When the political pros talk about North Carolina being a red state, they are not referring to either the N.C. State Wolfpack or any Leninist tendencies.

They are referring to presidential voting patterns. The 30 states that voted Republican last time were called red states; the 20 that went Democratic were called blue states.

North Carolina is redder than a fire truck. President Bush carried the state with 56 percent to 43 percent for Al Gore.

Only in his home state, Texas, did Bush win by more votes than his 373,471-vote margin in North Carolina. (In percentages, though, Bush ran stronger in 15 states.)

North Carolina has been one of the GOP's little red wagons for decades. The Republican candidate won the state in eight of the last nine presidential races.

The most recent Democrat to carry the state was Jimmy Carter, the Georgia peanut farmer who won the 1976 race.

But with a spate of plant closings and layoffs, some think North Carolina might be about to undergo a color change.

"North Carolina may be changing from a certain red state to a potential battleground," wrote conservative syndicated columnist Robert Novak last week.

Novak is not colorblind.

A poll conducted earlier this month for WTVD in Durham and WBTV in Charlotte showed U.S. Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee, defeating Bush 53 percent to 42 percent.

North Carolinians think Bush would do a better job in an international crisis, but they think Kerry could do better in balancing the federal budget, according to a new Elon University Poll. Voters were closely divided over which candidate would do a better job of improving the economy and which cares more about the needs and problems of "people like me."

Polls conducted eight months before an election are not particularly meaningful. Undoubtedly the Democrats got a boost from having just gone through the primary process in which the Democratic contenders kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism of the president and his policies.

The Bush campaign, armed with a full war chest, has just begun to crank up its advertising.

The early indications suggest that the Bush campaign does not think its candidate is in any trouble in North Carolina.

When Bush strategists began their TV advertising in 18 states they view as competitive, North Carolina was not one of them. (You may have seen a few ads on cable that were part of a national advertising buy.)

Only three Southern states were targeted by the Bush administration with TV ads -- Florida, Louisiana and Arkansas.

Moreover, the Republican office-seekers, such as Senate candidate Richard Burr, regularly seek to tie themselves to Bush.

At a GOP gubernatorial forum in Fayetteville last week, Patrick Ballantine said the ticket should be the three B's: Bush, Burr and Ballantine. Dan Barrett said it should be Bush, Burr and Barrett, and George W. Little said voters should go for the two George W's. Richard Vinroot predicted Bush would win 60 percent of the North Carolina vote.

Clearly, North Carolina Republicans are not very blue about Bush's heading the ticket.

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