With NC Attorney General Roy Cooper formally declining the opportunity to smack GOP Sen. Richard Burr in 2010, the list of possible contenders to take his place on the ballot is fairly lengthy. One possible contender, former state Senator Cal Cunningham, is already talking about running:
Former state Sen. Cal Cunningham of Lexington, who recently returned from duty in Iraq, is considering challenging Republican Sen. Richard Burr next year.
Cunningham, a 35-year old attorney, has been traveling around the state during the past two months speaking to Democratic groups, Rob Christensen reports.
"I'm having conversations with friends and fellow Democrats," Cunningham said. "North Carolina has a lot of needs right now. We have rising unemployment and a couple of wars. We need someone in Washington who is energetic and who offers compelling leadership."
The News & Observer has more on Cunningham's background:
Cunningham, a captain in the Army reserves and a paratrooper, returned from Baghdad in December after spending a year proscuting contractor abuse in Iraq. In 2005, he also served a year at Fort Bragg.
At age 27, he was elected to serve one term in the state Senate in 2000. But he did not seek re-election after he was thrown into a heavily Republican district.
His wife, Elizabeth, was deputy campaign manager for D.G. Martin's unsuccessful bid for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination in 1998.
Cunningham was president of the UNC student body and later earned an advanced degree from the London School of Economics. He is a litigator with Kilpatrick Stockton in Winston-Salem.
Not a bad profile, though it's a shame that his career in elected office was cut short. His professional profile is available here. Undoubtedly, though, Cunningham is just one of many Democrats in North Carolina giving the race a long look. (N&O has much more on that here.) Hopefully the field will sort itself out over the next couple of months.
