NC(Sen): My thoughts of Neal vs. Hagan and why YOU should care.

Robert beasted on this diary.....or some crap like that. :)

Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.

with is from Randolph County and is under the influence of Howard Coble. He has told me more than once that he will NEVAH vote for Howie again because of his vote against the war funding about 6 months ago.

I guess he will have to vote for the Democratic nominee now? Nah, I just don't see it happening.

North Carolina. Turning the South Blue!

good constituent services.

Or so they tell me.

I'm a constituent. He recognized me when I visited his office in Feb because I dogged his steps through the 2006 elections, supporting the Quixotic campaign of Rory Blake (who said all the right things about the war before Howdie ever thought of them). But Howdie didn't know how he recognized me, so I told him he knew me because I voted against him.

He smiled.

He's an old man whose time has come and gone.

that he is essentially saying that the dscc and north carolina power players in the democratic party are opposing Neal becuase he's gay. That's what he said, then denied. I don't see how you can interpret those statements above in any other way.

I thought I was saying this.

That is where we stand folks, we have two candidates, one who came of his own free will and one who has apparently been lured by the DSCC at the bequest of the local power brokers out of fear that Jim's not mainstream enough. That in itself is not reason enough to support Jim Neal, this is:

You know, I do actually have to say, unrelated to your point, that this sentence "one who has apparently been lured by the DSCC at the bequest of the local power brokers" is probably a bit too much. As I've said below, I have no doubt that Kay Hagan wants to be in the Senate for all the right reasons. I don't think she is running because of the "lures", but that doesn't mean they aren't attractive. Back to my point.

Priorities

I've got 5 not 3: restoring Protecting our nation and its freedoms, fiscal reponsibility, health care for all Americans, protecting our environment and restoring government accountability to the voters who elect and pay the freight for the elected reps.

On Running

I'm not running this race to lose. I'm not running to make some social statement. I'm running to lead in the Senate for the voters in NC-- something Senator Dole has not done.

When people meet me, they'll see beyond the labels and into my character.

Energy

We have no choice-- as a state and a nation-- to move with a sense of urgency to make up ground and move forward with lightspeed to adress the assault on our environment which ths Administration has ignored. Our state and its natural resources and incredible and are treasure we can't lose-- and that's one battlefront which has been ignored.

NCLB

NCLB simply don't work. It's flawed in concept, doesn't engender positive outcomes and is underfunded by about, say, $50 billion. Catch name with no substance or money to match the moniker.

Money in Politics

As someone who's done a lot of fundraising, I've always referred to political dollars as "the dirty underbelly of democracy." It's repugnant the amount of money required to mount a national campaign-- which I'll do-- but it's gotta change. Public financing across-the-board: the only way to take dollars out of the equation. This is an election, not an auction.

Labor and Smithfield

I absolutely support the right of workers to organize and engage in collective bargaining.

Re. the situation in Tar Heel, I'll admit to not having drilled down on that specific situation as deeply as I want to.

Send me your thoughts-- please.

S-CHIP being vetoed

I think it's absolutely repugnant, appalling and if anything-- the best example of why Senator Dole is OUT OF TOUCH!!!!

We have 120,000 kids in NC who were abandoned by her vote which represent less than 1/2 of the 270,000 kids with no heath insurance.

EVERY child, man and woman in this state and this country should have access to affordable health care. Or nation-- our core values-- are under assault by an Adminstration and those who prop it up-- when a sick American goes bankrupt b/c they're sick.

From his issues page, we find out more.
Iraq

My opponent still backs the aimless policies of the Bush-Cheney administration, which have cost America taxpayers nearly $1 trillion and more than 3,800 lives.

Our troops have done everything we asked - and I don’t want to see any more of them die.

It’s time to bring them home to the heroes’ welcome they have earned, to rejoin their families, resume their careers, and be a part of their communities again.

To guarantee we don’t have to send them back in a few years, we need to redeploy small strategic units in the region to counter terrorism and train Iraqi security forces.

And then we need to redirect most of what we’re spending there to what matters more — children’s health and Medicare, Social Security, and making college affordable for middle-class families again.

The North Carolina Senate race has one man who is very progressive on the issues, every good Progressive should back him in this race.

One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

So, your strategy is to divide the party into the incrementalists and the real true progressives. Then what? Probably have to divide again between the real civil rights advocates and those who only oppose de jure discrimination. What you're describing is the collapse of coalitions. Like it or not, major parties are broad-based alliances between different groups who share a philosophy. The Democratic party supports gay rights. We disagree about how to accomplish that goal, but we agree that gay folks should be treated as human beings, which is more than the GOP can say.

Kay Hagan isn't a bigot, and you should stop insinuating that she is. You also need to stop conjecturing about why some people are asking her to run. You don't have any evidence for your conspiratorial assertion that anti-gay forces controlling the Democratic party have secretly decided to unite behind Hagan. The fact is, people have been talking about Hagan possibly running statewide for quite a while. She's an attractive candidate.

But you should still not make unsubstantiated claims. I believe that many people don't want a homosexual to run of office. But that's not what you claimed. You claimed that the DSCC and the political elite in NC Democratic politics are opposing and saying disparaging things about Jim Neal because he is gay.
I ask you again, who is making that claim?
Are you going to hide their identity?
Are you not comfortable saying who it is?
Who at the DSCC is freaking out?
Are they freaking out now more than they were before? They recruited Kay Hagan before Jim Neal announced, after, and now after he's been outed. That is a fact. The same goes for the NCDP and other Dem elites in this state. You make it sound as if there is a big anti-gay conspiracy when there is not.
Your allegations are incorrect and irresponsible. You have no proof of any of this outside of what you imagine to be happening with people in D.C. and Raleigh.

The reason I didn't talk about principles is because I think that, on the whole, Jim Neal and Kay Hagan have pretty much the same principles. They share a progressive outlook. So, my general philosophy regarding politics is that electability and principles aren't opposing forces. Rather, they're mutually reinforcing factors. If two candidates share roughly the same outlook, then why not pick the one with the best chance of winning?

If you insist on reducing every political contest to a conflict between principles and political machinations, you're not doing justice to the political process.

Printed or digital words after all. To say nothing of the fact that records of these words will be kept for a long time.

There might have been a little more sanity in the thread if you hadn't been arguing so stridently for it.

I don't knock you because you are new. I just ask you to read your own words with new eyes. I think you have demonstrated thick skin, unless of course the bark is worse than the bite.

Nobody really has alleged homophobia, founded or unfounded. That's a strawman. The thread was fairly tepid until you jumped in with "For God's sake!"

I don't agree with stifling a discussion by waving the word "homophobia" around nor do I subscribe to the notion that perfect knowledge, 100% pure, is a prerequisite for any blog post.

I don't buy the 100% rule. Clever way to redirect (hey, look over there!) and shut down debate. This is a blog, not a deposition, where opinion is a method of inquiry, a starting point, not an end. Cross examination with multiple, rapid fire questions is a "shoot the messenger" technique.

We've had our share of drive-by posters. Skepticism abounds. Here's hoping you are persistent.