The Man Who Won N. Carolina for Obama

News & Observer has a great profile on Marc Farinella, "the chief architect of Obama's victory in North Carolina."

In hiring Farinella, the Obama campaign put one of its most seasoned Democratic veterans -- and someone who once got a dead man elected to the U.S. Senate -- in charge in North Carolina.

Farinella grew up in New York and Chicago, the son of a social worker and an interior decorator. When he entered Chicago politics, he had a reputation as something of an egghead, in part because he held two master's degrees.

Eventually Farinella became campaign manager, then chief of staff, to Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan. In one of the stranger stories of American politics, Farinella helped Carnahan defeat Republican U.S. Sen. John Ashcroft in 2000, although Carnahan had died in a plane crash a few weeks before the election. Carnahan's widow was appointed to the Senate seat.