Campaign workers seem optimistic. They’re planning on a big night. Late surveys showed their candidate up on Treasurer Richard Moore by as much as 18 percentage points.

Signs on the highway outside the hotel make it obvious that this is where Perdue will be tonight. Democratic state Superintendent June Atkinson has rooms in the same building.

An interesting side note: A sign in the men’s bathroom, with a Bev Perdue patch on it, reads in red and blue letters, “THANKS PERDUDES.”

Meanwhile, the race for the Republican nomination for governor is tight.

The PPP shows Obama, the Illinois senator, with 53 percent. Former first lady and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has 43 percent. Obama leads Clinton by 63 percent to 34 percent among those who have already voted.

In the race for the Democratic nomination for governor, Perdue has 51 percent, compared to state Treasurer Richard Moore’s 33 percent.

The GOP gubernatorial race is much closer. Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory has 39 percent. Johnston County state Sen. Fred Smith has 35 percent.

The most recent poll shows that former first lady and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has halved the lead of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential preference primary. However, Obama still maintains a 51-39 percent lead.

In the race for governor, Democratic Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue now leads state Treasurer Richard Moore by 14 points, 47 percent to 33 percent.

The GOP gubernatorial race has tightened. Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory now leads Johnston County state Sen. Fred Smith by just 5 points, 36 percent to 31 percent. Neither of the other major GOP candidates, Salisbury attorney and activist Bill Graham and former N.C. Supreme Court justice Bob Orr, have reached double digits.

In the race for U.S. Senate, GOP incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Dole and Guilford County state Sen. Kay Hagan appear to have comfortable leads for their party’s nomination.

PPP plans one more poll before next Tuesday’s primary.

In my column and blog, I posed a couple of questions:

1. Should Obama’s pastor be a factor in the North Carolina gubernatorial election?

2. Is it appropriate to hold a candidate responsible for the political views of a religious leader of the candidate’s chosen affiliation?

One email regarding my column said it was “a stretch” when I mentioned that other candidates in the past have been asked to square their views with those of their religion. Another suggested that someone who sits in the same church for 20 years and listens to such views and doesn’t change churches either agrees with the views or “is just plain stupid.”

A response to a previous blog post had some not-too-kind words to say for the N.C. GOP.

My above two question remain.

The state Republican Party is sponsoring an ad chiding the two for endorsing Obama. The ad shows Wright delivering one of his controversial messages and identifying him as Obama’s “spiritual mentor.”

“They should know better,” the ad says of Moore and Perdue. “He’s just too extreme for North Carolina.”

Click here to see the ad on YouTube.

Should Obama’s pastor be a factor in the North Carolina gubernatorial election?

“It’s like preparing for a hurricane and a week-long rock concert at the same time,” Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina, said in an press release sent out by email. “Officials need to plan for every contingency, add extra personnel, anticipate where bottlenecks will happen and keep educating the public about changes in conditions.”

The admonishment reminds me of election night in November 1980, when, as a reporter for the Burlington Times-News, I was at the Alamance County Courthouse and learned that there had been a ballot shortage in Rockingham County. That was the election where Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter for president.

The ballot shortage was significant to us because, at the time, Rockingham County was in the same congressional district as Alamance County and there was a close race for the congressional seat between incumbent Democratic Rep. L. Richardson Preyer and Republican challenger Gene Johnston.

I ended up traveling to Wentworth, the Rockingham County seat, that night to get results from balloting and cover the ballot shortage. I spent the night in a Reidsville hotel and wrote my stories the next morning. We were an afternoon paper then, so that gave me time to get the full story in the paper the next day.

It appears that the turnout by the Reagan Revolution surprised the local elections board. Elections officials said that the ballot shortage was actually more of a ballot distribution problem. Ballots were redistributed and voters who had originally not been allowed to vote because the precinct ran out of ballots got to do so by the end of the day.

If my memory serves me correctly, sheriff’s deputies offered those voters rides back to the polling places if they needed them.

Perdue’s new ad touts her positive approach.

“Wherever I go people ask me, ‘Can’t we stop the negative campaign?’” Perdue says. “The simple answer is yes.”

The response from the campaign of her opponent, state Treasurer Richard Moore, was not so positive.

Said Moore campaign manager Jay Reiff: “This is no surprise given that the Perdue campaign had to pull their last negative ad because it was untrue and even her ‘positive’ TV ad has been called misleading by the Associated Press. How about a pledge to tell the truth?”

I think that vigorous debate, including communications which help voters understand inconsistencies in a candidate’s record, are helpful to voters. But the debate and ads don’t have to be carried out in a way that rip each other apart and cause voters to get discouraged.

Will the days of a candidate referring to a rival as “my worthy opponent” ever return?

AFP-NC is pushing what’s called a “Taxpayer Bill of Rights,” also dubbed TABOR, which would limit the General Assembly’s authority to increase spending to the inflation rate plus the increase in population. Five gubernatorial candidates have signed on supporting that proposal.

Two that haven’t are the major Democratic candidates, Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue and Treasurer Richard Moore.
Supporting the spending restraints are Libertarian Michael Munger along with four Republicans, former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr, Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, Salisbury attorney and activist Bill Graham and Johnston County state Sen. Fred Smith.

It will take some constitutional discipline if such spending control is to become reality. State government doesn’t have the self-discipline to effect such spending restraints. Earlier in his tenure, Gov. Mike Easley tried to restrain spending to growth in personal income of North Carolinians. That hasn’t worked. During the 1990s, when the economy was booming, money was plentiful and Republicans held majorities in the state House, the General Assembly went on a spending spree.

The North Carolina population has also got to decide if it really wants a state government that’s fiscally tight-fisted. I haven’t seen that reflected in election results in recent years, to any significant degree. It is important to note, however, that voters did turn down land transfer taxes in referendums last fall. We’ll see in a few weeks if that trend continues.

In addition to limiting spending, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights would set up a budget stabilization fund, sort of like a rainy day fund, for surplus revenue. That money could be used during economic slowdowns to avert major budget cuts. Once money in that fund reaches a certain threshold, money would be rebated to taxpayers. It would also set up a mechanism for higher spending or tax increases, should there be a public demand for it. Those increases would likely require either a vote of the people or a supermajority in both the House and the Senate.

One state, Colorado, has a Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Dallas Woodhouse, AFP-NC’s state director, said that on occasion, spending increases have been approved on the local level.

Singer-songwriter Carla Howell ponders those questions in her song, “How Could I Live Without Filing Taxes?” Howell sponsored a 2002 initiative to end the income tax in Massachusetts. It is on the ballot again this year.”

Click here to listen to the song. Remember to turn your speakers up.

According to the most recent Public Policy Polling survey, Obama leads Clinton by 55 percent to 34 percent. The 21 percent margin is up from a week ago, when Obama led by just 1 percentage point. The gains followed a major speech by Obama in Fayetteville, where he talked about the war in Iraq, and a speech on race in Pennsylvania.