reynolds.

The statewide nonpartisan group makes judicial endorsements based on skill, legal experience and support for women's rights.

"The NCAWA has used its voice — distinctive and distinguished — to improve the lives of women in the legal profession and of women from all walks of life," Reynolds said in a statement. 

Reynolds is running for the state Supreme Court against incumbent justice Bob Edmunds.

She has previously been endorsed by the N.C. Association of Educators, the N.C. Academy of Trial Lawyers and the state chapter of the AFL-CIO. 

The N.C. Police Benevolent Association has made its primary endorsements.

The group, which represents law enforcement officers around the state, has endorsed Beverly Perdue for governor, Hampton Dellinger for lieutenant governor and Janet Cowell for state treasurer.

In judicial races, it endorsed Associate Justice Bob Edmunds for re-election to his Supreme Court seat, Cheri Beasley, Linda Stephens, Sam J. Ervin IV, Jim Wynn and John Arrowood for the state Court of Appeals.

In Congressional races, it endorsed U.S. Reps. Walter Jones and Brad Miller.

Endorsements were made after a recent screening of 25 candidates.

"The candidates were asked questions on issues vitally important to the law enforcement profession and public safety," the group wrote in a press release. "Many outstanding candidates were in attendance."

Suzanne Reynolds has raised the maximum for publicly funded judicial candidates.

Reynolds, who is running for the state Supreme Court, announced today that she has received nearly 450 qualifying contributions totaling $80,100.

She will now receive an additional $233,625 from the public campaign fund.

Judicial candidates participating in the program must raise at least $40,050 from 350 registered North Carolina voters giving between $10 and $500.

She said that public financing spurred her run.

"In the past, I have resisted the urge to run," Reynolds said in a statement. "The necessity of raising exorbitant amounts of money in races that were heavily partisan kept me away."

She faces Supreme Court Justice Bob Edmunds.

Suzanne Reynolds is working the crowd at the Young Democrats convention.

As a candidate for the nonpartisan state Supreme Court, Reynolds said there was nothing wrong with campaigning at a clearly partisan event.

"It's where excited voters are," she said.

Reynolds compared her Democratic voter registration to her specialty of law, saying both are facts about her that curious voters might want to know.

"I think it's relevant that I'm a registered Democrat," she said. "Where candidates cross the line is when they characterize themselves as Democratic or Republican judges."

Reynolds' opponent, Supreme Court Justice Bob Edmunds, has stressed his Republican ties at recent GOP events.

A law professor at Wake Forest University, Reynolds has been on the short list for judicial appointments before, but she said she never wanted to run until the position was made nonpartisan and the state created public financing for judicial candidates.

"I didn't have the stomach for that," she said.

N.C. Court of Appeals candidates Kristin Ruth and Linda Stephens are also at the event.

Supreme Court Justice Bob Edmunds is stressing his Republican ties.

Edmunds told Republican voters in Watauga County that Republican judgeships are being targeted by Democrats in the upcoming election, the Boone Mountain Times reports.

The judiciary, he said, is the last area of government that has a Republican majority.

"I'm the one person standing between you and one-party government in North Carolina," said Edmunds, who is seeking reelection. Judicial elections are non-partisan, and the preamble to state rules of ethics calls for an independent judiciary.

Edmunds made the comments March 1 at a Watauga Republican convention, attended by gubernatorial candidate Bob Orr and U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx.

He told Dome Tuesday that he tries to remain bipartisan, but judicial races have taken on a partisan tone. Wake Forest law professor Suzanne Reynolds, a registered Democrat, is vying for Edmunds' seat, Titan Barksdale reports.

"Every incumbent on the appellate level is being challenged by a Democrat, and we can't pretend that this is not happening," Edmunds said. "We're finding it very difficult to be bipartisan and non-partisan when we're being challenged in a partisan way."

Update: Reynolds said her decision to run is not motivated by partisan interests.

“I want to assure the voters of this state that there is nothing partisan about my decision to run for the North Carolina Supreme Court, and I am firmly committed to the principles of fairness and impartiality that should characterize the selection of judges," Reynolds said in an e-mail to Dome.

"I am running because I believe I can best use my experience interpreting and teaching law by serving on our Supreme Court.”

Gary Pearce says N.C. Appeals Court Judge Doug McCullough didn't do anything wrong.

The Democratic political consultant writes on his blog that McCullough's recent statement that Republicans need to re-elect Supreme Court Justice Bob Edmunds to help Republicans during legislative redistricting was simply true:

The truth is that the 2008 and 2010 elections are critical to the long-term political future of North Carolina. Whichever party controls redistricting—in the legislature and in the courts—has a leg up on political control in the next decade.

Pearce says Democrats did "a pretty good job" last time defending their interests and should have no illusions that Republicans will not try to do the same.

He also paraphrases Michael Kinsley's definition—a favorite of Dome's—of a gaffe as when a politician accidentally tells the truth.