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RALEIGH - Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue said Thursday that she would talk to her bitter rival from the Democratic primary about helping to manage the state's fiscal problems if she should win the election next week.

State Treasurer Richard Moore and Perdue fought a tough battle laced with personal attacks, including one in which Moore suggested Perdue might be racist. Moore has endorsed Perdue but has not appeared on the campaign trail for the Democratic nominee.

Perdue is now locked in a tight battle with Republican Pat McCrory, the mayor of Charlotte. In recent days, the two have argued over who best can handle the flagging economy and its impact on the state budget. Slowing tax collections are likely to force the next governor to find cuts, Perdue said.

"Maybe Richard (Moore) will have a role to play after the election," she said.

When asked if she was saying her former primary rival might serve in a Perdue administration, she said she had not talked to him about specifics. "I intend to have that conversation with him, because I think he's a good leader and a good man," she said.

Moore did not return calls to his office seeking comment Thursday afternoon.

On one level, the choice is logical. Moore is familiar with the state's finances, especially its borrowing. And he has served in the state legislature, so he is familiar with the somewhat Byzantine state budget process. But given the animus between Moore and Perdue during the primary, it is hard to imagine the pair working together.

A clip of Moore saying Perdue was "so typical of someone who has led the go-along, get-along club in Raleigh for 20 years" is featured in a television ad by the Republican Governors Association.

"I think she's desperate to get the Richard Moore Democrats back on board, because clearly they're split, and a great deal of them are supporting Pat McCrory," said Richard Hudson , McCrory's campaign manager. "To me, it's a typical Beverly Perdue pander move."

Only twice in the past 100 years have Republicans wrested control of the governor's mansion from Democrats. Both times came after bruising Democratic primary battles not unlike the one Moore and Perdue fought.

"That battle was so ugly," said John Davis , a political analyst who works for the pro-business group N.C. Free. "I can't imagine why she would say that, unless it was to suggest to voters that there is not a strained relationship anymore."

Davis pointed to a poll done in September by the conservative John William Pope Civitas Institute. It reported 31 percent of Democrats surveyed who said they voted for Moore in the primary planned to back McCrory in the general election. Dropping Moore's name, Davis said, may be a way to reach out to those voters.

If Moore were to join Perdue in helping with the state's finances, it would not be the first time he took a role in an administration after losing an election. After losing a 1994 bid for Congress, Moore served as Gov. Jim Hunt's Secretary of Crime Control and Public Safety.

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com