Claim: “When I was superintendent of schools North Carolina was making real progress. We improved test scores more than any other state in the nation.”

Speaker: Bob Etheridge at Democratic gubernatorial debate Monday

Claim: "At the federal, we only get 92 cents out of every dollar we are spending to Washington."

Speaker: Bob Etheridge at Democratic gubernatorial debate Monday

The Democratic candidates for Governor will have three hour-long debates this week, each airing live on local television stations.

A few more letters on U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge's video moment with two anonymous young men who wanted to know whether the N.C. Democrat fully supports the Obama agenda.

Here is another batch of letters to the editor about U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge's confrontation with two young men armed with a video camera. (Watch the incident here. See Etheridge's apology here.)

Lots of letters, many in support of U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge, are pouring in about the congressman's confrontation with two young men with a video camera and a microphone. Here is a sampling, including some from out of state. You likely will see several of these letters in print over the next few days. What's your take on the video? 2 p.m. UPDATE: more letters.

We get more than 1,400 letters a month and have room to print fewer than 280. Sometimes we move letters into the publishing pipeline only to have them overrun by other things. Here are some of those letters.

In a meeting at The N&O on Wednesday, N&O political columnist Rob Christensen tried to get U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge to share just how interested he might be in running against U.S. Sen. Richard Burr (read the Dome report here). The exchange lasted for nearly five minutes, not to say that the congressman was evasive or that Christensen was overly relentless. See what you think.

Congressman Bob Etheridge is back at another Wake County school to announce new legislation.

Etheridge will be at Ligon Middle School at 10:30 a.m. today to call for N.C. school construction funding to be included in President-elect Obama's economic recovery package. He's touting how providing $448 million for N.C. school construction would create 10,752 jobs.

Here's the press release:

The school board will chat with the county's congressional delegation during a breakfast meeting today.

Rosa Gill, chairwoman of the school board, said that U.S. Reps. Bob Etheridge, Brad Miller and David Price have all agreed to attend. You can expect discussion about No Child Left Behind and federal education funding.

Don't look for U.S. Senators Richard Burr or Elizabeth Dole to be there as they didn't get invites. It's doubtful they would have been able to come anyway due to the GOP Convention this week.

Today's meeting is scheduled to start at 8:30 a.m. in the board conference room, 3600 Wake Forest Road in Raleigh.