As a North Carolinian, it’s good to have the presidential candidates finally paying attention to our state … at least the Democrats. Yesterday, Barack Obama was here in Greensboro, and right now Hillary Clinton is speaking in the Cap City, Raleigh. As I was heading into the kitchen to make my lunch, I turned on the TV and heard Hillary tell a joke—in a way only Hillary can, with her usual … measured … cadence: “If you want to move forward, you put the car in ‘D.’ If you want to go backward, you put it in ‘R.’” Hmmm … what other words could the letters “D” and “R” represent to describe the two political parties? … And keep it clean!

In my neck of the woods there is no bigger or bitter basketball rivalry than Carolina and Duke. Allegiances to these two schools a mere 8 miles apart can divide families, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and fellow congregants. Some relationships within this rivalry are hard to explain. For instance, I have a friend who graduated from UNC, married a Carolina cheerleader, but has remained a lifelong Blue Devil fan. Go figure. A few take the rivalry to the extreme, including one Tar Heel fan who wrote a book on how much he despises those Devils from Durham (see Will Blythe’s To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever: A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry). Even former U.S. senator and presidential and vice presidential candidate John Edwards, a Carolina law school grad, once risked alienating potential voters by admitting to a reporter that he “hated” Duke basketball. But as we head into tonight’s regular season finale between the highly ranked Heels and Devils, a few days after UNC’s student body president was violently gunned down in a quiet, seemingly safe Chapel Hill neighborhood, we’re reminded that we need to put such things as the Carolina-Duke rivalry in perspective. As UNC head coach Roy Williams told his team before practice Thursday: “This is just a basketball game. It’s a big game, it’s a game that’s going to get a lot of attention, but it’s still a game. …”

North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr told the Associated Press today that if asked he’d accept the vice president slot on a John McCain ticket. “You’re not going to say ‘no’ to a future president,” the 52-year-old first-term Republican said in an interview. Burr, who won John Edwards’ open Senate seat in 2004 and had previously served five terms in the U.S. House, added that although he has been seen alongside McCain on the campaign trail, the two have not formally discussed teaming up.

Here’s an historical tidbit from the AP: “Burr also has some vice presidential blood. He’s a distant cousin of Aaron Burr, who nearly became the nation’s third president before taking the vice presidency behind Thomas Jefferson.”