Wednesday Gorp

Bits and pieces from Wednesday’s campaign trail:

—Hillary Clinton announced a North Carolina “leadership council” made up of more than 160 prominent Clinton supporters in the state. The list is full of old-line Democrats with strong ties to former Gov. Jim Hunt and the business community. It includes X people from Forsyth County: Bert Bennett, Janet Bennett, John Bennett, Kimberly Clark, Tom Lambeth, Ashley Thrift, Julianne Thrift and Emily Herring Wilson.

—Elizabeth Edwards, in an interview with ABC News, praised Clinton’s health care plan as superior to Barack Obama’s. That might be the closest that she or John Edwards come to making an endorsement in the Democratic primary.

—Kay Hagan is running her first TV ad in the race for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. The ad, which you can view here, is about her roots in North Carolina.

—The Republican primary for governor, which has generally been quite tame, got a little feistier when Bob Orr sharply criticized Pat McCrory over McCrory’s record on immigration. Orr said that McCrory, as mayor of Charlotte, has allowed illegal immigrants to work on city projects. McCrory responded with a statement from Congresswoman Sue Myrick and Mecklenburg County Sheriff Jim Pendergraph saying that McCrory was instrumental in setting up the so-called 287(g) program, which gives local authorities more power to enforce immigration laws.

—The N.C. Democratic Party announced provisions for the public to attend the proposed April 27 debate in Raleigh between Clinton and Obama.