The 2014 midterm election is already shaping up as a litmus test for the political state of the state. With voters angry at different faction for different reasons, politicians from both parties calibrate their messages with care.
In N.C. Senate race, it’s the tea party vs. Karl Rove vs. Kay Hagan, etc.
CHARLOTTE — U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan this week congratulated former UNC-Chapel Hill head basketball coach Dean Smith on receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a move she had urged President Obama to make. Besides establishing her Tar Heel bona fides, it was one thing the North Carolina Democrat could do without anyone objecting.
A year before her re-election bid, Hagan’s face is all over TV, in ads made to attack and — from the other side — bolster her record. But the effort to doom her chances by defining her as an Obama clone is complicated by her own record, by a state that isn’t quite as deep red as its Southern cousins and by a GOP opposition that disagrees on the candidate that would have the best chance against her.
Nov222013
Checking in on U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan’s 2014 re-election race in N.C.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — N.C .Sen. Kay Hagan is one of a dozen senators being targeted by Republicans in this upcoming election.
Each voted for the new health care law. Mary C. Curtis is taking a look at the challenges ahead for Hagan, how much of an Achilles heal the Affordable Care Act might be and if the GOP has to offer not just opposition but an alternative.
Nov202013
From rodeo clowns to voting rights, understanding race and history
Have the folks who jeered the President Obama stand-in at that Missouri rodeo ever heard of Bill Pickett?
Pickett was an African American cowboy, inventor of the gutsy bulldogging technique, grabbing cattle by the horns and wrestling them to the ground. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
Pickett starred in rodeos and movies, traveled the West and in the 1970s was inducted into the National Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame. He’s depicted as a legend of the West on a U.S. stamp. Pickett was a founder of the same rodeo tradition that allowed the Missouri state fair crowd to whoop and holler, encouraging a bull to run down the “president” while an accomplice jiggled the broad lips on the mask of the clown dressed as Obama and an announcer teased violence that recalled the worst of the ways this country has treated its black citizens.
Aug152013
What kind of state is North Carolina? Democrats and GOP make high-stakes bets
Democrats and Republicans in North Carolina are in an ideological standoff, with future elections in the balance. That explains why Kay Hagan, a Democratic senator facing a tough 2014 reelection race, endorsed same-sex marriage, and Republicans in control of the statehouse made moves to tighten voting restrictions – all in one week.
Apr012013
N.C. Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan has a task ahead in 2014 reelection campaign
In a state where Republicans did well in 2012 and have high hopes for the next election, she carves out her own path on issues from guns to energy.
Jan252013
