from the Wilmington Star News

Doleful, you might say

When North Carolinians elected native daughter Elizabeth Dole to the U.S. Senate, many of us believed we were sending an influential celebrity to represent us.

Our mistake.

Only seven of the 100 senators are less influential than Dole, according to an outfit that calculates the effectiveness of Washington Honorables. Her junior colleague, Richard Burr, ranked 69th.

To be fair, Dole spent part of her time raising money around the country to elect Republican senators. It's no wonder she didn't seem to pay a whole lot of attention to North Carolina.

But as she contemplated the possibility that someone might challenge her for re-election this year, the senator seemed to remember the Land of the Long Leaf Pine. She even decided, finally, to oppose the Navy landing field that had the northeastern part of the state in an uproar.

Between now and November, we can expect Dole to be earnestly attentive to our wants and opinions. That will be nice, but it wouldn't be reasonable to expect too much from a senator who's less influential than 93 of her colleagues.