Running from his record

by | Aug 21, 2014 | 2014 Elections, Editor's Blog, US Senate | 3 comments

Two months late and several million dollars later, the General Assembly has finally adjourned. Now, Thom Tillis can finally start the process of trying to distance himself from the legislature he led. Republican legislators across the state are in trouble because of the GOP agenda and their arrogant approach to governing. Tillis doesn’t want any of that to wash off on him. 

In the primary he ran as the architect in of a conservative revolution. In the general election, we won’t even hear about him being Speaker of the House. Tillis can’t run on his record so he’s going to run on his biography. 

His latest ad is the first example. Tillis talks about his working class roots, delivering papers and working as a short order cook. What he doesn’t talk about is what he did in the legislature. And there’s good reason.

According to the latest PPP numbers, the legislature, half of which Tillis led, has an approval rating of only 21%. Voters don’t believe that the legislature gave teachers much of a raise. They favor raising the minimum wage, which Tillis doesn’t. And 75% of those surveyed give the legislature a “C” or worse on handling public education issues. There’s not a lot to run on. 

Polls show the race to be essentially tied.  Both candidates have low approval ratings and high negatives. However, while Hagan is underwater by seven points (42-49), Tillis is underwater by 20 (28-48). There’s not a lot he can do to reverse that trend.

We might hear about the Carolina Comeback, but that’s not believable. We still have fewer jobs than before the Bush Recession and wages are flat. The unemployment rate may have dropped for a bit but that coincided with kicking people off of unemployment insurance. It’s starting to creep back up.

Tillis also might talk about the tax cut but nobody’s feeling it except the wealthy. The income tax cut had little affect on most middle class families because any benefits are off-set by new taxes on services. So bragging about a cut people aren’t feeling doesn’t get many points. 

Finally, we might hear about teacher pay raises. However, the raises didn’t satisfy teachers and still left public schools short-changed. They were a transparently political effort to buy off the electorate in an election year and anybody with kids or grandkids in schools sees that.

No, we won’t hear much about what Thom Tillis has done. We’ll hear about him beating the odds to become a “partner” (whatever that means) at IBM. And then we’ll hear a lot about how Kay Hagan is just a pawn for Obama. Tillis can’t run on his record because it’s a liability, not an asset. Being Speaker may have made him a credible candidate in the first place, but it won’t help him get elected in the long run.

3 Comments

  1. Troy

    That’s just it. He doesn’t have any positive accomplishments outside his ‘partnership’ with IBM to stump on. I can only suppose that he’s using that word interchangeably with ‘associate’ ala Wal-Mart.

    Frankly, I don’t think Tillis has any shame in him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be running for Senator. Just like McCrory; no shame. They see it merely as ‘business’. They are businessmen and they have properly conducted business. Above all else, they have worked to ensure their own perpetuation first and if this little venture should fall into liquidity, well, they have another opportunity awaiting them just around the corner. The fallout, the aftermath of their actions, well, that’ll be for someone else to deal with. All the while, they can quip about how their policies were successful and would have worked; if given enough time.

    Looking around the State however, others are paying the price for their ‘success’.

  2. Mick

    Yes, I caught and scratched my head too on that “partner” descriptor Tillis uses in that ad. Not a mention of his Speaker “job” or of his so-called accomplishments. But not even a mention of his work as a legislator prior to his Speaker position. Never thought I’d see a politician, even a very deceptive one like Tillis try to…actually, HAVE to…. run that far away from his legislative record. I do hope voters catch this point, and interpret it as Tillis being embarrassed and shamed by his public service to the state.

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