Kudos to the Hagan campaign

by | Nov 7, 2014 | 2014 Elections, Editor's Blog, US Senate | 29 comments

In the aftermath of the election, a lot of Democrats were quick to pile on the Hagan campaign. Most people complained that it was an ugly campaign defined by negative advertisements and lacking any message that encouraged people to vote for Hagan. I called it a near perfect campaign. I’ll stand by that assessment.

In defending the war in Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld famously said, “You go to war with the army you’ve got–not the army you might want.” That better describes a re-election campaign than a voluntary invasion. Hagan was the candidate we had, not the candidate we might have wanted–or needed. 

She is a reliable vote for Democrats but she’s not a fiery speaker or passionate advocate or inspiring leader. She has problems thinking on her feet and an aversion to the press. She fits the model of the relatively boring, pro-business Democrats that Marc Basnight and Tony Rand recruited to keep the state senate Democratic after the Republican assault of 1994. She was not a candidate who would rally the masses to her defense.

The campaign’s job was to get her re-elected. They started in a lousy national environment. The role out of Obamacare was a fiasco, casting doubt on the competency of the president and his staff. The economy was recovering but nobody but the wealthy were feeling the benefits and most people still considered the country to be in recession. Throughout the campaign, the political environment never got better.

The campaign saw an opening in the outrage at the state legislature. In particular, people of all stripes were incensed at the cuts to public education. They tried to focus the electorate’s attention on local issues and away from the national environment. It almost worked.

They showed remarkable discipline in a lousy year. They came up with a plan and stuck with it. They had little help from the candidate in implementing that plan but managed to control the message for almost the entire year.

In October, with ISIS and Ebola, the environment deteriorated even more. The Hagan campaign still held a small lead in the middle of the month. Trying to change direction, would have been folly. She probably lost the campaign in the final week or two. Regardless, the campaign kept Tillis under 50% and the race was closer than states where Obama won in 2012.

Not every good campaign is a winning campaign. The Hagan team did a great job under very difficult circumstances. They were damn close and if they had won, they would have been called brilliant. Kudos to them.

29 Comments

  1. Eric Smith

    I heard Kay speak several time during the campaign, and watched both debates. Although she sometimes stumbled over grammatical syntax and was a little repetitious, it cannot be said that she was not fiery or passionate in making her points. I do agree that it would have been better to stand up for our Democratic accomplishments, emphasizing first what is great about Obamacare before recognizing that it needs a lot of improvements. We should not hold the Keystone Pipeline as a litmus test for purity on environmental issues. The Canadians are going to extract that muck regardless of what we decide. Perhaps make the best of a bad situation and build the pipeline. Kay has been strong on sensible gun control. Not an easy stance in our state. And as a gay man, I was moved to hear Kay be absolutely unequivocal on the right of all Americans to marry the person they love. I take pride that we made the race as close as it was in a terrible year for Democratic incumbents.

  2. Beth Ostgaard

    A great deal of good insight here! Campaign signs; since when did they have any affect on the outcome of a race? My opinion, nothing but litter.

  3. overscan1

    My parents live in Hillsborough, NC and signed up to volunteer four times. They would have been willing to drive pretty far to knock doors or make phone calls outside of the Triangle. No response from the campaign. Only a million fundraising emails, which they also contributed to. At first I didn’t believe them and thought they screwed up the online signup form so I did it again for them. Still nothing. Even wrote them an email from the homepage. How many other potential volunteers did they ignore?

  4. Steven

    With only 44% of eligible voters actually voting, Tillis was elected with less than 25% of the population voting for him. Not a wave in my book. Not even a legitimate claim to having the support/backing of anything but a small minority. As a registered republican for over 40 years, his level of ignorance and unfitness for public office is embarrassing. I vote for the most qualified.

  5. Russell Scott Day

    The differences between the Republicans and the Democrats, were important, and are important. Democrats can’t seem to shift from ecological worry, that translates to anti business attitudes, and opportunity present for challenges to the Petro Industry. When I saw Hagan on TV indicating she was for the Keystone Pipeline, and by extension the exploitation of the Alberta Tar Sands, I was disgusted with her. She could have been pointing to the nascent biofuel industry of NC, something to run jets besides oil, made local to the bases could come from the NC Yams designed specifically as biofuel basics. She could have pointed to NC State hog farm gas, likely to produce more gas, than the destructive Fracking that is guaranteed to make the water poisonous. But nope, on with “Game over for Earth.” because local and decentralized energy sources are too hard to monopolize.
    First I called it a gag vote, and then I just asked people to write my name in, and then I just wrote my name it.
    It became a “Bipartisan” protest vote. “If you are so Bipartisan, what do I need you for?” I end up screwed either way.

  6. Greg

    Not effectively using Obama and his accomplishments was a mistake

  7. Chris

    The real issue here is not embracing Obama’s appeal in the black community! Clearly the black vote did not turn out. When the polls show low ratings for the president, that means low ratings for anglo’s. African Americans still support Obama, he should have been used in fayetteville, Durham, Charlotte, Greensboro to appeal to the black vote. He could also have helped in Black urban areas around the country! He loves to campaign! Perhaps we will get to see more of his skill after leaving office! Move over Bill Clinton, the Black community has found its national spokes person. I look forward to seeing/working with him to deliver the black community in future elections!
    Shame on the Hagan team for keeping him in the margins! There is/was a lot to celebrate and embrace!

    • Thomas Mills

      But the black vote did turnout. It turned out at levels almost equal to 2012 and 2008.

  8. Alyce Machak

    Welcome to the new Citizen’s United, where big money wins over any less that stellar Dem candidate every time. Bat-shit crazy candidates on the right? You bet, the crazier the better for bringing out that core base vote.

    This is the new landscape until Democrats gow some balls and talk progressive issues including what your economic plans are for the middle class. Do it without offending all the Obama volunteers in 2008 and 2012, who the campaign was relying on for all their efforts.

    And don’t even hint that you believe the mantra that the only way to improve the economy is to cut taxes and regulations that is proven not to work. Dems, take the message back and control it. This is the only way to win.

  9. Richard Wilson Miller

    Right up until the time of her defeat, nearly every talking head and political “pundit” was suggesting her campaign was the stand-out campaign in comparison to the rest of the Democrat field in the closely contested states. I don’t this one should consider this assessment to be “valid” on one day, and then all of a sudden it was not. I agree with Mills — she did a very effective job of pounding Tillis and it came very, very close to working, during a time when President Obama’s unpopularity loomed over all. For a long time her effort was carried out with far more effectiveness IMO than the Tillis campaign.

  10. Joe

    Hagan was pro-Big Oil (Keystone) and introduced bills to overturn NPS rules. As an progressive independent green, I viewed her as the lesser of two evils. She never defined what she stood for. Almost a political non- entity. Wish she would have been a LEADER to fight climate change. She didn’t.

  11. Tom

    I do not think Senator Hagan acted as though she did not know President Obama. In the midst of the campaign she greeted him warmly at the Charlotte airport – in front of cameras – and then appeared with him later. When asked whom she voted for in 2008 and 2012, without a pause, she said Obama. She did – like almost every North Carolina Senator of either party for most of our history – not ask him to campaign for her. The last US Senator I remember doing that was Jim Broyhill in 1986, He lost.

    • Thomas Mills

      Thanks, Tom. You are exactly right.

  12. droach

    Senator Hagan sent me at LEAST one email EVERY DAY for the last three months demanding money. None of those emails nor ANY of the commercials that such money bought touted her party loyalty. Best economic progress in a decade. Lowest jobless numbers since Clinton. More money spent on “securing the border” since the French built the Maginot line. More Americans with health insurance than at any moment in our nation’s history.
    And her biggest, loudest, most oft-repeated plus was, “I’m more middle of the road and indecisive than anyone in the Senate”.
    She deserved what she got and North Carolinians deserve the whirlwind they have sown by NOT putting forward a single progressive candidate.
    I rue all the hours I spent making phone calls for this person. Those hours spent walking and knocking on doors at least may have helped my cardiac health.

  13. Ron Rabatsky

    To use Donald Rumsfeld’s stupid comments to justify a horrible campaign, you are too desperate. Whether Obama was popular in NC or not, to run away from the record of achievements over the past 6 years was just plain stupid. You have forgotten the Al Gore experience. Hagan also, it seemed, ignored every issue except for women and education, and left herself open for attack on every other issue.

    And if you ever tried to contact Hagan via e-mail, all you ever got was a form letter and no other reply.

    I held my nose to vote for her, as the only thing she had going for her was she was not Thom Tillis. And that does not make for a sucessful campaign.

  14. Tom

    Of the 30 counties Senator Hagan carried, 22 are rural.

  15. David Weinfeld

    Kay Hagan like so many timid Dems hid from the successes. AHC, an improved economy and countless other accomplishments and avoiding the dreaded BLACK President. Obama didn’t help either . He never in six years stood up and gave it back to Mitch and John for openly opposing him as a matter of practice.
    The High ground turned out to be the Low ground. Hard to feel good about what has transpired.

    • wncguy

      So you fault her with something that even the man himself didn’t do? If the president cant articulate successes how are candidates what get tied to him supposed to?

  16. David

    The Hagan campaign won the urban areas of North Carolina but lost the rural. The rural areas are where the Democratic Party needs to put more concentration for the 2016 election in order to defeat Burr.

  17. VSanderson (@VSanderson24)

    Unfortunately, I for one think Hagan would’ve done a lot better if she hadn’t acted like she didn’t know President Obama. Every single candidate in one of those real tight races that didn’t want anything to do with him (and didn’t want to use his health reform law as something to look at with pride and remind the voters how much better things are since Obama’s been in office), lost their district, every single one of them, with the one exception of Mary Landrieu, and she’s in a runoff for her seat and expected to lose. Why in the world would anyone think that would be a winning strategy? My main gripe with Hagan was that she’s all in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline; that was my main reason for NOT contributing money or volunteering for her campaign, though unfortunately I still had to vote for her because I can’t stomach voting for ANY Republican.

    • Linda

      I agree with this reasoning. I do believe the Democrats would have fared much better if they had owned the advances that have been made since 2008 instead of acting like they didn’t know about them. I switched from an independent voter to Democrat in 2008 and have stayed registered as a Democrat since. I volunteered with OFA in 2008 and 2012. I did not volunteer in 2014 because I was not motivated to do so by a candidate who seemed to be distancing herself from the duly elected (twice) Democratic President who I supported and still do…..It’s as if Democratic candidates thought they would win over Republican votes by distancing themselves from President Obama. It obviously did not work.

  18. Will

    I was a field organizer for the Hagan Campaign. Thank you for this. This was the first race I’ve ever worked on and it was a tough one. We’ve been working 90+ hours a week, seven days a week since early June. But I was proud of our discipline and our focus. That’s for the kudos and for your fantastic blog!

    • Jess

      Thanks for your hard work, Will. Field organizing is hard and usually thankless work, but this NC Dem appreciates your effort!

    • Allison MahaleyA

      I think herein lies the problem with the campaign – a few people were being way overworked. I, too volunteered with the campaign and was happy to do my part – as a volunteer. What I ran into was an insensitivity that volunteers were needed to win this race – not paid staff. The paid staff were clearly overworked and worn out. They tried to overburden the volunteers by sending them to canvass solo – something I found very unpleasant – and giving them routes that were impossible to finish in a reasonable amount of time. I can volunteer for about two hour chunks, but am not willing to give half my day. I heard from others who had a similar experience that the Hagan campaign was replicating the Obama campaign strategy that had turned NC blue in 2008, but let it go red again in 2012. My feeling is that so many people got burned out on volunteering on the Obama campaign that was designed to wring every ounce of passion and effort out of every single volunteer, that many, if not most people were unwilling to commit to the Hagan campaign. I compare my experience with the Hagan camp to my experience with the AimHigherNow group that wasn’t even in my district, and it is night and day. AimHigherNow focused on building relationships with volunteers, supporting their efforts, and building a community within the campaign so people started potlucks on phone bank nights, hung out to talk about stuff afterwards, and have vowed to stay connected for future campaigns. Thats the kind of activism and progressive culture that needs to be fostered in our communities. I am sorry Hagan lost, but I am not surprised.

      • Will

        Thanks for responding to my post, Allison.

        I feel like there is some tension between two assertions that you make. Firstly, that the campaign was insensitive to the fact that volunteers are essential to any successful ground game. Secondly, that volunteers were asked to do too much. These two statements seem to me to somewhat contradict each other. Am I incorrectly interpreting your statements?

        Thank you!

        • Allison Mahaley

          Maybe we are looking at the same point through different lenses. I was trying to make two points. First, at a time when progressives are focusing on age old issues that should have been settled already like a 40 hour work week and a living wage, a political campaign that was being run like a sweat shop was disturbing. I get that campaigns are intense and time limited, but I saw the “give just a little more” mentally extended to volunteers. As someone who was very motivated to volunteer, I was turned off to volunteering by the Hagan campaign. As I said above, many of my friends who had volunteered for Obama, were not interested in helping with the senate race. My second and main point is: I think organizers need to be sensitive to the nature of volunteering and build a base of volunteers who feel like the job is not only important but manageable – many hands make light work. I hope this clarifies my opinion that it’s all about the relationships and positive experiences being created so that volunteers not only do the canvassing and phone banking, but also recruit others and want to come back for multiple shifts because it was manageable, fun, rewarding, and important.

          • Will

            Hey Allison,

            Thank you so much for the response and for your volunteer work. I really agree with the substance of your post.

            Speaking personally, one thing that I saw was the difference was a well run local apparatus (like a county party) can make when it came to fostering efficient volunteer teams with the campaign. I think that a strong state party, one that is driven by folks who are results orientated and interested in getting things done, could make a huge difference on the ground.

  19. Randolph Voller

    The Hagan campaign, like the Obama campaign (OFA) in previously elections, utilized my office in Pittsboro and worked hand-in-glove with the local party. The young man running the effort was a pleasure to work with and the party chairwoman, Jan Nichols, and her team made an effort to communicate with him to avoid duplicate calling and canvassing efforts. Senator Hagan won Chatham County despite some aggressive sign defacing and a well financed and organized opposition that included incumbent GOP County Commissioners who were elected in the wave of 2010. In addition, there were two occasions where all of the signs were removed from the North Chatham early voting site by unknown vandals, which only made the entire team redouble their efforts. Everyone was disappointed with the final state result, but were happy to have worked hard with and for the Hagan campaign in Chatham County and the region.

    • Joy

      We did calling on a weekly basis from Rosemary House.66 or more numbers a week!

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