U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole's political action committee has received $848,615 in the last three years.

The Leadership Circle PAC is separate from Dole's campaign committee, so it can receive bigger contributions from donors. As a recent report and database from NPR's Marketplace shows, leadership PACs like it are booming.

Many of Dole's contributors are familiar faces.

Between December of 2004 and December of 2007, her leadership PAC received $20,000 from lieutenant governor candidate Robert Pittenger and his wife, Suzanne; $16,750 from former gubernatorial candidate Bill Graham and his wife, Shari; and $10,000 from SAS co-founder Jim Goodnight.

Other donations came from Raleigh lawyer Kieran Shanahan, CaptiveAire owner Bob Luddy, her husband Bob, Luther Hodges Jr., billionaire resort builder Kirk Kerkorian, Raleigh developer John Kane, and former Dole running mate Jack Kemp.

The Leadership Circle PAC also received money from other PACs, including the Progress Energy PAC, Wachovia Employees Good Government Fund, the N.C. Farm Bureau, and PACs for R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard Tobacco Co., Duke Energy and Federal Express.

Primary runoff elections are a Southern institution.

In a 1997 column, veteran N&O political observer Rob Christensen wrote that primary runoffs have been a "political fact of life" in North Carolina since 1915, leading to defeats for Luther Hodges Jr., Frank Porter Graham and Jim Gardner, among others.

At the time, the legislature was considering abolishing them.

Christensen interviewed Charles Bullock, a University of Georgia professor who studied 1,222 primary runoffs between 1970 and 1986. Bullock, the nation's leading expert on primary runoffs, argued they are the least-understood aspect of American elections.

Bullock argued that primary runoffs: 1) Were not created to disenfranchise black voters. 2) Do not necessarily hurt black candidates. 3) Keep Democratic- and Republican-controlled districts competitive. 4) Do not necessarily hurt the eventual nominee. 5) Do not always go to the underdog. 6) Are not chosen by a handful of voters.

After the jump, the full text of the column.

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