March 9, 2008 -  There is an air of inevitability about state Sen. Kay Hagan. She has been recruited by the national party, her campaign literature includes the blessings of the governor, and she has earned her spurs at the legislature. "I'm the one with experience," Hagan told a group of Elon University law students in Greensboro one night recently. "I'm the one with ability to beat Elizabeth Dole."
But Jim Neal, a Chapel Hill investment banker, is hoping to change the story line of the Democratic Senate primary on May 6. He is running a grass-roots, Internet-heavy campaign as a fresh, nonpolitical voice that represents real change. "We present as candidates very radically different [choices]" Neal said in an interview. "Kay has been part of a process. She has been a politician."
So far, the Democratic Senate primary candidates have struggled to get attention -- overshadowed by a high-energy governor's race and a dynamic national presidential contest. The conventional wisdom among political insiders in Washington and Raleigh is that Dole, one of the best-known women in American politics, will be difficult to defeat.
A poll released recently suggested that more than half of likely North Carolina Democratic voters had not made up their minds on their choice to run against Dole, the Salisbury Republican who is seeking a second term. But among those who have decided, Hagan leads Neal by more than a 2-1 margin.
The Democratic Senate candidates portray Dole as an absentee senator. One Democratic activist, Hayes McNeill, even created a campaign button with a facetious AMBER Alert for Dole -- a bulletin for abducted children. But McNeill, like some other Democrats, has yet to be overly impressed by any of Dole's potential Democratic opponents.
"I don't think anybody likes her [Dole] much," said McNeill, a former Forsyth County Democratic chairman. "But the [Democrats] have not gotten any kind of visibility."

By Rob Christensen, News & Observer