CORRECTION

An item Thursday in the Under the Dome column on Page 5B gave an incorrect figure for the number of Americans who are unemployed. The correct figure is 7.6 million.

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U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole says 4 percent is the magic number.

Speaking at a dinner with Wake County Republicans on Tuesday night, Dole stressed her proposal to spend at least 4 percent of the country's gross domestic product on defense, signaling that it would be a major issue in her ongoing re-election campaign. She filed the paperwork Wednesday to seek re-election.

Dole's proposal would require an additional $40 billion in fiscal year 2008.

Dole said that the military took a "procurement holiday" during the 1990s and fell behind on replacing aging equipment. She said that while the United States is building just one Virginia-class submarine a year, China is building five a year.

"The Air Force is flying planes that should have been retired," she said.

Poll shines on McCrory

A new poll suggests that Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory could be the best chance for Republicans to take back the governor's office.

Public Policy Polling surveyed 720 likely general election voters about potential match-ups in the governor's race. McCrory was the only one of the Republican candidates to hold his own against Democratic candidates Richard Moore and Beverly Perdue.

Here are the results from the Feb. 18 survey. Each matchup lists a Democratic candidate first and a Republican second:

Moore, 41; McCrory, 41

Perdue, 41; McCrory, 41

Moore, 40; Bill Graham, 31

Perdue, 47; Graham, 35

Moore, 39; Bob Orr, 30

Perdue, 46; Orr, 33

Moore, 40; Fred Smith, 30

Perdue, 45, Smith, 33

The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

Moore wants more debates

Moore wants three more debates before Election Day.

Moore and Perdue have faced off in a debate before the N.C. School Boards Association and twice on UNC-TV.

But Moore says that the UNC-TV forums are not "real debates" because they don't include rebuttals.

"It's not a real debate if there is no give and take between the candidates," he said in a statement. "We are running to be the CEO of the tenth-largest state and manage a $20 billion budget. Voters deserve to hear directly from the candidates in a format that forces them to go beyond scripted talking points."

Smith wins Wake straw poll

Fred Smith won the Wake County GOP straw poll.

At the President's Day Dinner on Tuesday night, the Western Wake Republican Club surveyed paid attendees on their preference in the gubernatorial primary.

Smith won 69 votes, McCrory won 43 votes, Orr won 28 votes, and Graham won nine votes.

Did Jones vote for taxes?

Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist campaigned across the 3rd Congressional District this week, saying that Republican U.S. Rep. Walter Jones had broken his anti-tax pledge by voting last year for major farm and energy bills.

Norquist said he had known Jones for years, and had sent letters and talked to him by telephone urging him to avoid voting for a tax increase.

Glen Downs, Jones' chief of staff, said the farm bill and the energy bill were major pieces of legislation, and only a small portion of the bill involved increasing revenues.

"There has never been a straight-up tax increase that Walter has voted for," Downs said.

Jones was one of the few fiscally conservative Republicans who opposed President Bush's two big budget expansions -- providing a Medicare prescription drug benefit and the No Child Left Behind program, Downs said.

Norquist said his campaigning was unusual.

"It is rare for me to weigh in on primaries," he told Dome in an interview. "Usually all D's are bad on taxes and all R's are good on taxes."

Miller: Stimulus not enough

U.S. Rep. Brad Miller supports the economic stimulus package, but says it's not enough.

At a meeting Wednesday of the North Raleigh Rotary Club, the Raleigh Democrat said he backs the recent legislation, which will send hundreds of dollars to the average North Carolinian.

"Putting money in peoples' pockets is a reasonable way to respond" to a recession, he said.

But Miller said there are "longer-term problems" that aren't being addressed by Congress, such as the 47 million Americans who are unemployed, the cost to states of paying for Medicaid and the $9 trillion national debt.

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