Secretary of State Elaine Marshall must be feeling like the Rodney Dangerfield of Tar Heel politics these days. She can't get any respect.
Marshall, one of the Democratic Party's proven vote-getters, was among the first candidates to announce her intentions to challenge Republican Sen. Richard Burr in 2010.
But the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has become the banker of Senate campaigns, has virtually ignored her. It recruited Attorney General Roy Cooper and Congressman Bob Etheridge, both of whom said no. Now it is courting former state Sen. Cal Cunningham, an Iraq war veteran from Lexington.
The senatorial committee is important because it seems unlikely that any Democrat can mount a serious challenge to Burr without its help. The best guess is that Burr, as an incumbent with strong support in the business community, will have $15 million to $20 million to spend on his campaign.
Only the senatorial committee can raise the kind of money to make the Democratic Senate candidate financially competitive. Without the $11 million it spent on behalf of Democrat Kay Hagan in 2008, Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole would likely have been re-elected.
They seem to have several doubts about Marshall. She is not a proven political fundraiser. Although she has been elected secretary of state four times, she finished a weak third in her 2002 Senate Democratic primary race behind Erskine Bowles and Dan Blue.
Popular among Democratic Party activists, she has never been regarded as a particularly dynamic candidate.
There is also the age factor.
Marshall would be 65 if elected to the Senate. That is four years younger than Terry Sanford when he was elected in 1986, and one year younger than Dole when she was elected in 2002. Both Sanford and Dole entered the Senate as national figures that had previously run for president.
The recruitment of the 36-year-old Cunningham must be particularly galling to Marshall, who was winning her first election as secretary of state during Cunningham's senior year at UNC-Chapel Hill.
But Marshall demographics may be a powerful factor in next May's Democratic primary.
Her campaign estimates that 59 percent of the likely primary voters will be women, and of those voters, 75 percent will be 50 years old or older. This is a group that Marshall has been courting for 15 years on the chicken circuit.
"She is going to be formidable," said her campaign manager Thomas Mills.
The 2008 Democratic primary suggests that women have an advantage with Bev Perdue, Janet Cowell, Beth Wood, and Mary Fant Donnan all winning over male opponents by wide margins.
But the senatorial committee doesn't care who can win the Democratic primary. They care who can beat Burr. And if they don't think the Democratic nominee has a chance, they will take their ball and play elsewhere.
