Edwards' camp: No thanks on poverty debate

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich came on John Edwards' turf this week and challenged him to a debate on poverty.

Speaking at a fundraiser in Raleigh Wednesday night, Gingrich suggested that the former North Carolina senator's approach to solving poverty is wrong.

Gingrich said that the main cause of poverty is a lack of education and that many public schools, particularly those that serve inner-city students, were failing because of incompetency.

"My challenge to your former senator who is running around the country prattling about ending poverty is simple: Take on the teacher's union," Gingrich told about 200 people at a dinner at the North Raleigh Hilton for state Sen. Fred Smith.

"I'd be delighted to come back down and have a dialogue with Senator Edwards about how to truly help the poor," he said. "We might even have a charity night, and all the money we raise that night would go to the poor. So we would actually do something to help the poor as opposed to talking about helping the poor."

On Thursday, the John Locke Foundation offered to sponsor a Gingrich-Edwards debate. But based on the initial response from the Edwards camp, such a debate seems unlikely.

"People worried about feeding their children don't need politicians shooting their mouths off at partisan political events who didn't do anything significant about poverty when they had the chance," Edwards spokeswoman Kim Rubey said in a statement.

Edwards, a likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, has been focusing on poverty in travels across the nation and at a center he created at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Gingrich, a Republican, is also weighing running for president.

Gingrich raised money for Smith, a likely candidate for governor in 2008. He also spoke at a Locke Foundation lunch in Charlotte and at a fundraiser in Hickory for U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry.

Smith said Democratic lawmakers were out of touch with North Carolina citizens on such issues as same-sex marriage, eminent domain and immigration.

"Under Democratic rule, government is underperforming," said Smith, a Clayton businessman and lawyer. "The current crisis in confidence in the speaker's office only underlines the fact that we need a change in management both in the General Assembly and the governor's office."

Plea deal possible for Allen

Claude Allen, the former Jesse Helms protege and White House staffer, is trying to work out a plea deal on charges of fraudulently stealing items from Target and Hecht's stores in Montgomery County, Md.

Allen resigned this winter as domestic policy adviser to President Bush. He was charged weeks later with theft. At the time, his attorney called the matter a misunderstanding.

Allen's attorney and the prosecutor asked a District Court judge this week for a continuance of Allen's trial, which was scheduled for today. The judge issued the continuance Thursday.

Allen was the highest ranking African-American working in the White House. He went to high school in Raleigh and served as Helms' spokesman during the 1984 Senate campaign between Helms and Democrat Jim Hunt.

Minimum-wage vote pushed

As state budget negotiations sank a little deeper into the bog Thursday, the House sponsor of a bill to increase the minimum wage urged that it be untied from the budget and face a straight-up vote in the Senate.

The Senate passed a $1-an-hour increase in the minimum wage, from $5.15 to $6.15, as part of the budget. The House passed a separate bill.

Rep. Alma Adams, a Greensboro Democrat, said the Senate should vote on the House bill. She does not like what she's heard about the increase being tied in negotiations to the size of the personal income tax cut for the state's wealthiest residents.

Coupling the two ties "people whose basic needs have not been met and people whose basic needs have more than been met," she said.

Senate leader Marc Basnight of Manteo said putting the minimum wage in the budget was the surest way to get it approved in his chamber. "This was the only way to pass it," he said.

Basnight said he supports the $1 increase and is confident the legislature will approve it before the session ends.