Third-Place Finisher Now Marshall Campaign Chair

A week after he endorsed her Senate campaign, North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall named attorney Ken Lewis her campaign chair on Tuesday.

The move is an effort to get some extra bounce from the alliance with the third-place candidate in the primary earlier this month. Marshall and former state Senator Cal Cunningham now are in a June 22 runoff for the Democratic nomination.

It also may be a way to change the story line a bit after the Cunningham campaign on Monday announced the endorsement of former Senate candidate Jim Neal (D), who came in a distant second to Sen. Kay Hagan in the 2008 Democratic primary. Neal ran a grassroots campaign that tried to appeal to voters who thought Hagan was too moderate.

While Marshall's camp has pointed out that Cunningham was picked to run by national party officials, Cunningham has worked to paint the four-term secretary of state as a career politician.

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/eyeon2010/2010/05/nc-senate-endorsements-tktkt.html