Local and state candidates will gather next Tuesday.

The Triangle Community Coalition, a pro-development business group, will holds its seventh annual pig picking at the always incongruous Brier Creek Country Club in Raleigh.

The event, which usually draws a healthy crowd, will feature stump speeches from more than 20 candidates for Congress, the legislature and local county boards.  

This year, the annual straw poll will be conducted electronically on eight computers around the room.

"No  more mismarked ballots — and yes, no 'hanging chads,'" coalition representative Chris Sinclair writes Dome. 

The pig picking will be held form 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tickets are available here.

Pat McCrory took another swipe at Beverly Perdue over offshore oil drilling.

The Republican gubernatorial nominee used a lunch speech before a commercial real estate and construction group in Cary to drum his message that Perdue, the Democratic nominee, has flip-flopped on offshore drilling, Mark Johnson reports.

Perdue in June said she was "100 percent opposed" to drilling off North Carolina's coast but last week said she would appoint an independent panel of scientists and engineers to help decide.

McCrory quipped that he doesn’t know where she stands.

"I guess I’ll find out tonight," he said referring to a planned debate to be broadcast at 8 p.m. on WTVD-TV in the Raleigh-Durham market.

McCrory addressed the Raleigh area chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties and the Triangle Community Coalition.