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GREENSBORO - Between stump speeches and coffee stops, Jim Neal spends his campaign day folded into the front passenger seat of a Ford Escape hybrid, shoes off and feet on the dash.

"I hate shoes," Neal said as the small truck pulled out of a parking lot and onto Market Street, hitting the road for a recent event in Davidson .

To some degree, all candidates for statewide office spend time on the road, talking to gatherings large and small. But Neal has embraced a road warrior mentality as a hallmark of his campaign.

The Chapel Hill Democrat is one of two leading contenders for his party's nomination to take on U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole this fall. To beat Dole, Neal said, he needs to practice in-person campaigning on a grand scale, winning over voters one at a time, hoping they will, in turn, win over their friends and neighbors.

"People joke, 'Oh, that Jim Neal, he'll drive and go talk to any group of three people.' You're damned right I will," Neal said.

To be fair, it doesn't have to be a group of three. Neal chats up just about anyone who will shake his hand , regular folks such as cashiers at a coffee shop, janitors taking a smoke break and individuals he happens to meet along the street. His campaign plans appearances in at least 70 counties across the state before the May 6 primary.

"It's very heartfelt," said Michael Lawson , a Democratic official from Charlotte who l eads the state party's African American Caucus . Neal asked Lawson to introduce him around the CIAA tournament in Charlotte.

"He insisted upon shaking the last person's hand everywhere he went," Lawson said.

* * *

Neal is a first-time candidate, but he's not new to politics. He has been a fundraiser for presidential candidates and raised money for the likes of Erskine Bowles , now president of the UNC system who six years ago campaigned against Dole himself.

Although he jokes with audiences that "If you want a politician, for goodness' sake vote for someone else," Neal has honed to a fine point the most quintessential of political skills: the stump speech.

Almost always it features early on the fact that his mother's family worked in Revolution Mill in Greensboro, that because of his grandmother's asthma his family moved into the McAdoo Heights neighborhood and his mother switched from the mill school to the city school system.

There, he recounts, she was teased as a "linthead," a derogatory term for mill workers.

"That incident in my mom's life is one I've never forgotten," Neal told the seven people gathered at Summit Coffee and Tea in Davidson a couple of weeks ago. "It's kept me rooted to where I came from."

For much of his adult life, Neal has wandered from his roots. His father moved the family to South Carolina when he was 16. Neal returned to North Carolina when he attended UNC-Chapel Hill.

After graduation in 1978, he went to Wall Street, worked for Goldman Sachs, got an MBA from the University of Chicago and later worked as an investment banker at firms such as Salomon Brothers, Bear Stearns and E.F. Hutton.

Neal plays up this experience in business, telling audiences he has insight into how the "real world" works and credentials as a problem solver.

He also talks about a less financially secure time in his life.

"I've stood in an unemployment line and had to look up and say, 'How am I going to get out of this hole?' " Neal told a gathering at Charlotte Energy Solutions, a store that hawks rain barrels, Segways, compost grinders and the like.

"That's something that a lot of people in this country have done," Neal said the next day, talking to Democrats in Catawba County. "But not a lot of people running for office would talk about it."

Back in his truck, he explains that those hard times came when he was in his 30s, after his divorce. Real estate investments he made lost their value, and he was a single parent, a stay-at-home dad raising two kids. Eventually a federal tax lien was placed against his home that took years to satisfy.

Although he laughs at being called a "wealthy investment banker," Neal is financially secure enough to loan his campaign $120,000 — the last such loan he can afford to make, he said.

His campaign operates hand-to-mouth, spending most donations that come in within days. He says it's unclear whether he'll be able to do the kind of television advertising that can be critical to a statewide campaign. T he presidential primary has pushed up the price of television advertising, and voters' attention is focused elsewhere.

Neal insists that he's investing instead in an "old-fashioned, grass-roots campaign," one that seems predicated on shaking every hand he can find as he crosses the state.

* * *

On his way out of the coffee shop in Davidson, Neal gets a reminder from his volunteer staffer, who was worried they would be late for their next three stops of the evening.

"This next one we can only spend 15 minutes," pleads Harrison Jobe , a Greensboro native and a UNC-CH sophomore.

"OK," said Neal, tossing his suit jacket into the back of his truck.

"Are you going to promise me — 15 minutes?" Jobe asks.

"I never make promises I can't keep," Neal replies, a smile crossing his face. It's a well-worn routine. Neal has become notorious with his staff for dragging out visits even when the campaign schedule demands punctuality.

Some of the time seems to get made up in missed meals. Neal claims to have lost 15 pounds since hitting the road in earnest late last year.

"I didn't have 15 pounds to lose," he mused. "Today, I've had one meal and too much of this," Neal said, holding up a freshly filled cardboard coffee cup at eight minutes past 8 p.m.

He makes up for the missed calories with stops at Bojangles. His penchant for the fast-food chain's ham biscuits might serve not only to bolster his calorie count but also to help establish his local culinary cred, fighting the carpet-bagging accusation that opponents can level at him.

"Well, you know, he just moved back here in '06," Greensboro state Sen. Kay Hagan, Neal's chief Democratic rival, told a Triangle television station this month. "I think I will have the name recognition. I've served in the state government for 10 years now."

The topic is a sensitive one because all Democrats in the race say the incumbent, Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole, has spent too little time in North Carolina.

Neal brushes off the criticism, saying he's always been rooted "in North Carolina values." And were he any other candidate, this might be the most challenging part of the campaign for him to navigate.

But the fact that he has a shot at becoming the state's first openly gay U.S. Senate candidate might just be trickier.

* * *

"It's the oddest monicker to have wrapped around your neck," Neal said of the "openly gay" reference.

Neal doesn't hide his sexuality, but it's not something he gets asked about during appearances much, if at all. And he would like to avoid being a "cause candidate," celebrated only for his sexuality rather than his policy positions.

The initial flurry of attention that being an "out" candidate brought him in the fall seems to have died down in North Carolina, but it's something that out-of-state reporters pick up on when he travels for fundraisers.

In one interview with the Village Voice that has become infamous — Neal says he was misquoted and his comments taken out of context several times — Neal acknowledges that he was married to a woman long before he came to terms with being gay.

"Yes, I was a breeder," he said, using a slang term popular in gay culture for heterosexuals.

Neal has told interviewers with gay media that he doesn't want people to vote for or against him because he's gay.

"It's not a good reason," Neal told the online site QUEERTY .

Still, the headline of a news release touting a group of house party fundraisers for Neal was titled "New Poll Shows Gay Candidate in Dead Heat for U.S. Senate."

Further down in the news release, he said:

"I've traveled all over the state. Voters want to know where I stand on the issues and how I'm going to represent North Carolina. They don't ask about my sexual orientation."

Whether Neal's sexuality will be a liability for voters is an open question , perhaps one only the May 6 primary can answer in full.

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker @news-record.com

Who Else Is Running?

Duskin C. Lassiter

Age: 37

Family: Single

Occupation: Truck driver

Political experience: None

Web: http://www.duskinlassiter4ussenate.com

What's the top issue that has prompted you to run? "First and foremost is these trade agreements. I'm seeing on a daily basis factories shut down all across the nation, and it is literally scaring me to death. Our infrastructure is falling apart because of this." Lassiter said that he has a $308 billion, five-year plan to make the country energy independent. It is based largely on making fuel from algae. He also said that he would personally go to Iraq to negotiate a peace settlement with tribal factions there.

Howard Staley

Age: 53

Family: Married, three children

Occupation: Podiatrist

Political experience: None

Web: http://www.howardstaley.com

What issues prompted you to run? "Everybody is talking about health care reform, and being a practicing podiatrist, I've seen what the insurance companies are doing. ... And if it's going to be addressed in Congress, I want to be part of the debate. ... Also, I have not been happy with what's been happening with the past eight years of the Bush administration, and I feel Elizabeth Dole has been a rubber stamp for all of that."

Marcus W. Williams

Age: 54

Family: Married

Occupation: Lawyer

Political experience: Candidate for governor in 1992 and the 7th Congressional District in 1996

Web: http://www.mww08.com (under construction)

What's the top issue that has prompted you to run? "The economy is tough in a lot of areas. What motivated me is my desire to continue public service. ... We need to do community-based activity in terms of the economy and in terms of crime, and I don't think the other candidates have a clue how to do either one of those."