Richard Moore says he has known for some time that something was up with the U.S. financial system.

WUNC radio reporter Jessica Jones asked the Democratic state treasurer whether, as an observer of Wall Street, he saw problems coming.

"Yes. Absolutely," Moore said in a segment dated Thursday. "Exactly when it was going to happen, what form it was going to take, I can't tell you I knew that. But everybody that I know of who was conservative and who wasn't getting paid to say, 'Everything is great,' kept wondering, 'How can you continue to have real estate prices go up, commodity prices go up, tremendous amounts of loans being made?'"

Moore also blamed poor enforcement of leverage requirements.

"There's a reason we put those regulations in place coming out of the Great Depression," he said. "We really have gotten away from that. And I'm not trying to sound partisan, but we have gotten away from that the last five to seven years."

In February, while he was running for governor, Moore said the state's roughly $70 billion pension fund had largely avoided securities backed by subprime loans.

Barack Obama linked John McCain to Wall Street's recent troubles Sunday.

Speaking before 20,000 at a rally in Charlotte, the Democratic presidential candidate argued that Republicans have created "an era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and in Washington."

"They said they wanted to let the market run free, but instead they let it run wild," Obama said. "And now we are facing a financial crisis as profound as any we have faced since the Great Depression."

It was the largest rally in the Queen City since 15,000 turned out to hear Bill Clinton in 1992, though about 40,000 came to a South Charlotte rally for President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Speaking in the heart of the country's second biggest banking center, Obama called the federal government's proposed $700 billion Wall Street bailout "sobering."

A McCain spokesman criticized Obama for offering few detailed proposals. (Char-O)

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Moore is airing an ad raising questions about his opponent, Beverly Perdue, and corruption and special interests, Ben Niolet reports.

What the ad says: Announcer: “Slipping in the polls. Now Bev Perdue is airing ads the news media call ‘misleading.’ “It’s Perdue who’s been caught raising money on Wall Street. She’s been investigated for corruption by the SBI and a federal grand jury. And Bev Perdue was forced to return thousands in illegal donations from special interests. “Democrat Richard Moore built the nation’s second-best retirement fund, and Governing magazine named him a public official of the year.” Moore: “I’m Richard Moore, candidate for governor, and I sponsored this ad.”

The background: Rcent polls by the independent firm Public Policy Polling show that Moore has gained ground from the firm’s earlier polls.

A March 13 Associated Press analysis of an ad Perdue ran touting her accomplishments found a key claim of the ad was misleading. That was a different Perdue ad from the one shown when the announcer states that the media called Perdue’s ads misleading. That ad, which attacked Moore’s record, was found to be “not entirely” accurate by The News & Observer.

In February, Perdue went to New York and met with potential donors, including some with ties to the financial industry. A Perdue spokesman said the trip didn’t result in any donations from the financial industry. The campaign finance reports for that period are not yet public.

The claims of corruption investigations refer to two separate cases.

In 1995, a federal grand jury began investigating the State Highway Patrol over allegations of widespread improprieties, according to a story in The News & Observer. After a year, the grand jury looked into whether the Highway Patrol gave special treatment to Perdue, then a state senator and co-chairwoman of the Senate committee that approved the patrol’s budget requests.

On July 4, 1995, Perdue crashed her 1992 Cadillac in a single-car collision in Raleigh. Perdue did not report the accident right away. She contacted her lawyer the next day and mentioned it to a Highway Patrol major, who instructed troopers to take care of the matter. One trooper, without talking to Perdue, wrote a short-form report used for less-serious accidents. The trooper wrote a second report when it became clear the damage estimate was higher. Perdue never appeared before the grand jury and was not charged.

Grand jury proceedings are secret, so it’s unclear exactly what the grand jury probed. The News & Observer story cited by the ad says the grand jury was investigating the patrol’s actions and whether Perdue had violated traffic laws.

An internal investigation by the patrol cleared Perdue and all troopers involved. At the time, Moore was head of the state agency that oversees the patrol.

The State Bureau of Investigation case mentioned in the ad refers to the agency’s probe of a Department of Transportation employee. In 1994, a Carteret County man who worked for DOT solicited contributions for Perdue. The man told potential donors that Perdue could get two gravel roads near their homes paved, according to a story by The Associated Press. The pitch resulted in a $50 check for Perdue’s state Senate campaign.

Perdue said at the time that she knew the man but didn’t know he was raising money for her.

The SBI closed the case in 1996 because of a lack of evidence and then opened it again in 1998 when a Republican legislator asked about it. Craven County District Attorney W. David McFadyen Jr. closed the case in September 1998, saying, “There is no evidence of any impropriety whatsoever on the part of Sen. Perdue or her campaign,” according to a story in The N&O.

The ad’s claim about Perdue’s returning thousands in contributions refers to about $19,000 Perdue received in 1996 from a rest home operator and his family members. Prosectors charged the rest home operator with trying to circumvent the state’s donation limit by having others donate money for him. According to a story in the New Bern Sun Journal, Forsyth County District Attorney Tom Keith advised Perdue to return the money and said there was no evidence that she knowingly accepted illegal contributions. Keith wrote similar letters to the governor, lieutenant governor and another senator who had received contributions. The rest home operator was fined $6,000 for the contributions.

Under Moore’s tenure, the state retirement fund was ranked second in the nation among public funds by Standard & Poor’s for the fund’s ability to pay its obligations. Moore was one of Governing magazine’s Public Officials of 2004. The article cited Moore’s pressure on money managers to push for accurate accounting practices.

Is the ad accurate? Not entirely.

The ad omits information that Perdue was cleared in both investigations. And the claim that a federal grand jury investigated her for corruption cannot be substantiated.

It’s not clear yet whether Perdue raised money on Wall Street.

Perdue did return thousands in illegal campaign contributions in 1999. And Moore and his office did get some national recognition.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beverly Perdue is airing an ad criticizing the performance of her rival, Richard Moore, as state treasurer and his willingness to take campaign contributions from people on Wall Street, Ben Niolet reports.

What the ad says: “I’m Bev Perdue. I’m running for governor, and I sponsored this ad.” Announcer: “Listen to Richard Moore.” Video clip of Moore: “I want to be held accountable.” Announcer: “Accountable? As treasurer, Moore put $2 billion of state pensions into risky hedge funds. And increased fees paid to fund managers by 600 percent. Now Wall Street investors have given 1.5 million to his campaign.” Video clip of Moore: “I want to be held accountable.” Announcer: “Come on, Richard. Moore is for Wall Street. Not for us.”

The background: The state treasurer oversees a $77 billion pension fund for state and local government employees. In his two terms as treasurer, Moore has invested in hedge funds and other alternative investments. Since September 2002, the treasurer’s office has committed $741 million in hedge funds, which are complex and aggressive investments. The current value of the pension’s hedge fund investments is $920 million, according to the treasurer’s office.

As treasurer, Moore has dramatically increased the fees paid to money managers. The claim about increased fees is based on a March 2007 Forbes magazine article. Spokeswomen for Moore’s campaign and the treasurer’s office do not dispute the number and acknowledge the pension fund is paying more in fees under Moore. In fiscal 2007, Moore paid $155 million in fees to money managers, not including bonuses for exceptional performance. His predecessor paid $57 million in his last year in office. Moore’s staff says that the fees are part of running a modern, successful pension fund and that they are similar to — or less than — fees paid by comparable funds.

The claim about Moore’s fundraising is based on Moore’s campaign finance reports since he first ran for treasurer in the 2000 election. Moore’s publicly available finance reports show donations from plenty of people in the financial industry. The Charlotte Observer reported last year that since 1999, Moore had received more than $700,000 from donors affiliated with companies that did business with the treasurer’s office. Over nearly 10 years, Moore has raised $1.5 million from employees or family members of employees of firms or banks that do business with the pension fund, according to a spreadsheet provided by the Perdue campaign.

Those companies have offices across the country, including in North Carolina. It’s impossible to verify that every one of those donors is a “Wall Street” investor.

Is the ad accurate? Not entirely. It’s true that Moore has dramatically increased fees paid to money managers. And under Moore’s tenure, the pension fund has invested three-quarters of a billion dollars in hedge funds.

But the claim that he has put $2 billion in hedge funds is not accurate. Moore has raised $1.5 million from people with ties to businesses that work with the pension fund since he first ran for treasurer. But it’s doubtful that every one of those donors is a Wall Street investor.