When the national Democratic Party poured a whopping $6.5 million into her campaign, Kay Hagan was shocked. Just shocked. She knew nothing about it. The millions of dollars that fell from the sky like manna from heaven were a complete surprise.

But, now, Beverly Perdue has done her one better. After raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in PAC money over the last ten years, and out-raising Pat McCrory with PACs six to one this election, Ms. Perdue turned around and slammed McCrory – for raising money from PACs.

Next, when the national Republican Party set up a political committee – and gave it $400,000 to help McCrory – Ms. Perdue slammed away at the perfidy of a national group sticking its nose into North Carolina politics.

Well, before you can say “jiminy cricket”, the national Democratic Party up and poured $750,000 into Perdue’s campaign, through a front group. And like Ms. Hagan, Ms. Perdue was struck dumb. She had no idea that $750,000 was about to fall into her lap.

Now, the Democratic Party – or, to be more precise, its wing called the Democratic Governors Association – didn’t exactly (at least according to Attorney General and Perdue supporter Roy Cooper) violate North Carolina’s election laws – but they played pretty fast and loose with them. They had their ads on the air before even bothering to file a disclosure report with the State Board of Elections – and when they finally did get around to filing we didn’t learn much. The NEA, a national union – trumping all the money PACs have given McCrory – ponied up $250,000 for Perdue. And the Democratic Governors Association plunked down another $500,000. And there’s no way to tell exactly where that $500,000 came from. Money rolled into the D.G.A.’s coffers and a piece of it rolled out to Perdue (reminiscent of the old Jim Black switcheroo, where the former House Speaker routed corporate contributions to Washington, which returned to North Carolina in the form of attacks on Republicans).

So here’s the picture. Ms. Perdue’s new friends in Washington are running negative ads saying McCrory’s against the poor, against education and for giving pay raises to politicians. (The little problem here is McCrory never voted for the Charlotte City Council pay raise cited in the D.G.A.’s ad.) And Ms. “I’ll never run another negative ad” Perdue and Kay Hagan are in the fox hole with Sergeant Schultz from Hogan’s Heroes saying, “I know nutink!”

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