RALEIGH – Candidates for federal and state offices are spending Labor Day revving up for their last lap around the primary track. Here are some things to look for as the pack of cars pass you by.
First of all, be very surprised if the Senate race looks like a pack. Perhaps it was inevitable that Elizabeth Dole would pull far ahead by now, given her national status as a celebrity, power-couple spouse, and prodigious fundraiser. She’s raised nearly $10 million so far in the campaign, and has spent much of it already on travel, polling, ad production, and lots and lots of consultants. Lexington attorney Jim Snyder has wisely not tossed a huge amount of his own funds into what appears to be a futile challenge. Expect to see him again in a couple of years.
On the Democratic side, I fear that Rep. Dan Blue and Secretary of State Elaine Marshall just don’t have what it takes under the hood to gun past Erskine Bowles in the last week. I say “fear” because I had thought things might be tighter by now. In a low-turnout primary without a runoff, Blue still has a chance to make it a photo finish – but I’m not sure how that happens with the modest ad buy he apparently had in the offing over the next few days.
More unpredictable are the U.S. House races. Democratic primaries in the 1st, the 8th, and the 13th districts are simply too close to call. Only in the 8th is there someone that can legitimately be called a frontrunner – former state Rep. Billy Richardson of Fayetteville – but reportedly Charlotte attorney Chris Kouri is closing.
Across the state, a variety of interesting legislative primaries have drawn little public or media interest, given the tight time frame, the never-ending legislative session, and the attention paid to federal races. There are exceptions, such as the spectacles of liberal Democrat vs. even-more-liberal Democrat in Chapel Hill (Sens. Howard Lee and Ellie Kinnaird, respectively) and conservative Republican vs. even-more-conservative Republican (Sens. Ken Moore and Virginia Foxx, respectively). Even other incumbent matchups haven’t amounted to much news, such as the Bob Shaw-Phil Berger Republican Senate primary in the Triad or the Edd Nye-Nurham Warwick Democratic House primary in the Southeast corner of the state.
I’m going to be looking at several things as the week progresses. First, as I travel to Wilmington Tuesday and Winston-Salem Wednesday, I’ll be looking for print ads and yard signs and listening to a variety of radio stations for radio ads. This may be particularly revealing in the 13th Congressional District, where candidates are running in a new district where they are mostly unfamiliar (and where most voters are unaware that they are in the new district). Second, I’ll be looking for some last-minute dirt, perhaps in the Senate race but more likely in legislative contests. Finally, I’m going to look at the TV schedule for the week and see how much 9/11 retrospective programming there is. My theory is that overkill (which is entirely possible) will induce voters to switch to cable or movie channels, disadvantaging those who have bet heavily on a last-minute television blitz.
As we saw in the 2000 election, TV is a valuable asset for a campaign, but it can be overused. Gore closed the gap with Bush over the last weekend of the campaign with a carefully orchestrated strategy of telephone calls and grassroots organization. Plus, a supporter leaked the Bush DWI story in the last days, knocking the Republicans back on their heels. Believe me, the political professionals noticed all this.