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He voted early. And how.

Trevon Stapler is only 17, but seeing as he turns 18 by Nov. 4, the rules let him vote in the primary. So he did, for Sen. Barack Obama, in early voting at the Forsyth Board of Elections.

"A lot of people talk about it," said Stapler, who skipped school at Mount Tabor High last week to volunteer at an Obama rally. "But you don't know how many will actually go vote."

Stapler hadn't yet hit kindergarten the last time a Democrat who looked like him — Harvey Gantt, the African American former Charlotte mayor — ran a viable statewide campaign.

In 1996, Gantt was trounced by Republican Sen. Jesse Helms, the same way he lost to Helms in 1990, despite electrifying his party and attracting record turnout. He lost not in the cities, but in outlying areas, town by one-horse town from the western counties to the Big East.

The Dixiecrats were alive and kicking, and it seemed that there were some counties a black candidate just could not carry.

But demographically, a lot can change in 12 years. And psychologically, a lot has changed from just one year ago, when I sat at a table at Yvonne Johnson's mayoral campaign kickoff, hearing a 30ish professional explain why he and fellow black voters were lukewarm to Obama.

"When white people get in that voting booth, they're gonna go —" he paused, miming a person about to pull the lever for the Illinois senator, then thinking better of it, "Uh ... no."

Interestingly, however, it was black candidates precisely like Johnson, with localized, precinct-by-precinct victories in majority-white districts, who suggested to observers on the larger stage that old political ground in the South could be shifting.

Next door in Alamance County, Democrats similarly point to the 2006 election of State Sen. Tony Foriest, who is African American, from a predominantly white district that reaches into rural Caswell County.

"That was a huge thing for us," said Anna Gerow, head of the Alamance Democratic Women. "Alamance County is a very Bible Belt county. Race should not be an issue, but certain portions can't bring themselves to vote for a black candidate."

But for some white Democrats awaiting political advancement of women, the narrowing of the primary to Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton presented a quandary.

"I like that (Clinton) has had a lot of adversity. It takes a lot of guts to stay in the race," said Patricia Latta, a retired white schoolteacher from Mocksville. "The hand that rocks the cradle should rule the world."

For others, the choice wasn't so clear-cut. After voting Friday morning at their closest early voting stops, friends Robert Kelly and Kelley Griffith met for lunch in downtown Greensboro. Both are white, both retired English professors, but Kelly is for Clinton, Griffith for Obama.

"But I'd be happy with Clinton," said Griffith.

"And I'd support Obama," said Kelly. "I've heard more than one (Clinton supporter) say they would rather vote for McCain (than Obama), but time heals a lot of wounds."

But as retired Alamance legislator Bea Holt last week sat on the stage behind Obama at a Winston rally, it wasn't a couple of liberal college professors on the veteran Democratic lawmaker's mind. It wasn't black voters so taken with Obama they buy T-shirts with his face on them at the mall. It wasn't van loads of college students descending on elections offices in places like Greensboro.

No, what was on Holt's mind was everything in between, voters that get ignored — places that gave Democrats their 2006 victory with Howard Dean's small-state strategy.

"They've got to take the east. The east is Helms territory," said Holt, a white Alabama native and former John Edwards supporter. "And we've got to get this party together. Otherwise, we'll be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory."

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn@news-record.com