Most Democrats are ambivalent about Brad Miller running against Elizabeth Dole – apparently including Brad Miller.

Miller sounded ambivalent in his interview with The N&O’s Rob Christensen. He even said, “A lot of my closest friends are pretty ambivalent about it. They have mixed feelings, including my wife.”

Well, Brad, that makes it hard to get the rest of us excited.

And it’s a daunting challenge, even with Dole’s low poll numbers and the prospect of a national Democratic sweep next year.

Justin Guillory with Public Policy Polling in Raleigh says Dole’s reelect numbers have run from 41 to 46 this year. That reminds me of where Lauch Faircloth was in 1997.

But we had an advantage then. It wasn’t a presidential year.

So I repeat my Senate trivia question: Who was the last North Carolina Democrat to win a U.S. Senate race in a presidential year?

Answer: Sam Ervin. 1968.

The problem is that Democratic presidential candidates run so poorly here. They drag down the Senate candidates. They usually get right at 42 percent. That’s what Dukakis got, Clinton got twice, Gore got and Kerry got.

So the Senate candidate has to run eight points ahead of the ticket. Jim Hunt ran 14 points ahead of Mondale in 1984, but that has changed. There’s more party-line voting. Democrats today do well to run 2-4 points ahead. That won’t win.

The only Democrat who can put North Carolina into that kind of range is John Edwards. Guillory’s polling shows him getting from 46 to 51 percent against Republican candidates in North Carolina.

Plus, the Senate candidate – Brad or whoever – will have to raise about $1 million a month for 16 months starting July 1. That’s a quarter-million dollars a week. Or $40,000-plus a day (if you work Saturdays).

I’d be ambivalent too.

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