Every campaign, some fool candidate promises to campaign in all 100 counties.

Every time, I say: You’re crazy.

This year, GOP gubernatorial candidate Fred Smith and Democratic Senate hopeful Jim Neal are drinking the 100-county Kool Aid.

I’d like to put a lie detector on them after they go to, say, 60 counties. Ask them if they’re glad they made that promise.

I promise you they won’t be. They won’t admit it, but they’ll be kicking themselves – or the idiot who suggested it.

Now, I love North Carolina. All 100 counties. And I’ve been to all 100.

But some counties have fewer voters than precincts in Raleigh and Charlotte. It can take a full day to get in and out of them. And you’re not going to change many minds in them. The vote is always the same, year in and year out.

Every day a candidate wastes on the 100-county tour is one less day seeing more undecided voters in a bigger county. Or raising money for TV ads that go to all 100 counties.

Campaigns have finite resources. Especially time. The May primary is about 200 days away. And the clock is ticking.

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