Ben Smith says Hillary Clinton is serious about North Carolina.
The Politico blogger notes that her California and Texas director, Ace Smith, was recently named to head her Tar Heel operation.
That, he says, is "a mark that even if she only wants to talk about Pennsylvania, she's taking the rest of the calendar pretty seriously."
A Clinton adviser left North Carolina out of the states that she was expected to do well in during a March 6 conference call, and another called the state "irrelevant" in the fall campaign.
She is expected to compete in Congressional districts in the mountains and on the coast.
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Re: Smith: Clinton's serious about N.C.
How someone can call North Carolina an irrelevant state when we have so many preachers is beyond me. And we've got philosophers too. Stopping into a roadside cafe and telling the waitress, "Esse quam videri," is sure you get you at least a curious look if not a cup of coffee.
Start polishing up your barnyard humor, Dome pundits and raconteurs, because North Carolina hasn't gotten this much attention in a presidential primary since 1976, when Ronald Reagan and Jerry Ford debated how to jump-start a campaign while Terry Sanford, George Wallace and Jimmy Carter were auditioning for most appealing Southern drawl.
Folks, there hasn't been this much talk about North Carolina politics on St. Patrick's Day since Terry Sanford was urging Tar Heels to vote for that Irish-American senator from New England who wanted to "get the country moving again."
This could be North Carolina's biggest political moment in the sun since News & Observer publisher Josephus Daniels opined that a transplanted Southerner, Gov. Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, ought to be elected President back in 1912.
Yes, this could be the most attention paid to the Old North State in presidential politics since North Carolina native son and Democratic candidate James K. Polk of Tennessee drew this catcall from the Whigs back in 1844: "Jimmy Who?"
Who knows, this could be the most recognition for North Carolina since John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson expressing his view that there really must have been something to all those claims about a "Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence."
Yes, friends, this could be the year that North Carolina's fine cities and towns receive the greatest scrutiny yet by would-be Presidents since George Washington offered his personal assessment of Charlotte as "a trifling place" on his Southern Tour back in 1791.
But of course, the Father of His Country never had the chance to stop in to see the ultimate convention of dignitaries known as the ACC Tournament.
David McKnight