Obama scolds Clinton for writing off N.C.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign says New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is "waving the white flag" in North Carolina.

In a conference call Wednesday, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs attacked a Clinton adviser's statement that North Carolina and other so-called red states are "virtually irrelevant" to the Democratic candidate in the general election.

"You have ... the Clinton campaign basically ruling out North Carolina in the general election and already waving a white flag," he said. "We believe this speaks to their weakness in those states as a general-election candidate."

He added that Obama would consider North Carolina "a major battleground" if he is the Democratic nominee.

In the New York Times on Wednesday, Clinton adviser Harold Ickes argued that Obama was winning states that typically go Republican in November.

"They're great states, but Idaho, Nebraska and the Carolinas are not going to be in the Democratic column in November," Ickes said. "He's winning the democratic process, but that is virtually irrelevant to the general election."

Obama gets nod

Another of North Carolina's Democratic superdelegates has endorsed Obama.

Joyce Brayboy, a Washington lobbyist, made the decision recently.

Previously, she told Dome that she would study both candidates' electability and their stances on health care and education before making a decision.

U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield and two other North Carolina superdelegates, Everett Ward and Dannie Montgomery, are also backing Obama. Charlotte City Councilwoman Susan Burgess backs Clinton.

One-party rule?

Supreme Court Justice Bob Edmunds is stressing his Republican ties.

Edmunds, who is seeking re-election, told Republican voters in Watauga County that Republican judgeships are being targeted by Democrats in the coming election, the Mountain Times in Boone reports.

The judiciary, he said, is the last area of government that has a Republican majority.

"I'm the one person standing between you and one-party government in North Carolina," Edmunds said. Judicial elections are nonpartisan.

Edmunds made the comments March 1 at a Watauga Republican convention.

Edmunds told Dome this week that he tries to remain bipartisan, but judicial races have taken on a partisan tone. Suzanne Reynolds, a Wake Forest law professor and a registered Democrat, is vying for Edmunds' seat.

"Every incumbent on the appellate level is being challenged by a Democrat, and we can't pretend that this is not happening," Edmunds said. "We're finding it very difficult to be bipartisan and nonpartisan when we're being challenged in a partisan way."

Reynolds said she is not motivated by partisan interests.

"I want to assure the voters of this state that there is nothing partisan about my decision to run for the North Carolina Supreme Court, and I am firmly committed to the principles of fairness and impartiality that should characterize the selection of judges," she said in an e-mail message to Dome.

Special delivery

Much has been made of the hand-delivered letter Gov. Mike Easley "chunked" from Carmen Hooker Odom, the former head of the state Department of Health and Human Services.

But who gave Easley the letter? The governor said Sunday that he couldn't recall who delivered it to him.

"This was hand-delivered by someone she knew down here, and I don't know who," Easley said. Hooker Odom now works for a New York think tank.

The content and timing of the note could be relevant in determining whether Easley violated the state's public records law when he disposed of the letter and whether the note from Hooker Odom played a role in the firing of DHHS spokeswoman Debbie Crane on March 4.

Crane said she was fired for advising Hooker Odom, her former boss, not to talk to The News & Observer about the failure of the mental health reforms she implemented.

Former state Sen. Fountain Odom, who is married to Hooker Odom, told Dome that he was the deliveryman. But he could not remember when he saw Easley.

"I've been in Raleigh two or three times lately," he said.

Asked if he knew what his wife wrote in the note, Odom said: "I don't read my wife's mail. Do you?"