Hunt won't be U.S. secretary of education

Former Gov. Jim Hunt says you can take him off the list of potential education secretaries in Barack Obama's administration.

He says he'll advise Obama on education, but has no interest in going to Washington.

Hunt called Dome on his way back to the East Coast from a three-day stay in Seattle, where he attended a Gates Foundation meeting on education. Obama education advisers were there, including leaders of Obama's education advisory board.

"I just spent several days with the top Obama people," Hunt said. "Many encouraged me to do it. I told them I would not go to Washington."

Still, Hunt said he expects to work closely with the U.S. education department from his base in North Carolina.

Hunt, a four-term governor, is the architect of the early childhood program Smart Start. He has since served on a federal commission on the future of higher education and is a founding board chairman of a higher education think tank in California.

'Godless' ad paid off

U.S. Sen.-elect Kay Hagan received 3,600 financial contributions within 48 hours of the "godless" ad aired by her opponent, Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole.

The controversial ad, which focused on Hagan's attendance at a fundraiser at the home of someone active in the atheist community, left some viewers with the impression that Hagan didn't believe in God. The Democrat from Greensboro immediately used the "godless" ad as an e-mail fundraising tool, and it paid off.

"We got responses from people who identify themselves as atheists and every religion under the sun who found that ad offensive," said Hagan spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan, who said the campaign hadn't yet calculated the dollar figure of the donations.

Before the ad aired, Hagan was leading 48 percent to Dole's 45 percent in an Oct. 25-26 poll. She won with 53 percent of the vote, compared to Dole's 44 percent.

Smith eyes GOP chair

State Sen. Fred Smith of Clayton may run for state Republican Party chairman next year. Smith, who unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination for governor this year, has been conferring with party leaders.

"I am considering it," Smith said. "By the end of the year or the first part of next year I will decide whether to pursue it."

The current chairwoman, Linda Daves of Charlotte, has not said whether she plans to seek another term at the GOP convention, traditionally held in late spring.

Jan. 20 ticket hunt

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican, has received more than 6,000 requests for tickets to the presidential inauguration swearing-in ceremony -- a number he can't possibly fill. So the office has closed its request line.

Each Senate office is expected to receive several hundred tickets, though the exact number isn't yet known. Burr spokesman Chris Walker said the tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Meanwhile, Hagan is receiving requests at a special e-mail address, tickets@kayhagan.com.

U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, a Raleigh Democrat, has received 1,000 e-mail messages and hundreds of calls, said his spokeswoman, LuAnn Canipe. The office will use a lottery to pass out its tickets, with a maximum of two per person.

Tickets for the swearing-in ceremony are free, but they are available only through congressional offices.

Change aids Saunders

Former Rep. Drew Saunders gets to start lobbying six months after he leaves office instead of a year after stepping down, thanks to a change in the law that he pushed through.

Saunders lost in the May Democratic primary to Rep.-elect Nick Mackey. He resigned his Mecklenburg County seat Oct. 31 to take a $110,000-a-year job with ElectriCities, a nonprofit umbrella group for municipal power companies. He said it likely will include lobbying. The state ethics law requires that Saunders not lobby until six months after he leaves office, which would be May.

That's six months sooner than the original version of the bill proposed in 2006. The cooling-off period was shortened, thanks to a proposal pushed by Saunders. At the time, he complained that the ethics bill "treats legislators like dirt." He also criticized the bill's ban on lobbyist gifts to legislators, saying, "Even the baby Jesus accepted gifts, and I don't think it corrupted him."

Saunders said Wednesday he "certainly didn't anticipate" his new job when he proposed the shorter cooling-off period.

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