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BIG VOTE TODAY: North Carolina children as young as 5 may soon be able to receive their public school education online from for-profit companies. The State Board of Education plans to vote Thursday on a special application for virtual schools that want to run public charters and receive taxpayer money. Full story here.

INAUGURATION FESTIVITIES GET UNDERWAY: Thursday marks the beginning of the traditional inauguration festivities. Council of State officials will get feted at a reception at 6 p.m. at the Progress Energy Center. The event is hosted by the Junior League of Raleigh and five companies with business before the state will sponsor: Charlotte Pipe and Foundry, Cisco Systems, Duke Energy, Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians and the Hendrick Companies. It's just one of the few opportunities special interests will get to lobby the state's top officials this week.

***This is the Dome Morning Memo, a digest of the state's big political news with analysis the reads between the lines. Thanks for reading. Click below for more.***

Teamsters Local 391 endorsed Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton in the Democratic primary for governor.

Local 391 is the largest of the three locals in North Carolina, with 8,000 members from the Triad to the coast.

Dalton is in a crowded primary where the other main competitors are former U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge and state Rep. Bill Faison.

State politicos are waiting for former UNC President Erskine Bowles to say whether he'll run for governor. 

With Gov. Bev Perdue bowing out of the race, other Democrats are weighing their chances against the soon-to-be-official GOP candidate, former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory.

Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton and state Rep. Bill Faison have already announced they are running. Public Policy Polling has Bowles as the strongest Democratic candidate. 

But Bowles, as he announced his retirement from the UNC presidency in 2010, said he'd never run for political office again. He ran for U.S. Senate twice and lost. 

"I have empirical data that I was a terrible politician," he said. 

State Rep. Bill Faison announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for governor today in Greensboro and said he had been biding his time until Gov. Beverly Perdue announced her decision not to run for another term.
Faison, from Orange County, charged that "a radical few in the Republican Party" have taken over the state's legislative agenda since the GOP took control of both houses of the Legislature in the 2010 election.
Emphasizing jobs and education and the connection between them, Faison said Democrats "have the right issue for the right reasons the right way."
He supported reinstating a penny sales tax add-on to help fund jobs recovery. The Legislature let the extra tax die earlier this year.
"We are used to raising money to help each other out" in difficult times like Hurricanes, Faison told an audience of reports in Greensboro, where the state Democratic party will hold its annual dinner tonight.
Faison said it does not make sense to let business leave the state, and it is important to find ways to keep them with better education.
Referring to Republicans, Faison said, "I've been traveling around the state calling on them to come up with programs that matter."
"Not only have I come up with a plan, but I'm here to implement that plan," Faison said.
He said he had expected an announcement by Perdue "between Jan. 15 and Feb. 1" and that plans for his candidacy are "right on schedule."
"We've got the issues people care about," Faison said. he said he expects to have 40 percent name recognition in polls by the end of February.