News-Record.com

Over at the Decision 2008 blog I have a post recapping the spin from Friday's U.S. Senate debate. When I get it, I'll post a link to the story I wrote from the forum, which will have more of the substance. Update: Click here for Saturday's story.

In the story, I noted the following from Lumberton lawyer Marcus Williams:

On a question regarding campaign finance, Williams expressed frustration with being relegated by the media to a second tier of candidates.

"Print media arbitrarily decide that if you're wallet is big, you're a leading candidate," Williams said, suggesting there be "standards for the media to provide parity of coverage."

Now Williams has a point, to a point. In the same story I wrote of State Sen. Kay Hagan and Jim Neal:

Hagan and Neal are the front-runners in the race by virtue of their campaign organizations, fund-raising and relatively widespread name recognition compared with the three other Democrats in the race.

Lexington trucking company owner Duskin Lassiter, Moncure podiatrist Howard Staley and Lumberton lawyer Marcus Williams are also in the race to challenge the likely Republican nominee, incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Dole.

So, what gives? Are we nasty print reporters trying to pre-determine the outcome of the election? Do we just not like some candidates?

Well, no.

The election season was already nuts before the American people decided they wanted the presidential primary to continue into May. Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are going to suck up all kinds of time and attention that was already in scarce supply.

In the print industry: space in the newspaper is a dwindling commodity, compared to where it was several years ago. Also, you may have noticed, there aren't as many print reporters around and by goodness you readers seems to have a lot on your plates as well.

All of that calls for some judicious thinking and allocation of resources. Given unlimited time, space and manpower, everyone would get the same volume of coverage and that would be great. But we don't have unlimited amounts of anything so choices have to be made.

Profiles of the candidates I have coming for this Sunday are a good example. I spent a considerable amount of time with Hagan and Neal. I spent a day or two on the road with each, I've chatted with each on the phone a bunch. They're both getting a share of A1. The other three candidates are getting much shorter shrift.

So how is it that folks like Lassiter, Staley and Williams get assigned to a second tier of candidates? It seems a little unfair, but there are some objective measures that people in my business use:

• * Money - ability to operate factor. No, money isn't everything. But you've got to have a little of it to run a statewide campaign. There's simply no way to shake hands with every voter in the state and free media (newspaper and broadcast coverage) will only get you so far.

  Money can buy advertising, organization, yard signs, and all the other stuff that helps a campaign work.

  As of my last check with the FEC: Williams had not filed a report that I could find. Lassiter had raised a total of $635, $600 of which he dontated to himself. Staley had $100 cash on hand.

• * Money - indicator of confidence. When someone donates to a campaign, they're indicating support. Lots of donors means lots of supporters. Large money donations means that supporters with bucks have a high degree of confidence in the campaign.

  Think of it like stock. People put their money into a campaign because they see it as a good investment that will pay off in a successful candidate. (Yeah, I know, the whole buying and selling of political powers is creepy, but leave that for another day. We're talking tactics, not ethics, here.) If you've not had anyone to invest in your campaign, that's essentially a sign of low investor confidence.

• * Time. Hagan and Neal are pretty much campaigning full time right now. They're doing more events and town hall meetings that I can keep up with.

  The other three candidates are still working at their day jobs. There's nothing wrong with that, but Lassiter told me in an interview before the debate that he's working 70 hours a week at his business. That doesn't leave a whole lot of time for campaigning relative to someone who is going 24/7.

• * Staff. Hagan and Neal have a blend of professional and volunteer staff that organize meet-and-greets, run the website, spin reporters, network, fundraise and do all the grunt work of a campaign.

  The other three have some of that, but their organizations are a relative handful of folks with relatively little experience in this kind of fight. Hagan is rolling with DSCC-vetted staffers and Neal has hired an outside consultant with experience running "outsider" campaigns.

• * Endorsements. I'm not of the camp that says endorsements swing big blocks of voters. But when candidates go through a politically-interested group's vetting process and come out with a seal of approval, that's a good sign. Neal and Hagan have between them virtually every endorsement of consequence so far this campaign.

• * Web presence. Hagan and Neal both have pretty good, full featured websites. Neal had his up longer and has probably developed it a bit more, but both are respectable.

  Williams' site has no content as of Friday. Lassiter has lots of detail on his proposals up, but is light on the web 2.0 features that Internet hipsters crave these days. The same is pretty much true of Staley's site.

• * Polling. Polls aren't always on point, as we learned in New Hampshire this year. And the polls done in North Carolina don't all agree numbers-wise. But they do agree on this much: Hagan and Neal have sizeable chunks of the population with the other three candidates trailing.

• * X-factor. Are the campaigns doing something outside all the conventional measures that's getting attention? Are they so strong on one measure that they are making up for weakness on others.

  Think Larry Kissell here. The guy was short on cash but had so robust a web presence and grass-roots support it made up for a lot in his campaign against Robin Hayes. I haven't seen an X-factor indicator in the U.S. Senate campaign.

• * Letters, e-mails, postings, etc... Candidates with vocal supporters tend to have their names show up in the Letters to the Editor columns of newspapers, get traffic on sites like Facebook, and have those who surrogate for them on blogs and other forums.

No one of those indicators would be enough for me to make a judgment on a candidate. But taken together, they're a pretty powerful group of indicators and go a long way to explaining why candidates get grouped like they do.

And that is not to say that Lassiter, Williams and Staley are not in earnest. They are. They're thoughtful men with a grasp on the issues of the day. Mr. Romoser over at Trail Mix put it well back when John Ross Hendrix was still in the race and Williams was not:

The little-known trio may not have Elizabeth Dole quaking in her boots just yet. But these are serious men who, in interviews last week, showed a sophisticated understanding of the issues facing the nation.

But that only gets a candidate so far. They have to be able to translate those smarts into a campaign that wins votes.