Did John Edwards ask for Tar Heels tickets as part of his compensation for running a poverty center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill?

The Associated Press reports that an e-mail exchange between an Edwards adviser and a former dean of the university’s law school referred to a “ticket wishlist” for North Carolina sporting events. The e-mail message was one of two dozen related to the 2005 creation of the Chapel Hill-based Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity, which Mr. Edwards led until last December, released by the university in response to a public-records request.

Neither the university nor the Democratic presidential candidate would provide the wishlist to the AP. A campaign spokeswoman said Mr. Edwards, a graduate of the university’s law school, “inquired about the possibility of continuing to purchase, in the future, season tickets as he has for many years.”

Whatever the request, tickets don’t appear to have been part of Mr. Edwards’s final compensation package, which already has been made public. That Mr. Edwards would want tickets wouldn’t surprise Tar Heels fans – tickets to games of the top-ranked men’s basketball team regularly sell for hundreds of dollars on the secondary market.

The ticket issue is just the latest twist in the ongoing dispute between the Democratic candidates over public records and transparency.