The final weeks of a campaign are like the final minutes of a basketball game: If you’re behind, you start fouling.

Richard Moore is fouling Bev Perdue – hard. But nothing flagrant; it’s part of the game.

Cullen Browder at WRAL-TV asked whether Moore’s ad recalling a 1995 traffic accident involving Perdue – and the subsequent Highway Patrol investigation – is fair.

Yes. Anything that bears on a candidate’s character is fair game. And the clip in which Perdue says she could not remember whether she had been drinking – or “may” have had a glass of wine – is bad.

The ad could be damaging Perdue by implicitly linking her to the whiff (or stench, depending on your viewpoint) of corruption and criminal investigations in Raleigh. Shades of Jim Black, Thomas Wright and the lottery.

If you’re not in a campaign – with weekly and daily tracking polls – it’s hard to know what is really going on. And Public Policy Polling has everybody confused with the swings between a 27-point lead for Perdue and a virtual tie.

But Perdue insiders concede Moore has made the race “competitive.” She agreed Monday to a head-to-head debate, so her campaign must be worried. Up to now, they have screened her from one-on-one basketball.

Perdue and her campaign will have to hit their foul shots the next five weeks.

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