For months, Democrats have floated Roy Cooper as a potential challenger to Republican Sen. Richard Burr in 2010. Polls show him beating Burr. But now, the North Carolina attorney general has decided not to enter the fray.
Via the News & Observer:
Attorney General Roy Cooper has decided not to challenge Republican Sen. Richard Burr next year, disappointing Democrats who saw him as potentially their strongest candidate.
?While I am honored by the encouragement I?ve received, I don?t want to go to Washington and serve as a U.S. Senator at this time,? Cooper said in a statement. ?I am committed to public service and I want to serve here in North Carolina rather than in Washington.
Cooper, a three-term attorney general, has been aggressively recruited by both the state and national Democratic parties, to challenge Burr. He met earlier in the week in the White House with President Barack Obama. Cooper had closely looked at the race.
Cooper?s decision leaves the Democrats without a consensus candidate. Two of the biggest names in the Democratic Party ? former Sen. John Edwards and former Gov. Mike Easley ? are both mired in controversy. Attention could turn former state treasurer Richard Moore, who lost a race for governor last year; to Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker, and to state Rep. Grier Martin of Raleigh, who was recruited to run for the Senate last time, or Congressman Brad Miller. Two former Senate candidates include Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and state Sen. Dan Blue.
Congressman Heath Shuler, a Democrat from the mountains, has also been offered as a potential challenger to Burr, but Shuler has said he’s not interested. As for Miller, his liberal voting record would be a tough sell in a statewide race.
Who is favored to win that seat — a Republican or a Democrat — is anybody’s guess at this point. Burr has some paltry poll numbers, but some Democrats are doubtless concerned that ’10 will be a successful year for Republicans, and electoral history lends credence to that notion. Time will tell.
