The Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate has become the art of the narrative.
With few issues separating the major Democratic Senate candidates, the hopefuls have focused on their personal stories: the lawyer who goes off to Iraq, the Harvard-trained attorney who returns home, and the feisty farm girl who exceeds expectations.
Storytelling is always part of campaigns, especially as candidates seek to introduce themselves to voters. Biography becomes even more important when the candidates are not household names, as is the case in the Democratic Senate primary May 4.
On the campaign trail, it's hard to distinguish the candidates on the issues such as health care reform, jobs, the environment or criticism of Republican Sen. Richard Burr, the man they hope to replace.
But the candidates spend a lot of time telling their personal stories - or at least the part of their story they want the public to hear.
For former state Sen. Cal Cunningham, the story is of a Lexington lawyer who is moved by the Sept. 11 attacks to enlist as a paratrooper/lawyer in the Army Reserve, spending 900 days on active duty, including a year in Iraq, where he prosecuted corrupt contractors and sexual assault cases.
It is an image of public service and duty outside of traditional politics.
The story ends with him returning to the States at Fort Benning, pinning an Iraq campaign medal on his daughter and a Bronze Star on his son as acknowledgment that they, too, had served.
His run, he says, "was a commitment to them, to the next generation, that we have got to get this right now. We have got to solve our problems."
For Ken Lewis, a Chapel Hill lawyer, his story is entwined in the African-American journey. He talks about a generational photograph of his grandmother, who was reared on a Person County plantation and whose own grandmother was born a slave, with his own infant daughter, who lives in a time with a black president and a female governor.
Lewis talks about growing up in segregated Winston-Salem, going off to Harvard Law School and turning down offers from big law firms to practice law outside the state.
"I could have gone anywhere in the country to work after law school, but I chose to come back to North Carolina and be part of the change and progress that was occurring in North Carolina," Lewis says.
For Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, the story is about a Maryland farm girl who became the first in her family to go to college in part because of those in the 4-H Clubs who encouraged her. It is a story of spunk - winning a rural Eastern North Carolina district, beating NASCAR star Richard Petty and taking on lobbyists as secretary of state.
Her message is: I won't forget where I came from.
"My whole life," Marshall says, "I have faced tough challenges and defied expectations."
These are stories of patriotic duty, historic journeys and blue-collar pluck that the Democratic candidates hope will resonate with voters.
