As we all know, the GOP is eager to win back the U.S. Senate in next year's midterm elections. Of course in order to do that, they have to avoid the Tea Party nominating loser fringe candidates that have cost them races they should've won. Karl Rove is trying to prevent that from happening in North Carolina where Senator Kay Hagan (D. NC) is up for re-election next year:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Events in Charlotte on Thursday showed, however, that reaching a consensus on GOP strategy moving toward that goal may not be so easy. Competing protesters didn’t quite meet outside a Karl Rove headlined, Bank of America Stadium fundraiser for North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis — thought to be the establishment Republican U.S. Senate candidate in 2014. The two groups were actually united in their view of big-money GOP interests, though their respective solutions were as far apart as you could get.
For about a dozen conservatives representing a variety of groups, GOP strategist Rove and Tillis embody “the ruling political elites that have dominated government,” instead of supporting principled pro-Constitution representation, said Vallee Bubak, a self-described Republican mom from Davidson, N.C. “You can’t buy an election.”
Rove’s Conservative Victory Project didn’t get much respect from local tea party leader Christian Hine, whose sign read, “Liber-TEA, not Rove.” Hine said, “If his goal is to get people who are electable, then he failed miserably,” referring to the low success rate for Rove-backed candidates in 2012. Though the group was more anti-Rove and Tillis than pro any particular conservative alternative, there are several, including four hopefuls who were scheduled to appear at a tea party-sponsored forum later on Thursday: physician Greg Brannon (endorsed by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky), broadcaster Bill Flynn, family nurse practitioner Heather Grant and the Rev. Mark Harris, a Charlotte pastor.
On the other side of the street, Robert Dempsey, executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party, said Tillis was “a lapdog for special interests, and they have him on a really short leash.” If you missed the point, state party spokesman Ben Ray stood beside him dressed in a dog costume. Dempsey recognized some common cause with the conservative protesters in their criticism of Tillis, and also Rove for meddling in the state primary process.
But Dempsey said that Tillis, who supported the government shutdown and opposed the deal to re-open it, could pass every tea party test. “Show me a substantive difference between any of them,” Dempsey said. “Hagan puts North Carolina first.” He said she was in a good position, despite falling poll numbers in the state for her, President Obama and the Affordable Care Act she voted for. “The only poll that matters is next November.” - Washington Post, 11/22/13
Yes, it seems having Rove on his side may not be a great asset for Tillis as he tries to win over Tea Party voters. His primary opponents are out trying to convince the teabaggers who's the real Tea Party candidate in this race:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/...
Tillis was invited to Thursday night’s forum but told organizers he had a conflict. It was the first event attended by all of the other candidates: Cary physician Greg Brannon, Forsyth County broadcaster Bill Flynn, Wilkes County nurse Heather Grant and Charlotte pastor Mark Harris.
Each cast the campaign in near apocalyptic terms.
“This is about saving the United States of America from the demise that is happening before out eyes,” said Flynn. “We’re the adults in the room.”
Harris said the election is “about the survival of the United States of America.”
“We’ve got a president,” he said, “who is drunk on power.”
Grant, referring to Senate Democrats who voted Thursday to change filibuster rules, said: “We’re watching them destroy our American process.”
Brannon added: “Woodrow Wilson’s dream is coming to fruition (where) we have a monarchy.”
The answer to what he considers Washington’s unconstitutional laws, he said, is to “stick a knife in the heart of the beast and kill it.”
All four candidates said the Affordable Care Act – or Obamacare, as they called it, – was the biggest problem facing North Carolinians.
Three candidates – Brannon, Grant and Flynn – called for eliminating the Internal Revenue Service. Flynn called it a “rogue agency.”
Harris said he would consider a Fair Tax, which would also do away with the IRS, as part of tax reform.
The four also were united in their opposition to Common Core, a set of national educational standards that has divided Republicans in North Carolina.
They also united against public-private partnerships, particularly proposed toll roads. Brannon and Flynn suggested such partnerships were close to “fascism.”
Grant said they were “detrimental.” - Charlotte Observer, 11/25/13
So you can see what the GOP's dealing with here. No doubt that Tillis is the establishment favorite but he's also the face of Art Pope's extreme right-wing agenda. Tillis has delivered everything Pope has wanted on a silver platter. So it's amusing and pathetic that he's not a shoe in for his party's nominee and Karl Rove has to save him from the Tea Party. But Rove's money is only hurting Tillis even more. It remains to be seen which Tea Party candidate will be the one to rise up in the primary but I would say keep your eye on this guy:
http://www.newsobserver.com/...
A Republican rival is suggesting U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan should resign immediately, saying the Democrat knew the federal health care law would force people from their health coverage. But Hagan’s spokeswoman said Charlotte pastor Mark Harris’ accusation is not true.
The Harris campaign points to comments made by Hagan spokeswoman Sadie Weiner to Greensboro News & Record reporter Travis Fain. On Thursday, Harris requested a probe into what Hagan knew about the federal health insurance law. Weiner told The News & Record, “In her capacity as a member of the HELP Committee, Senator Hagan was involved with that committee’s markup of the health care reform bill in the summer of 2009. Once insurance companies began disingenuously offering plans that they knew they would be canceling it became clear that more people would be getting cancellation letters. That’s why Senator Hagan supports the Landrieu bill to allow people to stay on their current plans. Yes, she read the bill.”
Weiner later added more clarification, telling Fain that she didn’t mean to suggest Hagan knew some people wouldn’t be able to keep their plans. “The full scope of the problem became clear only when cancellation letters started going out, since information on non-ACA compliant plans was not made public by the insurance companies,” Weiner added. “And remember – we are talking about this because insurance companies were disingenuously offering plans that they knew they would have to cancel, and Kay is supporting a bill to fix it.”
Harris apparently didn’t see the clarification and is pushing his call on the first vague remark from Weiner. - News Observer, 11/15/13
And Harris emerging as the nominee will be both a blessing and curse for the GOP:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/...
Harris has sent early signals that he'll build his Senate campaign infrastructure out of that same grassroots organization that fought against gay marriage. He has already brought on Republican activist Mary Frances Forrester, who spearheaded the Amendment One campaign, and Rachel Lee Brady, who worked for the pro-Amendment One group Vote Marriage NC. That could be helpful in injecting cash into the relatively unknown first-time candidate's campaign and could help propel Harris to the Republican nomination.
Harris led the successful movement to pass North Carolina's Amendment One last year. The key to that victory was that the group focused on churches, injecting the amendment into sermons and reaching out to voters in the pews, according to Jeremy Kennedy, who led the opposition to Amendment One. And it was effective. Amendment One passed by more than a 20-point margin, despite the opposition of Hagan, Pres. Obama, former Pres. Bill Clinton and a variety of state and national Democrats. Amendment One earned a solid 61 percent of the vote in a state that Obama lost by just two points that year.
But the general election is a different question. A more diverse electorate and new polling in the state make it look unlikely that Harris and his network of religious conservatives will be as successful in next year's Senate race.
Amendment One was on the ballot during last year's May primary, when there were no competitive statewide contests, not the general election when the presidential campaign and a heated gubernatorial race boosted turnout. As is typical of primary elections, the electorate was much older and much more conservative than in a typical general election, but the excitement around Amendment One exacerbated those differences. Over three-quarters of voters in the primary election were over the age of 50, according to Lake Research Partners, a Democratic polling organization that worked with same-sex marriage proponents during the primary. That electorate was "enormously" helpful in getting Amendment One passed, pollster Celinda Lake said, and could be a boon to Harris in getting through the Republican primary.
Harris' campaign consultant Tom Perdue told Hotline On Call earlier this month that the reverend won't be running away from his views on social issues in the Senate contest, but will place a much higher premium on economic issues, particularly in a general election contest against Hagan.
Harris' biggest competition for the Republican nomination comes from Tillis, who is better-known, but doesn't have much of a following among social conservatives, leaving a big opening for Harris among the state's sizable church-going GOP population. And if the Amendment One fight last year proved anything, it's that social issues like same-sex marriage can spur primary voters to the polls. With the marriage amendment as the only competitive issue on the ballot, North Carolina experienced a historic 35 percent turnout, surpassing totals from 2008, when there was a competitive presidential election on the primary ballot.
And while turnout is likely to be even higher in November of 2014 (it hit 44 percent in 2010, during the last midterm Senate contest), the electorate will be much younger and feature a broader array of voters. And that's bad news for Harris, if he emerges as the nominee.
The broader North Carolina electorate appears to be much more conflicted about same-sex marriage than last year's Amendment One victory would indicate. A new Elon University poll out Friday shows that North Carolina voters are relatively split on the issue, with 47 percent saying they oppose gay marriage and 43 percent voicing support (the poll 3.7 percent has a margin of error), a sign that Harris' ground organization will face more difficulty courting general election voters than they did in winning over last year's primary electorate.
The Elon poll also took a look at voters' views on other social issues. On abortion, voters are similarly mixed, with 45 percent saying they believe the state should make access to abortions more difficult and 41 percent saying access should be less difficult. Neither issue topped voters' lists of the issues that they're most concerned about right now. When asked about the most important issue facing the country, not one person mentioned gay marriage or abortion, although about 4 percent of respondents said "values" or "family" and another one percent said "God" or "religion." - National Journal, 9/23/13
So we shall see. But as GOP voters still try to figure out who their ideal candidate is, it's not stopping right wing groups from attacking Hagan:
http://www.newsobserver.com/...
A woman talking directly to the camera saying “Obamacare doesn’t work – it just doesn’t work” is the focus of the latest political TV advertisement hitting U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan in North Carolina.
Americans for Prosperity debuted the new ad Wednesday, saying it is spending $1.5 million to air it statewide for three weeks. (See it below.) It’s part of a $4 million national campaign against vulnerable Democrats.
Less than a month ago, the conservative group – aligned with tea partiers and funded by the Koch brothers – spent $1.7 million on a TV ad criticizing Hagan’s support for the federal health care law.
But unlike the previous shot, which featured ominous announcers and bold graphics, the new 30-second ad offers a direct, personal touch. It paints the problems with the health care law in personal terms instead of political. “ObamaCare is a policy failure, not a political problem,” said Chris Marie Farr, AFP’s acting state director. “In recent days, Senator Hagan has asked that Congress launch a probe into the failures of the Healthcare.gov site launch. What she should have done was launch an investigation into whether or not people would have their insurance plans canceled before she ever voted for this disastrous law.”
The woman talking to the camera starts by saying she doesn’t like political ads and then lists some broad stroke reasons why the health care law is hurting some people. The kicker: “Tell Sen. Hagan to stop thinking about politics and start thinking about people.”
What the ad lacks is context. It doesn’t put in perspective the problems saying “millions” are losing their insurance and paying less. Those numbers are far too large to describe North Carolina’s situation, where roughly 475,000 were told they couldn’t keep their current insurance plan. - News Observer, 11/20/13
But Hagan isn't letting the Koch Brothers distract her from her job:
http://www.bizjournals.com/...
U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan says Janet Yellen is the right woman for the job.
Hagan, a Tar Heel Democrat, voted in favor of Yellen as the next chairman on the Federal Reserve as the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday advanced President Obama's nominee for confirmation. Yellen is currently the vice chair at the Fed. Her boss, Ben Bernanke, will step down at the end of the year.
"As North Carolina’s unemployment rate remains far too high and our economy continues to recover, Vice Chair Yellen’s impressive public sector and academic experience will make her a stable hand at the helm of our central bank," Hagan said in a statement. "I’m pleased to join my colleagues on the Banking Committee from both sides of the aisle to support Vice Chair Yellen’s nomination, and I hope the full Senate confirms her as the first woman to head the Federal Reserve with broad bipartisan support in the coming weeks."
Yellen's nomination followed a long process for the Obama White House, which leaned toward former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers until he removed his name from consideration amid declining congressional support. - Charlotte Business Journal, 11/21/13
If you would like to get involved or donate to Hagan's re-election campaign, you can do so here:
http://www.kayhagan.com/