yesterday, i ske with carter wrenn, a long-time republican strategist who once worked on jesse helms' campaign and is now advising garland tucker on his s. senate republican primary run against senator thom tillis. i began by asking why republicans want to ld their convention here next august. >> i think that's an insider kind of political decision. they think, "well, we should have a convention in a swing state." demographic in north carolina changing to make it a swing state? >> you know, for years, we were basically a state where democrats outnumbered ree.blicans two or three to and that wked out all right for republicans because a lot of conservative democho split a ticket and crossed or. wh's happened in, say, the last ten or 15 years is the number of democrats has dropped and the number of independents has gone up a lot so that today you've got-- thesere approximate-- but 35% of the voters who will vote democrat, 35 who will vote republican, and 30 who were independent, and they split a ticket. and that demographic just makes this sort of your classic swing state. >> sreenivasan