Can Cannon beat McCrory? 

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And in a place like Charlotte, where unscripted shakeups are frowned upon, Cannon may have a hard time making the case to some donors that it's time for a major mayoral showdown.

"It's always very hard when you've got an incumbent like Pat McCrory who hasn't done anything seriously wrong," said Arrington. "When you go to the people in the business community and say, 'I want to run for mayor," they say, 'We have a mayor. What do we need you for?' That's very difficult to deal with."

Cannon, however, has other possible sources of money for a campaign. The state Democratic Party has been targeting City Council and mayor's races statewide in the past few years. Party Communications Director Schorr Johnson says the state party has helped Democrats win mayor's races in seven of the eight largest cities in the state, and would likely put money into a competitive race in Charlotte, though how much is unknown.

Local Democratic strategist Tom Chumley says the state party hasn't backed McCrory's previous Democratic competitors because they weren't considered to be serious candidates who could win. Neither did the local party. But if Cannon decides to go for it, both would pull out all the stops to help him win, says Chumley.

"We'll finally put out a really, really strong effort for our mayoral candidate," said Chumley.

Exactly what a strong effort by the party would look like in an off-year election, no one knows. Every Democrat CL talked to for this article, including Cannon, insisted that raising money for what would likely be the hottest race the city has seen in a decade wouldn't be a problem. But so far, no one has been able to specify exactly where that money would come from. Sure, Cannon has raised $120,000 for council races in the past. But he'd need quite a bit more than that to beat the mayor.

"I think that Mayor McCrory has shown in the past that he has the capacity to raise a couple hundred thousand dollars pretty easily without a big-name competitor," says Republican at-large City Council member Pat Mumford, who admits that he, too, might one day like to occupy the mayor's office. "So if Cannon steps up and gets a lot of press, I think McCrory uses that to fuel his fire to go out and raise a lot of money. Raising money doesn't guarantee a win, but McCrory's name ID is just astronomical. That's hard to overcome."

Money aside, however, the local Democratic Party did spend the last year going door to door, making personal contact with voters and building an impressive voter turnout machine, which they used effectively in the fall. With enough money, that kind of organization could go a long way.

Is it even worth it?
As always, there's the complicating issue of race, which could work for and against both candidates. McCrory and Cannon are moderate politicians who've done well among moderate white Democratic voters — the same voters who have on occasion been known to go with the white guy over the black guy, in the process derailing the careers of more than one African-American politician.

Then again, as Chumley points out, McCrory's challengers have been so weak, the mayor has actually been getting 10 to 15 percent of the vote in precincts that are heavily African-American. Most of those votes would likely go to Cannon in a mayor's race, he says.

But no matter how many scenarios Democratic and Republican strategists paint about a potential race, they always wind up back at the city's racial demographics. If black voters really want an African-American mayor, they've got the numbers to put one in office if they show up at the polls. And as each year passes, if their numbers continue to grow as they have over the last decade, fewer and fewer African-American voters will have to show up to vote to impact city races.

Even if Cannon were to lose to McCrory, as long as the race is close, the face of Charlotte politics would inevitably change. Because McCrory has always had weak opponents, no one knows exactly how vulnerable he is to a serious challenge. It's not a secret that there has been talk among voters of possible McCrory burnout. If Cannon gets close, it would show other Democrats exactly what it would take to beat McCrory, and perhaps encourage them to come out of the woodwork.

Some, like Chumley, think Cannon has a good shot at a mayoral win. "It'd be a 50/50 race," he said.

But is it worth it? In Charlotte, the mayor's position is a part-time job with little power attached to it aside from his/her ability to veto City Council actions. If Cannon decides to run, he'll have to give up his at-large seat, which the party already plans to fill with another African-American Democrat, making it much harder for Cannon to regain his place in local politics if he loses.