An independent ad campaign attacking Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is expected to air in North Carolina later this month.

The 60-second spot, called "Victims," will be aired as part of a plan to raise Obama's negatives among Republican voters, Time reports.

It is being spearheaded by a group of conservative activists led by Floyd Brown, who created the famous Willie Horton ad that helped derail Michael Dukakis' candidacy.

The ad attempts to tie Obama's record on crime to his handling of terrorism.

A narrator recounts the deaths of three Chicago residents in gang violence in 2001, when Obama was a state legislator.

"That same year, a Chicago state senator named Barack Obama voted against expanding the death penalty for gang-related murders," the narrator says. "So the question is, can a man so weak in the war on gangs be trusted in the war on terror?"

A second ad focusing on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants will also air in North Carolina.

Gantt backs Perdue

Former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt endorsed Beverly Perdue for governor on Wednesday. He did so, he said, because North Carolina needs "real leaders."

Gantt, speaking at a news conference in Charlotte, praised Perdue's commitment to health care and the environment.

"We need a leader who understands North Carolina values, who understands what families are talking about when they sit down at the kitchen table," Gantt said.

The endorsement from one of the state's revered black political figures should help Perdue build on her already healthy support among African-Americans, including an endorsement from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Black Political Caucus.

Perdue, who said she considered Gantt "one of North Carolina's great heroes," said she remembered being proud to watch Gantt in his unsuccessful U.S. Senate runs in the 1990s against then-Sen. Jesse Helms.

"In rural North Carolina, this urbanite, well-educated, sophisticated guy could sit at anybody's table and relate," Perdue said. "He still remains one of the great political leaders."

Lottery rides with NASCAR

North Carolina's lottery is getting into the racing game.

The lottery is hooking up with NASCAR, even going so far as to sponsor a Craftsman Truck Series race on May 16, to promote its games.

The lottery is also planning to introduce a new scratch-off ticket game that incorporates the Lowe's Motor Speedway "Beast of the Southeast" logo, do a live Powerball drawing at the speedway May 17 and sell lottery tickets at the speedway on two weekends in May.

Smith: Measure not 'anti'

State Sen. Fred Smith says a proposed constitutional amendment that he supported in the legislature is not "anti-gay marriage."

In several posts, Dome has referred to a constitutional amendment supported by Smith, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, as "banning gay marriage."

But Smith said that's not accurate.

He argues that the amendment would allow voters to decide whether to amend the constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

"There's a lot of relationships that that law would say are not legal," he said. "Polygamy, bigamy -- just look at what's going on down in Texas -- all that other stuff would be prohibited."

Smith said the law is meant to prevent a "liberal Superior Court judge" from overturning the state's marriage statutes.

"The law is not meant to be anti-anything," he said. "The law is a positive law meant to define marriage exactly the way it is in our statutes today."

Smith said that every other Southern state legislature has voted on a similar amendment.

No, not that Wisteria

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole is heading to Wisteria Lane.

But she's not going there to visit the cast of "Desperate Housewives." Dole is going to raise money.

A Dome reader sent us an invitation to a fundraiser for Dole and U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx -- both Republican incumbents seeking re-election -- on May 10 at a Mooresville home on Wisteria Lane.

The cost to attend ranges from $200 to $2,000.

(Peter St. Onge of The Charlotte Observer contributed to this report.)

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