The News & Observer of Raleigh goes the extra mile in crunching the numbers of Republican gubernatorial candidates and their budgetary promises.

We can only hope that pointing out the price of promises will become a trend that will carry over to Democratic candidates and officials this election season.

And in the “It’s all about the ‘x'” categorgy (subsitute any gruop here for political effect. ex: the kids, the poor, the elderly), the N&O explains how one GOP candidate plans to fund one of his projects:

He also wants to take $170 million a year from the state’s share of the national tobacco settlement, money that now goes to such health-care initiatives as a program Easley launched last year to help the elderly with the cost of prescription drugs.

The elderly? Please! Are you guys forgetting how the tobacco settlement funds state officials’ pet projects that have NOTHING to do with health care, tobacco, or the elderly – or the kids or the poor?