CHARLESTON, SC – Erskine Bowles – former Clinton administration chief of staff, two-time candidate for U.S. Senate, and successful investment banker – is reportedly going to become the next president of the University of North Carolina system. The pick comes as no surprise, being telegraphed for months now, but it does come with some nagging questions.

There is no doubt that Bowles is qualified for the job. He has significant management experience. He has a wealth of personal, professional, and political contacts that could be valuable. He will no doubt prove a prodigious fundraiser. And as the son of a Tar Heel political institution (the 1972 Democratic nominee for governor, Skipper Bowles), Bowles need not pretend to understand North Carolina and appreciate its unique history and traditions.

So what’s the problem? Even among Republican activists in North Carolina, Bowles was considered not only a shoo-in but also a comparatively attractive pick for the job. Quite a few I’ve talked to in recent weeks about the prospect of a Bowles presidency at UNC, however, have taken the opportunity to grumble. Don’t blame Bowles or the Republicans – blame John Edwards.

Look at the sequence of events for a moment from their vantage point. Is North Carolina’s state university becoming a tax-funded safety net for failed Democratic candidates? Shortly after the 2004 presidential election, when Edwards and his charismatically challenged running mate got robbed of their rightful victory by an elaborate Republican vote-fraud scheme in Ohio (he, he), Edwards was offered a new job at UNC-Chapel Hill as the head of an anti-poverty center based at the law school.

Try as they might, university officials couldn’t possibly dress up this move as anything other than the use of a state campus to keep a Democratic politician in the limelight until he runs for president again in 2008. It even turns out that the one saving grace of the initial announcement, that Edwards’ poverty gig would be financed entirely through private donations, was about as close to reality as, say, his “Two Americas” spiel – that is, closer to fantasy. Only a few hundred dollars of private funds materialized. And, as expected, Edwards has spent much of the past few months campaigning in early-primary states and grabbing headlines.

Erskine Bowles is a respectable, perhaps even inspired pick to head the UNC system. It would be great if one of his first official acts turns out to be to eliminate a certain politically tinged expenditure at the law school. That way, there’s no need to change the system’s acronym to the University for Nesting Candidates.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.