The N.C. Republican Party is scheduled to begin airing a new TV commercial Tuesday featuring video of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright making inflammatory remarks about America's treatment of African-Americans.

As everyone by now knows, Wright is the former pastor of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. But the ad goes further, tying the two leading Democratic candidates for governor, Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue and state Treasurer Richard Moore, to Wright because they endorsed Obama.

The ad is so racially tinged that the national Republican Party and Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, asked that it not be run. McCain said the ad "degrades our civics and distracts us from the very real differences we have with the Democrats."

"They're not listening to me because they're out of touch with reality and the Republican Party," McCain said on NBC's "Today" Show. "We are the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, and this kind of campaigning is unacceptable."

We have seen this before -- North Carolina Republicans using racially loaded commercials only to be disowned by their national leaders.

During North Carolina's last consequential presidential primary in 1976, California Gov. Ronald Reagan was challenging sitting President Gerald Ford.

Sen. Helms' political organization had taken over the Reagan campaign in North Carolina. Tom Ellis, the Raleigh lawyer who was Helms' chief strategist, played the race card.

The Ford campaign had released a list of potential vice presidential running mates that included Sen. Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, the first black U.S. senator of the 20th century.

The Helms organization printed leaflets with the headline: "Ford suggests Brooke as a possible partner."

When Reagan learned of the flier he ordered a halt -- although whether it was actually stopped is an open question. "The governor has never campaigned on race, never used it as an issue and never will and feels strongly about it," Michael Deaver, Reagan's chief of staff, said at the time.

In 1990, the Helms organization was at it again. This time Helms was facing a competitive challenge from former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt, an African-American architect.

The state GOP -- at the instigation of the Helms organization -- mailed 125,000 postcards into black neighborhoods warning them that they might commit voter fraud if they have recently moved, in an effort to depress black turnout.

The U.S. Justice Department under the first President Bush called the mailing "false and misleading" and sent dozens of lawyers and observers into the state to make sure no one was improperly prevented from voting. There was an FBI investigation.

The state Republican Party later settled a lawsuit with the Bush Justice Department. They denied any wrongdoing but promised not to use any similar "ballot security" programs in the future.

So Reagan, the first Bush administration and now McCain have all denounced the racially tinged tactics used by Helms Republicans. But the state GOP keeps using them, because it thinks the strategy works.

The Republican Party says the Wright-Obama ad was produced in house. But the word on the street is that it was created by a veteran of the Helms organization.

The ghost of elections past.