Former state Sen. Cal Cunningham of Lexington, who recently returned from duty in Iraq, is considering challenging Republican Sen. Richard Burr next year.

Cunningham, a 35-year old attorney, has been traveling around the state during the past two months speaking to Democratic groups, Rob Christensen reports.

"I'm having conversations with friends and fellow Democrats," Cunningham said. "North Carolina has a lot of needs right now. We have rising unemployment and a couple of wars. We need someone in Washington who is energetic and who offers compelling leadership."

The favorite of party leaders was Attorney General Roy Cooper, who announced Friday that he would not run.

Cunningham, a captain in the Army reserves and a paratrooper, returned from Baghdad in December after spending a year proscuting contractor abuse in Iraq. In 2005, he also served a year at Fort Bragg.

At age 27, he was elected to serve one term in the state Senate in 2000. But he did not seek re-election after he was thrown into a heavily Republican district.

His wife, Elizabeth, was deputy campaign manager for D.G. Martin's unsuccessful bid for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination in 1998.   

Cunningham was president of the UNC student body and later earned an advanced degree from the London School of Economics. He is a litigator with Kilpatrick Stockton in Winston-Salem.

Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue took some heat for unclear descriptions of her graduate work.

But what exactly is state Treasurer Richard Moore's degree?

The Democratic gubernatorial candidate has been careful not to call it a master's in conversations with Dome and on a resume submitted to the N.C. Forum for Research and Economic Education. So what is it exactly?

According to a spokeswoman for the London School of Economics, Moore earned a "Diploma in Accounting and Finance" in December of 1984.

The diploma was "intended to furnish a basis for further graduate work in accounting and finance," according to a course description. But it wasn't a degree, explained press officer Esther Avery.

"Like its modern-day equivalent, the Diploma was therefore a graduate qualification requiring a high level of performance on an exacting course of study beyond undergraduate level, but in UK Higher Education terminology was technically distinct from a degree," she wrote Dome.

After the jump, the full description.

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