Now that the Clinton-Obama tour seems almost certain to be making a stop in North Carolina, let's explore some local implications.

First of all, it means the Democratic primary turnout on May 6 will be huge. Nothing wrong with that. But it sure presents a challenge for candidates lower down on the ballot, because it means thousands of voters will be showing up with minimal knowledge about who's running for, say, district attorney or the Board of County Commissioners.

Informed or not, most of those voters, having taken the trouble to come to the polls, will cast ballots in those other races anyway.

So it'll be tough to run a campaign for local office.

In a typical Durham Democratic primary, a candidate has a pretty good idea of which voters to target for a campaign mailing of 10,000 or 20,000 brochures, because the same committed voters can be counted on to show up every election. Not so this time -- 2008 is turning out to be the year of the first-time voter.

(I don't mean to slight Republicans, but they haven't been much of a factor hereabouts lately. And this May, there will be little to draw them to the polls because John McCain got picked as their presidential nominee before North Carolina got a say in the matter.)

The last three primaries in presidential election years had turnouts ranging from roughly 27,000 to 34,000 voters -- about one-fifth to one-quarter of registered voters.

I can't guess what turnout will be this year, but I wouldn't be shocked to see it twice as high.

Just another crazy development in a fascinating political year.