Raleigh, N.C. — In his latest television ad, Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton pledges to improve the economy.

"No more outsourcing our jobs," the Democratic candidate for governor says while looking into the camera. 

This is not the first time that Dalton has mentioned outsourcing this year, and staffers for his Republican rival, Pat McCrory, pounced on the line.

They sent along a document that compares investments Dalton disclosed on his latest statement of economic interest against a list of companies deemed to be guilty of outsourcing American jobs overseas by journalist Lou Dobbs. Dobbs made the list when he was still with CNN and was on quite a tear about the topic.

Candidates for office have to disclose any publicly traded company in which they have invested more than $10,000. 

We'll leave it to readers to decide whether Dobbs' list is definitive -- his career at Fox may color how some partisans perceive his work -- but we will note that it is roughly 9 years old at this point. Among the companies that overlap with Dalton's stock portfolio are software maker Adobe, Charlotte-based Bank of America, and retail giant Target Corp. 

"Walter Dalton shamelessly attempts to score cheap political points in a television ad while his hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock options tell a completely different story. North Carolina already has this kind of double talk in the governor's office and Walter Dalton offers more of the same," said McCrory campaign spokesman Brian Nick. 

McCrory's own statement of economic interest* list consulting fees in excess of $5,000 from Bentley Systems, a Philadelphia-based software company that is on Dobbs' list of outsourcers. 

"If Pat had put this in HIS ad, sure, fair point," Nick said when asked about Bentley. "Pat's not the one who is campaigning using this rhetoric trying to score cheap political points."

As for Dalton, his campaign says it is the Republican who is being hypocritical. 

"The McCrory campaign's hypocrisy is astounding," Dalton spokesman Schorr Johnson said in an email. "Unlike Pat McCrory, Walter Dalton's income and investments are an open book. Walter Dalton released his tax returns months ago, but Pat McCrory thinks his tax returns are none of the people's business. Pat McCrory has strongly supported the failed Bush-Romney policies that have sent and will send North Carolina jobs overseas. Walter Dalton has a real, detailed plan to create jobs in North Carolina now and in the future. Finally, Walter Dalton's salary is public record and his investments are publicly available and are independently managed by a broker. We still don't know how Pat McCrory has made his fortune."

Update: In a news release, Democrats that McCrory is also on the board of Kewaunee Scientific and cite a Charlotte Business Journal report of that company sending jobs overseas. 

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* An earlier version of this post said that McCroy didn't list any investments. The form does show he has investments in four companies: Duke Energy, Spectra, Tree, and Kewaunee Scientific.