Retired Gen. Wesley Clark is in North Carolina for Barack Obama.

The one-time Democratic presidential candidate appeared at a National Guard Armory in Monroe today and will speak at a Java Express in Sanford and a library in Rocky Mount Wednesday.

John Edwards came in fourth in New Hampshire last time around.

During the 2004 presidential campaign, John Kerry bounced back after being behind in the polls based on his first-place win in Iowa.

He won New Hampshire with 39 percent of the vote, followed by Howard Dean at 26 percent. Wesley Clark came in with 13 percent, and Edwards close behind at 12 percent, trailed by Joe Lieberman at 9 percent.

Edwards was hurt that time around by the fact that Kerry, Dean and Lieberman are from New England and had good name recognition.

History may repeat itself tonight. Coming off a strong Iowa win, Barack Obama is ahead in the New Hampshire polls, followed by Hillary Clinton. Right now, Edwards is in third.

How much did Jim Neal raise for Erskine Bowles?

The Chapel Hill investment banker, who is running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, says he doesn't remember offhand.

But he says it was a "big-ticket event" that drew between 50 and 75 people to his apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to support Bowles' 2004 bid for U.S. Senate.

Neal co-hosted the cocktail and hors d'oeuvres event with Jay Alix, found of a Michigan firm that specializes in corporate turnarounds.

The guest speaker was retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, who had by then dropped out of the presidential race. Neal had raised money for Clark and donated to his campaign.

Neal said he didn't know Bowles personally, though as a teen-ager he volunteered for his father Skipper Bowles' unsuccessful 1972 gubernatorial campaign.

"He was a hell of a guy," he said. "Everybody loved Skipper."

Update: The fundraiser was held on June 28, 2004. Tickets cost $1,000 to $4,000, and the event raised about $100,000 overall.

Jim Neal

On Sept. 1 of that year, the Chapel Hill investment banker gave $300 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, which handles races for the U.S. House of Representatives.

He said he gave the money in order to get on the group's mailing list.

"I want to stay in touch with what they're doing," said Neal, a lifelong Democrat. "I get all the blast e-mails from the Republican Party now, though they'll probably cut me off the list now."

He said he may have given to the National Republican Senatorial Committee as well.

The donation is a trickle compared to the $9,000 that Neal has given directly to Democrats, including U.S. Sen. John Kerry and Wesley Clark's presidential campaigns, Erskine Bowles' Senate campaign, and U.S. Rep. Brad Miller's campaigns.

He's also given $5,000 to Keeping America's Promise, a political action committee working to elect Democrats at the national level.

After the jump, a full list of his donations.

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Jim Neal says he has an uphill battle for Senate.

With no name recognition and a nationally recognized incumbent in U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, the Chapel Hill investment banker says he'll have to spend the next year introducing himself to North Carolina voters.

He's going to start at this weekend's Vance-Aycock Dinner, where his campaign will host a hospitality suite. He's also got a Web site up and running.

Neal also plans to take the year off from work, as he did in 2004, when he worked as a fundraiser for the campaigns of Erskine Bowles, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark and U.S. Sen. John Kerry.

He hopes to tap into that network of national donors to offset Dole's campaign war chest. He noted that former Gov. Jim Hunt also got out-of-state money when he ran against U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms.

"I'm a fighter," he said. "I'm running this race to win."

James W. Neal Jr. is a relative unknown to most voters.

The Chapel Hill investment banker may announce this weekend that he'll run for the Democratic nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole in 2008.

Neal, 50, is chairman and CEO of The Agema Group, a specialized financial advisory firm based in Research Triangle Park. He earned a bachelor of science in business administration from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1978, and a master of business administration from the University of Chicago in 1983.

In 2002, he was appointed to the Board of Governors of The New School in New York City.

In 2004, Neal raised money for retired Gen. Wesley Clark in the Democratic presidential primary. When Clark dropped out, he joined the John Kerry campaign.

He also donated $1,000 to U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, a Raleigh Democrat, in 2006. Miller had previously considered, then rejected, running against Dole next year.

Neal has been registered to vote in Chapel Hill since June 30 of last year, and he voted here in the November elections.

An excerpt of a news article about his fundraising after the jump.

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