N.C. is a close-race crucible

Ground zero. Bull's-eye. The front lines. Swing state. Battleground.

Use whatever term you want to describe North Carolina politics.

When the State Board of Elections meets Tuesday to certify the results of the 2008 elections, North Carolina will once again prove it is one of the most politically competitive states in the country.

The presidential contest in North Carolina was the second-closest in the nation. Democrat Barack Obama defeated Republican John McCain, 49.7 percent to 49.4 percent; only Missouri was closer.

North Carolina's governor's race was the closest governor's race in the country. Democrat Beverly Perdue defeated Republican Pat McCrory, 50.3 percent to 46.9 percent.

Only the U.S. Senate race was not particularly close. Democrat Kay Hagan beat Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole, 52.6 percent to 44.2 percent.

North Carolina is the toughest political neighborhood in the South -- in fact, in the whole country.

In the 1980s, only Minnesota had more close top races for president, governor and U.S. Senate. In the 1990s, North Carolina had the closest top races in the country. In this decade, only Minnesota, Missouri and Florida have had closer elections for the top offices.

North Carolina was polarized before polarization was cool.

A divided North Carolina only reluctantly entered the Civil War. The images that stick in my mind are those of Tar Heel novelist Charles Frazier's "Cold Mountain" -- the book and the movie -- where bands of armed men roamed the state shooting one another.

Even when the South was a one-party Democratic stronghold -- roughly until the 1960s -- North Carolina had one of the strongest Republican parties in the South.

Now that the South is a Republican pond, North Carolina has arguably the strongest Democratic Party in the South.

This is a diverse state. If you get in your car in downtown Raleigh you can be in the equivalent of Silicon Valley in 20 minutes, feel as if you are in Alabama in 25 minutes, and get a sense of Berkeley in 30 minutes. You don't have to leave the state to find places that feel like Atlanta, West Virginia or Harlem.

This is pretty close to a 50/50 state between Democrats and Republicans, and it doesn't take much to tip it to one side or the other. That means North Carolina politics are rough, tough and expensive.

Tens of millions of dollars were poured into North Carolina this year to pay for all those TV ads, robo-calls, mail circulars, storefront offices and battalions of campaign workers. Nearly every powerful interest group in the country emptied its piggy bank here.

Because the state is on the razor's edge, politics here can be mean. So one candidate is "godless," while another is old and out of touch. Another candidate, if you believe the ads, wanted Eastern North Carolina to be New York's garbage dump. One candidate, we were told, was running for "governor of Tijuana."

It was once said that Raleigh had more political consultants than any town except Washington. That is probably no longer true, but strategists who cut their teeth in the Tar Heel state worked for the presidential campaigns of Obama (Robert Gibbs), McCain (Charlie Black), Mitt Romney (Alex Castellanos) and John Edwards (Harrison Hickman). The strategist for Israeli prime ministers Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon (Arthur Finkelstein) launched his career in this state.

As it turns out, North Carolina politics are a good training ground for Middle East politics.