#NCSEN: The ad war & the $500 million lie
So far, the 2014 US Senate race is looking and sounding a lot like one for governor or General Assembly. We’re hearing a lot about education. Kay Hagan and the Democrats are running some highly-dubious testimonial ads from teachers and parents talking about the alleged damage Tillis and the General Assembly have done to education. Those ads — to those of us who pay attention — can easily be dismissed as bovine manure. But for the low-information crowd, they are devastatingly effective. (One woman offering testimony on-camera as a parent was revealed to be the wife of a Democrat campaign operative.)
One claim that appears to be doing the most damage to Tillis is the claim of $500 million in education cuts. It is SO patently false, yet the state Republican Party and the Tillis campaign are letting it slide. I would have thought Tillis would have addressed it in his “math” ad, but he didn’t. Why not bring DPI superintendent June Atkinson and the local school boards into the discussion? That is where the decisions about class size, textbook spending, and teacher assistant hiring are made. (Oh, wait. Thom and Gov. Pat had a press conference with Miss June a few months ago.)
The documents I dug up from our educrats here in Moore County prove — in their own words — there are no education cuts. Our educrats’ own words detailed “increased funding from the state.” Their documents showed that — for the last five years — the system has been OVERFUNDED. They’ve finished with a surplus. That’s just one county out of 100. But I bet a bit of statewide research would produce more evidence like that.
As I’ve stated on here before, the Democrats’ position is that, according to certain interest groups (themselves, the NCAE, etc.) and/or statistics, the NC public schools should have been funded at a certain level, and the mean ol’ GOP legislature and governor funded the schools at less than that level. Ergo, a spending cut.
So, using their logic: Say I spent $100 in groceries last week to meet my family’s nutritional needs, and someone tells me that to meet the same needs next week, I need to spend $200. I go and spend $150. According to liberal “logic,” I had a spending cut in my food budget. Seriously. That’s how these folks “think.”
Will someone with some sense (and some money) please do an ad explaining this to people? I know the adage is, “if you’re explaining, you’re losing,” but at this point, an explanation would at least be a counterpunch. We ain’t even punching.
They are Democrats. Their lips are moving. Of course they are lying.
Given the lies of the ”Blueprint” smear campaign against the legislature, it was political malpractice of monumental proportion for the GOP to run anyone from the General Assembly for the US Senate this year, because that smear campaign created a major obstacle to overcome which would not be there for a nominee who did not come out of the legislature.
I guess we are seeing how Karl Rove compiling his track record on US Senate races of losing 10 or the 12 he has been involved in. Karl’s meddling in our primary was what saddled us with Tillis as a nominee.
But letting the Democrat lies in the middle of a campaign go unanswered is just more monumental incompetence of Tillis’ campaign team. They remind be a lot of Dole’s campaign team or Broyhill’s campaign team. I just hope their incompetence does not pull down too many Republicans in other races.
I agree with regard to the Dole campaign, if I were Tillis I’d fire the Raleigh based (and D.C. allied consultants) and start to run a common sense conservative based campaign that focuses on specifics: the specific lies that Hagan and the Democrats are spewing, the specifics of WHAT Hagan has done to support Obama’s disastrous programs that are dragging down our state, and last the specifics of what HE’D do as our next US Senator (what programs would you cut, what conservative legislation would you work towards, etc..)?? Go on offense, no more of this nice guy Mitt Romney type stuff.
The big problem underlying it all is….Thilli$ CAN’T run on his OWN record.
He is the poster child for flip flops.
It becomes more and more apparent each day that Thillis cannot run on his record. The campaign is showing that Kay Hagan is closer to the views of most North Carolinians on the issues of minimum wage, amnesty, abortion, same sex marriage and gun control. North Carolina is now a purple state and Rinos like Thom Thillis have no right representing this state.
It is time to show Karl Rove he cannot put one of his pet Rinos in office. Kay Hagan says what she means and is not running away from her record!
The problem is that Tillis is too much like Hagan. Republicans need a nominee who can draw clear distinctions with Hagan. A Big Government Republican like Tillis simply has a hard time doing that with a Big Government Democrat like Hagan. Each is trying to out fuzzy the other without tipping their hand to their real views, which are not all that far apart. We have miserable record versus miserable record.
The ideal opponents for Hagan would have been Lt. Governor Dan Forest or former Ambassador Jim Cain. Either one would now be mopping up the floor with Hagan. North Carolina really needed to have the Beltway Bandits like the NRSC and Karl Rove stay the heck out of North Carolina. Their meddling is what stuck us with Tillis.
Kay Hagan doesn’t represent the views of people of our state. It has flirted with the left before, but this IS a conservative state.
She’s out of the mainstream for NC, all we need is an actual conservative fighter to show up to take her on.
Karl Rove is the worst thing to happen to the Republican Party since Nelson Rockefeller.
The Rinos who engineered Rove’s possession of the NC Senate race need to become legitimate followers of the “moderate” Kay Hagan by switching their party registration to Democrat.
Hagan a moderate???? If you believe that, you should like Tillis. She doesn’t come close to being moderate. Switch to democrat??? That accomplishes what??? Such simple attempts, obviously a democrat, no grasp of the information before them,…wait,…..Pelican, are you Kay Hagan?