Or are you simply jealous because your alma mater, Yale University, cannot compete with our basketball teams?

Whatever the reason, Mr. President, you have treated the Triangle like boll weevils in a cotton patch, like mad cow disease in the Texas panhandle, like nematodes in a tobacco field.

Last week, you visited Charlotte to haul in $1.55 million for your re-election campaign and to outline your job-training program. That is the third time you've been in Charlotte since you won the presidency in 2000.

But you have yet to visit the Triangle.

You have been almost everywhere else. Some trips are understandable -- to thank Marines at Camp Lejeune and soldiers at Fort Bragg.

But Greenville, Concord and High Point? And why have you been to Winston-Salem -- twice?

In fact, Mr. President, you haven't visited the Triangle since the last millennium. That was back in August 1999, when you were governor of Texas but hoped to be more.

Your predecessor, Bill Clinton, was a regular in the Triangle both as a candidate and when he was in the White House. As president, Clinton spoke at UNC-Chapel Hill, addressed the General Assembly and attended a fund-raiser at the State Fairgrounds.

Now it's true that Charlotte has a richer Republican pedigree than Raleigh. It has been represented in Congress by a Republican since 1953 -- long before much of the rest of the South turned Republican.

Durham and Chapel Hill may be Democratic strongholds. But Wake County now is second in registered Republicans, less than 1,000 behind Mecklenburg County.

We in the Triangle are humble folks compared with those in Charlotte. We don't have all those burgeoning banks and skyscrapers.

But Research Triangle Park and the local universities have also helped create a growing entrepreneurial class -- many of whom kick in money to Republican candidates.

As of February, Raleigh residents contributed $340,000 to your re-election campaign, the second-highest amount in the state, according to the Federal Election Commission.

Charlotte was highest, with $504,000. Chapel Hill gave $54,000; Durham, $44,000; Cary, $40,000; Wake Forest, $19,000; and Apex, $15,000.

The national finance chairman of your campaign, Mercer Reynolds of Cincinnati, is a UNC-CH graduate.

So why is it you send only your surrogates to the Triangle: Vice President Dick Cheney and first lady Laura Bush?

We generally treat our presidents pretty well, though aides to Teddy Roosevelt complained that he was fed only peanuts for lunch when he visited the State Fairgrounds in 1904.

We promise to roll out the red carpet if you visit. We'll even treat at Big Ed's. Just let us know when.

Yours truly,

Rob Christensen

215 S. McDowell St. Raleigh, N.C.