Pelosi grabs Carolina headlines

A week after a Republican "Fire Pelosi" bus tour rolls through North Carolina, Democratic U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi herself comes to South Carolina.
Pelosi, of San Francisco, will speak to the Charleston NAACP on Sept. 25.

Tomorrow night in Fayetteville, Republican Congressional candidate Harold Johnson will join national GOP chairman Michael Steele on the "Fire Pelosi" tour. Earlier, Steele will hold a similar rally in Raleigh with two Triangle-area GOP candidates.

Pelosi has been red meat for Republicans. Recent national polls put Congressional job approval as low as 21 percent.

Steele a hit with Meck GOP chairman

A lot of Carolinas' Republicans were pulling for Columbia's Katon Dawson to win last week's race for GOP national chairman. Not Lee Teague.

Teague, Mecklenburg County Republican chairman, was pulling for Michael Steele, the former Maryland lieutenant governor who edged Dawson for the chairmanship.

Teague invited Steele to speak at last year's Lincoln-Reagan Day Dinner in Charlotte. He also found himself on the same page. Both criticized a Republican congressman who dismissed his GOP primary opponent as a liberal.

"This shouting Liberal! Liberal! Liberal! stuff is not going to work this year," Teague said the time, adding that the congressman "and a lot of other Republicans in Washington need to get a clue."

Asked about Teague's comments at the time, Steele said, "We don't have the brand power to do that right now, so we need to come to the table with a better game. We need some common-sense solutions that speak to where people are in their everyday lives. So running around screaming 'this guy's a liberal' won't get you re-elected."

"He understands that we’re going to have to fight very hard to get the attention of the average voter," Teague said today, "and get them to understand that our solutions will make their lives better.”