Wonder what the biggest political story of the week was in North Carolina, garnering front page newspaper coverage, prompting a national television appearance by a state leader, and lighting up the twitter world and blogosphere?

Maybe it was the fact that Census data shows that the number of children living in poverty in North Carolina has risen 19 percent in the last four years?

How about the emotional public hearings about the closing of one of the state’s three residential schools for deaf and blind students?

Perhaps it was the ACLU lawsuit against the state’s extreme anti-choice law that the General Assembly approved this summer or a contentious hearing about an important state anti-pollution program?

Maybe it was a report on the viability of the state’s pension system that thousands of retired state employees depend on? Or visits to North Carolina by two of the leading Republican candidates for president?

Nope, none of those stories were even close. The biggest political story of the week was about a dumb, clumsily told joke by Governor Beverly Perdue at a Rotary Club meeting in Cary.

Perdue suggested that we should suspend next year’s congressional elections so lawmakers in Washington can focus on addressing the country’s problems instead of worrying about next November.

Nobody can seriously believe that Perdue wants to put off next year’s elections. She can’t of course, even if she wanted to—and she doesn’t want to. She is just frustrated with the state of partisan politics. It was a bad, ill-timed, and poorly delivered joke.

But it didn’t matter. Saying the story went viral would be an understatement. It was flashed across the screen on the Drudge Report and Rush Limbaugh made it part of his monologue.

Right-wing pundits were claiming that the remark showed Perdue was a totalitarian dictator. One group called for her impeachment. Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger even appeared on Fox News to talk about it.

Former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, who has been running for governor full time now for almost four years, couldn’t resist jumping on the absurd bandwagon too, even though as the News & Observer pointed out he has frequently complained about “gotcha” politics, and repeated his concern as recently as this June on a right-wing radio talk show.

Former N.C. GOP Chair Tom Fezter said Perdue would not be the Democrats’ nominee for governor in 2012. The head of the Pope Civitas Institute wrote on the group’s blog that “Bev Perdue is finished,” as if they expected her to resign any moment. The next day he called people trying to put the dumb comments in perspective “apologists on the left.”

At some point, let’s hope that saner voices on the left and the right prevail. John Hood used the episode to attack Perdue as he often does, but not about her remarks—he correctly described them as a joke and he called that an “obvious fact.” Does Civitas think Hood, too is a lefty apologist?

Duke Political Science Professor and Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Mike Munger agreed that Perdue was not serious and said the reaction to her lame joke proved her point about how ridiculous the political debate has become. That must make him a Libertarian Leftist in the strange world in which the folks at Civitas live.

Munger’s right of course, but there has been little letup in the right-wing echo chamber.

Meanwhile, there are still 19 percent more children in North Carolina living in poverty than in 2007, the state is still closing a school for kids with a disability, and the courts will still decide if the state should interfere in the relationship between a woman and her doctor.

And, for those of you peeking out from the far-right-wing caves, the 2012 elections will still be held.