#NCSEN: Way too much DE-fense
It’s football season. One of the favorite stats of sports drive-bys is time of possession (a/k/a “time on offense.”) The longer your team has the ball, the longer the other team is without the ball AND a chance to score points against you. So, it is generally viewed as a good thing to have your opponent’s defense on the field A LOT.
The same rule applies in political campaigns. You are generally viewed as in trouble if you spend more time defending yourself than you do raising questions about your opponent and SELLING YOURSELF.
The N&O had items this week like this and this detailing an item today about the main topics in this year’s US Senate race: contraception, spending on government schools, and the minimum wage. In other words, they’re talking about exactly what Kay Hagan and the Democrats want to talk about. There are soooooo many things we could be talking about: the federal debt endangering our children and grandchildren’s future, Kay Hagan begging the feds to sue the very state she represents in the Senate, her collaboration in the effort to undermine our combat efforts in the Middle East, her involvement in the authoring and passage of ObamaCare. But NO. We’re talking birth control pills.
The minimum wage issue is a dead horse the Democrats drag out each election year. I would turn 
the issue around on Senator Sock Puppet. I would talk about how ObamaCare has changed the economic landscape. Thanks to ObamaCare, full time white-collar jobs with benefits are disappearing and being replaced with low-paying blue collar jobs without benefits. Thanks to O-Care and the rest of Kay’s record, we’ve reached a point in our nation’s history where more and more people are actually having to be concerned about WHAT the minimum wage IS. (BUT sadly, we have a GOP nominee who tried to help establish O-Care in North Carolina. So, the GOP campaign can’t really go there.)
The stuff about not wanting western North Carolinians to make as much as Bostonians? Turn that around to attack HER for standing more often with New Yorkers than North Carolinians. After all, she IS Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) sock puppet.™ Schumer is responsible for recruiting her and filling her campaign coffers in 2008. Ol’ Kay has been hanging out and fundraising quite a bit in Schumer’s neighborhood. (Jus’ sayin.’)
Tillis also appears to be buying into Hagan’s war on women nonsense. He’s sending his wife out to make campaign appearances for him. He’s hauling in South Carolina Nikki Haley to Fayetteville this week. If he even tried to look and sound conservative, he could have attack-babes like Laura Ingraham and Sarah Palin out there rallying the troops for him. (But no, he’s getting Chris Christie.)
You could paint the agenda Hagan has been sycophantically following is a war on women. O-Care and tax increases are putting a lot of women, and the family members they love, in the unemployment line. That agenda has caused an uptick in home foreclosures and bankruptcy filings. It’s a war on men AND women.
Rush Limbaugh has described the 1994 and 2010 GOP waves as the party succeeding in getting people to CHANGE THEIR VOTES, but NOT CHANGE THEIR MINDS. With the 1994 wave, voters gave the GOP a shot until they saw they were not much better than the other guys. Why not take steps to avoid a repetition of history? Why not sell the concepts of limited government that brought the party SO MUCH success in 1980 and 1984 and put the left on the ropes?
Kay Hagan is an accidental senator who SHOULD have been easy pickings this year. The GOP establishment told us Thom Tillis was THE big gun to take out Senator Sock Puppet. Yet, the polling has been dismal. We’re seeing ol’ Kay ahead by as much as SIX POINTS in recent weeks. We’ve got wall-to-wall attack ads on the television piling on top of Tillis.
Establishment figures on the right and left are expressing concern about what should have been easy-peasy. Stu Rothenberg and Rasmussen Reports are ranking this race as ‘Tilting Democrat.’ National Review says it’s “time for GOP concern” about North Carolina. The Fix column in The Washington Post rates this year’s Senate contest in categories like: Races where Democrats feel good / Republicans don’t, Races where Republicans feel good / Democrats don’t, and Races where opinions are mixed. Tillis v. Hagan falls in the ”mixed opinions” category.
Jesse Helms stayed on offense and kept his opponents on the ropes. He got 30 years in DC as a reward. And we got a senator who gave voice to our frustrations with Washington’s overreach. There is still time. But given what we’ve seen so far, I think we’ve got a lot more responding to Kay Hagan to tolerate. This should have been a piece of cake. That’s why this is so damn frustrating.
Thillis was the worst possible choice due to his being the focal point of the dismal agenda of the NC General Assembly.
What was the NCGOP thinking? Or not thinking?
The polls taken during the primary indicated that Thillis would be the worst choice to meet Hagan in a head to head battle. And recent polls vindicate the primary polls.
That is why this US Senate race is so boring. No excitement on either side. Hagan will win because she is the incumbent, she has more money and she is a female. Add to that the fact that she has made the race entirely about the results of the NC General Assembly and she has the perfect storm to be reelected.
Looks live Karl Rove will keep his losing percentage in tact.
Talk about a wasted opportunity!
It should be easy to defeat Hagan but we have a weak moderate candidate running a bad campaign. This is all on Tillis, Rove, McCrory, Burr, and the NCGOP Leadership.
Palin and Ingram would have nothing to do with Tillis, he is not a conservative and is on the wrong side of many issues not to mention his support for corporate cronyism.
Keep bringing in moderates like Christie and watch Tillis nose dive further in the polls.
The GOP plays not to lose instead of running a campaign to win. Unfortunately, the down ballot races will be impacted negatively by TIllis, i.e. court races, commissioners, etc.
“Unfortunately, the down ballot races will be impacted negatively by TIllis, i.e. court races, commissioners, etc.”
Yeah, this one is going to hurt. And anyone who knows what I’m talking about, needs to be at the convention next June, in force, and with some very long knives to excise the Charlotte faction out of the Party before we lose our majority in the Statehouse. I tend to suspect that we’re not going to hold the Governors mansion much longer. Not that conservatives actually have it now.
Imagine where we would be in this Senate race if we can a conservative nominee, who lacked the baggage that is putting Tillis constantly on the defensive, and who had a record that allowed him/her to use the issues on which Hagan is vulnerable. Anyone with the slightest political competency should have comprehended that Tillis was very poorly positioned on the issues. This race screamed out for a different candidate, but the NRSC worked hard to try to clear the field for Tillis. Some of those whom NRSC discouraged from running would almost certainly have opened up a good lead on Hagan by now.
Perhaps, Hagan will hire Tillis to head up her “Opposition Research” team, during her next term.
Pathetic. Thanks, again, GOP — you Establishment schmucks.
But, don’t concern yourselves with the problems of us “Wee People.” The important thing is that all you over-fed satraps get to keep your snouts in the Public Trough, even if you’re kicked to the end of the line, and have to fight each other for the dregs, after the Democrats have slurped down and gobbled up the best of everything.
You dithering, self-absorbed twits!
WE the PEOPLE TRIED TRIED TRIED to give you a REAL Conservative with Greg Brannon, the best choice, but YOU people were too clueless to understand the potential he had…NC is
corrupted by spineless demopublicans…sickening. Our once great state lost to a bunch of non leaders…
Brannon was the best choice of those who actually filed, but Alexander or Grant would have been good candidates if they were better known and better financed. The really strong conservative candidates we should be running, however, are either Lt. Governor Dan Forest or former Ambassador Jim Cain.
Anyone with a brain knew that Tillis was a loser from the very beginning. If we had Forest or Cain as our nominee, we would already have Hagan on the way to defeat.
Another presentation of Karl Rove blunders, bleeps, and bloopers! Would somebody resurrect George Patton! This moderate nonesense is insane and gets us more of the same old crap!
I recall hearing the definition of a moderate middle of the road type is one who gets run over because they are in the middle of the road! At least Sen. Haganov stays in the left lane so as to cause a head-on collision. But that is not good for anyone!
Government must protect LIFE, LIBERTY, and PROPERTY! Not every other crazy idea someone comes up with using government to dictate one’s life, destroy their liberties, and confiscate their property!
None of this comes as a surprise. The Republican Establishment has no governing philosophy or ideology. This is reflected in establishment-run campaigns which are usually disasters of the first order. In over 40 years of being involved in GOP politics, I have never seen North Carolina’s conservative voters more disillusioned with both Washington and the Republican Party. Perhaps it is Mitch McConnell’s vow to destroy the Tea Party, the corruption at the RNC, the stolen election in Mississippi, or the Charlotte RINOs in McCrory’s office; in any event, discontent and disillusionment are very real factors this year. Very sad and tragic.
Being for sale to the highest bidder among the special interest groups is not a governing philosophy that plays well with the electorate. It looks like eventually people like Rove, TIllis, and the NRSC should figure that out.
These idiots should be up 10 and if they can’t beat “bug eyes” then heads should roll
According to this article Kansas Republicans are defecting from Gov. Sam Brownback. However, in the Kansas situation it appears some Republicans are shunning Brownback because he is too conservative?
It is getting really confusing. Tillis is too liberal and Brownback is too conservative.
From what I understand Democrats never fault one of their own for being too liberal.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/15/us/conservative-experiment-faces-revolt-in-reliably-red-kansas.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSumSmallMedia&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Then again the article may be bunk. Who knows anymore?