RALEIGH -- Republicans and Democrats celebrated Labor Day by kicking off the county-to-county, household-to-household fight for political dominance of North Carolina.
Political parties, candidates and activist groups have been raising money and attacking each other all year. But the close of summer signals the time when voters start paying attention. Translation: get ready for mailboxes stuffed with campaign literature, prime-time commercials touting candidates and robocalls interrupting dinner.
"Traditionally, Labor Day, for lack of a better term, is the starting block," said state Sen. Phil Berger, an Eden Republican and the party's leader in the Senate. "The public really starts focusing its attention on the elections."
Both parties think the stakes are monumentally high. The GOP says that it has a national mood in its favor and that a slew of in-play seats in the legislature present the best chance in a century for Republicans to grab power in state government. Democrats say the 2008 election shows that North Carolina voters are on their side and that they can defeat the GOP if they can mobilize their voters.
"This is winnable," Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, twice told a crowd of more than 100 Monday at a Wake County Democratic Party rally. Marshall said she needs a force of volunteers to counter the huge war chest of her opponent, incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, who already has begun a television and Internet campaign worth more than $620,000.
Also Monday, Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group, hit Rockingham, Fayetteville, Henderson and stops in between to "educate" voters about the "big spending" records of Democrats in Congress. The goal of the tour is to mobilize, said Dallas Woodhouse, state director of AFP.
"Most of these mid-terms are about motivation and not inspiration," he said.
So to get ready for two months of campaigning, here are five things to watch:
The battle for the legislature is a statewide fight.
The legislature has 170elected members, and campaigns are usually low-key local affairs. Look this year for the district battles to be more intense and to attract more statewide money. Democrats have controlled both chambers for most of the past 100 years, and Republicans think they can take control of one or both by focusing on several key districts that stretch from the mountains to the coast.
National politics will be local.
The national mood has been anti-Democrat. National Republicans will focus on spending by President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress. That happens to be just what North Carolina Republicans were planning to talk about, which could give the message greater resonance, Berger said.
"The megaphone seems to be much bigger than it may be in other elections," he said.
Meanwhile, Democrats will be keen on reminding voters that a lot of them voted for Obama and other Democrats in 2008 because they wanted a change.
"A lot of folks have been disillusioned because things haven't moved as fast as they'd like," said state Rep. Grier Martin, a Raleigh Democrat. "That doesn't mean folks are excited about the Republicans."
The parties will try to out-organize each other.
In 2008, Democrats were much better organized than Republicans. They are working to keep that edge.
"We have got to do everything we have ever done," U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, a Raleigh Democrat, told the rally Monday. "We've got to start with all your friends. You know who they are. You know the people who are kind of wavering. They vote for Democrats sometimes, Republican sometimes. They need a little persuading. You need to talk to them. ... They need to understand what's at stake in this election."
Republicans, meanwhile, have begun a well-funded statewide effort.
Blame the other guy.
Both parties are likely to note the high unemployment rate and other negative economic signs. Democrats will say the economy turned bad when the GOP was in charge. Republicans will say Democrats haven't done the economy any good.
Your vote will matter.
Voters tend to care, and therefore go to the polls, during presidential elections. But whoever wins control of the state legislature this year will draw new district lines for the legislature and Congress. The power to draw district lines will give a 10-year advantage to the party that wins.
