U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry wants to put former President Ronald Reagan on the $50 bill.
McHenry, a Cherryville Republican, has introduced a bill that would replace Ulysses S. Grant with Reagan.
"Every generation needs its own heroes," McHenry said. "One decade into the 21st century, it's time to honor the last great president of the 20th and give President Reagan a place beside Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy."
President Franklin Roosevelt's likeness is on the dime, and President John F. Kennedy's is on the half-dollar.
McHenry said that Reagan consistently outranks Grant in polls of presidential scholars.
Burr's right, all right
U.S. Sen. Richard Burr is the ninth most conservative member of the chamber, according to an analysis by the National Journal.
Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican, was the 90th most liberal senator on the magazine's annual conservative-liberal rating feature.
U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat, was the 42nd most liberal member of the Senate and the 55th most conservative.
The ratings are based on how members of the Senate voted on 99 roll-call votes, a system first devised by the Washington-based magazine in 1981.
The ranking would seem to help back Burr's claim that it's tough to get to the right of him, ideologically speaking. (Actually, Burr said it was impossible, which isn't true because eight other senators were ranked more conservative, but who's counting?)
Brad Jones, one of Burr's primary challengers, said he was running to provide a more conservative alternative for voters.
D'Annunzio's dream plan
Tim D'Annunzio, whose own poll shows him leading the GOP race in the 8th Congressional District, has laid out a platform that calls for abolishing much of the federal government.
D'Annunzio outlined his plan on his personal blog "Christ's War." It's headlined "The Shaking, continued (Isaiah 9:5)." He calls it a four-year plan for the revitalization of the federal government.
The plan states, in part: "Abolish the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Energy, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Transportation, Treasury, and Home Land [sic] Security. Any duties remaining that are Constitutional should be rolled into other Departments.
"Social Security and Medicare should be cut into fifty proportionate parts and given to the control of the states. All promises should be kept at a percentage proportionate to the individual's age compared to the retirement age. The new System should be based on individuals preparing for and providing for their own retirement and health care."
Perdue perks up in poll
The number of North Carolina voters who had an unfavorable opinion of Gov. Bev Perdue dropped sharply from a month earlier, according to a recent poll by the Civitas Institute.
Civitas asked 600 likely voters for an opinion of Perdue, a Democrat, and 38 percent said they had a favorable opinion while 35 percent had an unfavorable opinion. Twenty-six percent had no opinion.
The February numbers suggest that though Perdue's favorable rating hasn't changed from the month before, voters who previously had negative opinions have shifted into the unsure column. The difference is negligible with the margin of error.
The Civitas numbers, when compared to a pair of polls by Elon University and Rasmussen suggest that Perdue's long-stagnant approval ratings may be headed up.
The Civitas poll was conducted Feb. 15-18 by Tel Opinion Research of Alexandria, Va., and had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
By staff writer Benjamin Niolet and Jim Morrill of The Charlotte Observer
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