Republican Scott Keadle considers issues succinctly — almost abruptly at times — believing his race for the N.C. Senate District 23 seat ultimately comes down to experience and trust.

Democrat Cal Cunningham is a self-described “policy wonk.” He puts out position papers on issues, and his whole educational experience seems to have been geared toward public service.

The men provide sharp contrasts in a hotly contested race for the Senate seat being vacated by Jim Phillips, a Lexington Democrat who’s retiring.

“I’m running a campaign based on values, values that will carry our community into the future,” says Cunningham, a 27-year-old Lexington attorney.

Cunningham speaks of expanding opportunities, protecting working families and making individuals and government more responsible. He places his educational emphasis on smaller class sizes, reading in the early grades and better school discipline.

Cunningham believes the state can help older, poorer citizens with prescription drug costs. He strongly endorses campaign finance reform and has taken a pledge to vote against tax increases.

Keadle also opposes any tax increase, contending that state government’s growth is out of control. He often blames Democratic leadership for burgeoning government, poor public schools, bad roads and involuntary annexations — the policy N.C. municipalities have used for decades to expand their boundaries and tax bases.

Keadle talks about a need for competition among schools, giving students, parents and teachers “more choice in what’s going on.”

But Keadle also has taken the offensive against Cunningham in this campaign, lodging a formal complaint with the Davidson County Board of Elections that Cunningham won’t meet the constitutional requirement of living for one year in the district before the Nov. 7 election.

Keadle’s protest of Cunningham’s residency fits in with his attempt to depict the Democrat as an inexperienced challenger, just out of school.

“I have been living in the district the last 10 years,” says Keadle, a Salisbury dentist and real estate developer. “Cunningham has not. I come from a working class family. Cunningham comes from wealth. Cunningham’s never had a job. When he filed for election, he had never held a job.

“I’m sure that he’s a fine young man, but he should have a job in the community before he has a job in the Senate. I feel most people in the district would agree with that.”

Cunningham says the residency complaint filed by Keadle late last week is not an issue. He always considered his permanent residence as his parents’ home in Lexington and only lived elsewhere temporarily as part of his extensive schooling, Cunningham says.

Cunningham has filed his own affidavit and supporting documentation with the elections board.

As for holding down jobs and coming from wealth, Cunningham smiles when he mentions his position as a “fry guy” at McDonald’s when he was younger. Before passing the bar earlier this year, Cunningham had done legal work for his attorney father since 1994.

Often during summer breaks and holidays, Cunningham worked in maintenance and drove a forklift for the family’s brick company. He also worked in the district attorney’s office in Alamance County and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Raleigh.

Keadle, Cunningham and Libertarian Larry Clark of Iredell County are competing in a district made up of 20 precincts in Rowan County and 15 each in Davidson and Iredell counties. Clark could not be reached for this story.

District 23 takes in all of Lexington, most of Salisbury, Spencer, East Spencer, Cleveland, portions of Mooresville and Statesville and communities such as Harmony, Churchland, Tyro and Mount Ulla.

As of 1999, the district had more than 93,400 voters, and Cunningham expects approximately 45,000 people to vote in the Nov. 7 general election, based on past trends.

Some other demographics on District 23: 55 percent of the registered voters are women, 23 percent of the population are African-American, more than 15 percent of the people are 65 or older, median income is $31,000 a year and two out of three people in the district have a high school diploma.

Cunningham finds it interesting that the district has the largest number of dairy cattle and the second largest number of chickens in the state, while only 2 percent of the population works in agriculture, forestry or fishing.

Cunningham supports farmland preservation efforts, started by Phillips, that aim at preserving more than a million acres of green space in North Carolina over the next 10 years. North Carolina is losing farm land at a rate as high as any state in the nation, Cunningham says.

In college, Cunningham served a year as student body president of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also served two terms as chief justice of the UNC Student Supreme Court. He earned his master’s degree in public administration and public policy at the London School of Economics and graduated from UNC law school last December.

Cunningham notes that the same publication that gave North Carolina an “A” for its ABC’s accountability program and higher standards, issued the state a “D” for its large class sizes.

Smaller classes sizes of 15 to 16 students can be achieved by a General Assembly that sets the goal and aggressively pursues it, Cunningham says. He supports stronger character education classes, mentoring and remediation programs, alternative schools for disruptive students and businesses partnering with schools.

Cunningham proposes a goal of having all students reading at or above grade level by the third grade. He also supports charter schools that are held accountable by the ABCs program.

On campaign finance reform, Cunningham says he is committed to changes, such as more rapid disclosure of contributions, the banning of unlimited soft money contributions and giving enforcement strength to the elections board.

The Democrat says more than 400 people have contributed to his Senate effort, of which 75 percent of the donations are $100 or less. “If we reform the way we run our elections, then our public officials will be more able to deliver the (other) reforms that the public wants,” Cunningham says.

Whether the federal government helps or not, Cunningham says the state can help with prescription drug costs for seniors by making it a priority for the 25 percent of the state tobacco settlement that’s earmarked for health care.

If Congress does implement a plan, North Carolina’s additional funds could serve as a “gap filler,” Cunningham says.

“We are not going to solve the prescription drug problem with simply more spending,” Cunningham says. “We have to have the pharmaceutical companies do their part and bring private insurers to the table as well.

“Government is not the whole solution, but government has a valid role in bringing together all the parties in this. Everywhere I go and talk to seniors, seniors are hurting.”

Keadle, who surprised many political observers in 1998 when he won the Republican nomination for the 12th District congressional seat, says Cunningham’s numbers won’t add up to much in providing seniors with prescription drug help from tobacco settlement money.

Keadle contends that dividing the money among North Carolina’s seniors will only offer about $48 a person in today’s dollars, and much less per year over the 25-year length of the settlement — $24 a person by 2008 and $6 a person by the final year.

“I’m asking seniors, ‘Are you going to count on this guy for prescription drugs?’ ” Keadle says of Cunningham. “That’s what gives politics a bad name.”

Keadle believes the federal government, not the state, will address the prescription drug issue. On campaign finance reform, Keadle says the matter has never come up during his discussions with voters.

Likewise, Keadle says, the question of a statewide lottery has not surfaced in District 23.

What has been “a very hot issue with certain constituents” in all three counties is involuntary annexation by municipalities, Keadle says.

A West Virginia native and former member of the Rowan County Board of Health, Keadle favors any tax reform that would make taxes lower, simpler and fairer. He depicts political cries for small class sizes and better discipline in schools as hollow promises that sound good but have yet to be implemented.

“If anyone out there is in favor of less discipline and larger class sizes, I’d like to meet them,” Keadle says. “So saying it isn’t going to get it done.”

Again, Keadle often returns to what he believes is the main difference between himself and Cunningham: experience.

“When we asked people what they thought was important, they said they want someone with experience who had lived and worked and paid taxes in the community,” Keadle says.

“I’m the only candidate who meets those qualifications. That’s a very low board, but I’m the only one who’s gotten over it.”