By Aron Goetzl
Congressional Quarterly

Electoral votes: 14

Delegates: 62

Chairman: Ex-Sen. Lauch Faircloth

Hotel: Embassy Suites Airport (215) 365-4500

1996 Election:
Dole – 49%
Clinton – 44%
Perot – 7%

North Carolina has a busy election season this year, with an open-seat contest for governor and every state legislative seat up for election. And some in the state's 62-member delegation said this summer that they wished to receive a boost from a national ticket that included popular Tar Heel native Elizabeth Dole as the vice presidential nominee.

Dole grew up in Salisbury before heading for a career in Washington that included stints as secretary of the departments of Labor and Transportation and as president of the Red Cross. Married to former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican presidential nominee, Elizabeth Dole entered the contest for the 2000 presidential nomination but dropped out in October.

Norene E. Foster, a convention delegate who is the chairwoman of the Rowan County Republican Party and hails from Salisbury, participated in a petition drive this summer to drum up support for presidential standard-bearer George W. Bush to pick Dole for vice president. "We want a Bush-Dole ticket," she said.

Regardless of whether Dole ends up on the ticket with Bush, North Carolina's delegation still figures to play a prominent role at the convention.

Rep. Sue Myrick, the only North Carolina member of Congress who is a Republican delegate, is one of three co-chairmen of the convention's Platform Committee. As an anti-abortion conservative, Myrick is representative of the North Carolina GOP delegation.

"This is a mainstream conservative group," said Dan Gurley, political director of the state Republican Party. "It is a good representation of where the state is politically."

Not all of the North Carolina delegates are Bush loyalists, even though the state's May 2 primary took place long after the Texas governor had locked up the nomination. With delegates distributed proportionally based on the primary vote, 49 delegates are committed to Bush, seven are committed to Arizona Sen. John McCain; five to radio talk show host Alan Keyes and one to Family Research Council President Gary Bauer.

Yet state Republicans enter the crucial fall campaign "the most unified that I can ever remember the North Carolina Republican Party being," said delegate Linda O. Shaw, North Carolina's Republican national committeewoman and the secretary for this year's Republican National Convention.

The delegation is generally supportive of Bush's efforts to reach out to the crucial bloc of moderate swing voters that tend to decide national elections.

Patricia D. Smithson, a first-time delegate who is a small-business owner from the southeastern city of Wilmington, is an opponent of abortion, but said she does not want the party to spend its time squabbling over that one issue. "I would like to see people focusing more on what unites the Republican Party, and not on what divides us," Smithson said. Strong support of Bush is "one thing that we can all agree on."

But some delegates are not as willing to dismiss the importance of maintaining the Republican Party's longstanding opposition to abortion. Joshua Workman, a 19-year-old senior at Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, cautioned in June that Bush could harm the electoral future of the GOP if he were to select a running mate who supports abortion rights. It would be "insulting to the base" of the Republican Party, Workman said.

State Republican officials hope to capture the governor's mansion and gain control of the state legislature simultaneously for the first time since Reconstruction. Recognizing the importance of this opportunity, GOP gubernatorial nominee Richard Vinroot, a former Charlotte mayor, will not attend the convention as a delegate, opting to campaign in North Carolina instead.

Likewise, freshman 8th District Rep. Robin Hayes, who faces a tough House rematch with Democrat Mike Taylor this November, plans to remain in his district.

Sen. Jesse Helms, the chairman of the state's 1996 delegation, will not travel to Philadelphia. Former Sen. Lauch Faircloth, Helms' ex-colleague who lost his 1998 re-election bid to Democrat John Edwards, will head up this year's delegation.

NORTH CAROLINA NOTABLES: Former Sen. Lauch Faircloth, the delegation chairman; Rep. Sue Myrick, a convention platform committee co-chairman; David O'Steen, former executive director of the National Right to Life Committee; state Senate Minority Leader Patrick J. Ballantine; Charlotte Mayor Patrick L. McCrory; former Raleigh Mayor Tom Fetzer; state Rep. Harold Brubaker, the former state House Speaker; Republican National Committeewoman Linda O. Shaw.