Cal Cunningham, a Lexington attorney, announced he will not run against US Senator Richard Burr in the 2010 general election.
Cunningham, a former state senator, said he decided, “this is the wrong race at the wrong time for me and my family,” in a Nov. 9 press release.
Elected to the state Senate in 2000 at the age of 27, Cunningham received the Bronze Star while serving overseas as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. A captain and paratrooper in the US Army Reserves, the 35-year-old Cunningham received the medal for “exceptionally meritorious service to the United States” as the senior trial counsel in the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate, Multi-National Corps-Iraq.
He presided over the largest court-martial jurisdiction in the Army and helped in supervising, training and overseeing 27 attorneys and 70 paralegals, executing criminal law missions within the Multi-National Corps-Iraq Theater of Operations.
“I’m sure there will be another day and there are many other ways to serve,” Cunningham said. US Rep. Bob Etheridge, who represents North Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District, said he also has decided not to challenge Burr next year. Despite being heavily courted by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Etheridge said he still has much work to do as a member of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Cunningham and Etheridge are among the latest Democratic hopefuls to decline invitations from national party leaders. NC Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and Chapel Hill attorney Ken Lewis are two announced Democratic candidates who will vie the party’s nomination in 2010.
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