McCrory sticks with 'Negative Bev'

Pat McCrory is sticking with "Negative Bev."

The Republican gubernatorial candidate's campaign tagged Democratic rival Beverly Perdue with that nickname in June after she ran negative ads.

Campaign manager Richard Hudson said he coined the nickname to point out that Perdue had won the Democratic primary after promising to run only positive ads.

"As someone who's worked in a lot of campaigns, you call your opponent a lot of things, but usually it's private," he joked.

He said that the campaign had no input on "Status Quo Bev," the nickname given to Perdue by the Republican Governors Association in recent ads.

But he said that the campaign would continue to point out Perdue's negative ads.

"We can only control what we do, and Pat has stressed all along that tone is really important," he said.