#NCSEN : Put A Cork In It.

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sock2Lefties have been giving me grief for personifying our junior US senator as a sock with ping-pong ball eyes and string for hair.  I wonder what they would say about McClatchy Rob likening Kay Hagan to a cork.  How disrespectful! A sock with ping pong ball eyes and string for hair is a lot more dignified than A CORK! 

Rob Christensen tells us that Senator Sock Puppet™ is being unfairly brutalized by TV ads paid for by those mean ol’ Koch brothers.  (Never mind all of those financial and propaganda contributions to the North Carolina Democratic Party and its candidates over the years by The Daniels Clan [former N&O owners] and The McClatchy Family [current N&O bosses].)

Lest we forget those guffaw-inducing lovey-dovey pro-Hagan union-produced ads filled with more lies than I’ve heard since –oh — THIS.

Rob pulls off some Olympics-caliber contortions to try to prop up Hagan:

[…]

During her five years in the Senate, Hagan has not carved out a strong brand or image for herself.

Part of Hagan’s problem is that she is a political moderate and is an extremely cautious, scripted politician who goes out of her way not to say anything provocative.

Seriously?  The American Conservative Union’s 2012 rankings of Members of Congress put Hagan (9.25) to THE LEFT of Harry Reid (16.7), and slightly to the right of John Kerry (5.03), Chuck Schumer (5.18) and Diane Feinstein (8.10).  Maybe that counts as moderate from the perspective of the N&O newsroom. MORE: 

A banker/lawyer, Hagan avoids the national TV talk shows and champions issues that all 100 senators also call their own – jobs, veterans affairs and constituent services.

Really?  How many other senators call on the feds to sue their own state?  Spearhead a feminist witch-hunt in the military while representing one of the most military of these 50 states?  Hagan bragged about leading the effort to give us ObamaCare.  She repeated the lie about keeping your health plan at least two dozen times — even though she and her fellow Dems knew it was a lie from the very beginning.

The same is true for Republican Sen. Richard Burr. North Carolina voters have the fuzziest views of their senators of any state in the country, according to a survey by Public Policy Polling.

“I think both U.S. senators are kind of amorphous in a way,” said Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College.

That’s a fancy way of saying Tricky Dick and The Sock Puppet don’t have any core convictions and try to be all things to all people.  And that’s, um, good ????

[…]

Having been helped by Obama in 2008, Hagan and other Democrats could be damaged by Obama in 2014.

That is not to say she doesn’t have her own political assets – she is smart, hard-working, spends a lot of time in the state, and has been able to thread the needle between business interests and the more liberal elements of her party. Philosophically, she is Jim Hunt in a skirt.

[…]

Um, Rob.  After that infamous 1984 US Senate campaign, I would think  your friend — former governor Jim Hunt — and his team would be very antsy about mentions of “Jim Hunt in a skirt.”

[…]

In an effort to define her early, Americans for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group started by Charles and David Koch, have already spent $2.3 million in advertising in North Carolina tying Hagan to the Affordable Care Act.

If the Koch brothers succeed, Hagan and the health law will forever be linked in the public’s minds.

Who needs the Koch Brothers and AFP when we’ve got C-Span and YouTube?  Did the Koch brothers make her go to the Senate floor and say THIS?

There are two things that could help Hagan. One is another government shutdown, for which voters blame Republicans. The other is if legislators, who return in May, again press a tea party agenda and turn off many middle-of-the-road voters.

Don’t forget a third one:  space aliens landing in North Carolina and wiping out ALL registered voters outside of Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Durham, and Asheville.