Visiting mayor touts power of N.C.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who was in the Triangle this weekend on behalf of Sen. Barack Obama, said North Carolina will be a "critical state" in determining who is the next president.

Speaking to reporters after a speech at the Young Democrats convention on Saturday, Booker said North Carolina will help Obama win the nomination, and it also will be a key state in the November general election.

Booker said that in his mind, Obama has already won the nomination, and he predicted Obama would be ahead by hundreds of delegates by the time the primary season ends. But Booker said North Carolina's primary May 6 may be when the rest of the country sees it as well.

"North Carolina is a perfect place to add an exclamation point onto a sentence that I think has already been written," he said.

Asked about Obama's successful courting of a number of North Carolina mayors, Booker said that has proven to be a successful organizing tactic in other states.

"Mayors have a direct connection to constituents," he said.

Judges have opinions, too

Suzanne Reynolds was working the crowd at the Young Democrats convention.

As a candidate for the nonpartisan state Supreme Court, Reynolds said there was nothing wrong with campaigning at a clearly partisan event.

"It's where excited voters are," said Reynolds, a law professor at Wake Forest University.

Reynolds compared her Democratic voter registration to her specialty of law, saying both are facts about her that curious voters might want to know.

"I think it's relevant that I'm a registered Democrat," she said. "Where candidates cross the line is when they characterize themselves as Democratic or Republican judges."

Reynolds' opponent, Supreme Court Justice Bob Edmunds, has stressed his Republican ties at recent GOP events.

Neal sets Carville straight

Jim Neal, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat held by Elizabeth Dole, called out political consultant James Carville at the Young Democrats convention this weekend.

At a private reception before Carville's luncheon speech, Carville met with Young Democrats and others who paid $50 a ticket.

The reception was closed to the media, but Neal and others described to Dome what happened inside.

At one point, Carville said that North Carolina has a great U.S. Senate candidate in Kay Hagan, a state senator from Greensboro.

Neal, who is running against Hagan for the Democratic nomination, spoke out from the back of the room.

"I said, 'We have primaries here in North Carolina. We don't have coronations,' " Neal said later.

He said Carville did not respond.

"It was the first time I've ever seen him quiet," said Neal, a Chapel Hill investment banker.

DMV deputy director resigns

An N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles deputy director involved in the controversial hiring of his boss's friend has resigned.

Jimmy Edwards, deputy director of the DMV's License and Theft Bureau, resigned March 14, a DMV spokeswoman said.

Edwards, 48, had been the bureau's director for four years and had been with the state since 1981. He made $99,553 a year.

Edwards was placed on investigatory leave last month after a State Bureau of Investigation probe determined that the normal hiring process had been circumvented when the bureau hired James Burgess for an emissions specialist position a year ago. Burgess is a childhood friend of the bureau's director, John Robinson.

The probe began after The News & Observer reported the connection between Burgess and Robinson as well as claims that Edwards told a member of an interview panel that had recommended a more qualified candidate to change the recommendation for Burgess. The other candidate, Hal Bunn, a State Highway Patrol mechanic who had been training service station mechanics to do emissions inspections, sued the state and received a temporary pay raise and attorney fees in an out-of-court settlement.

Burgess later resigned, and Robinson has announced plans to retire, though DMV officials say the two men did nothing wrong in the hire. Another DMV official involved in the hire, Purnell Sowell, supervisor of the Charlotte License and Theft office, also left the DMV, though officials have declined to say whether he was dismissed or had resigned.