Thom Tillis really just needs to go away. Six months after being elected to the Senate, his approval ratings are in the tank. As long as he stays in the public eye, they aren’t going to get much better.
But Tillis can’t help himself. He’s drawn to cable news shows like a tornado to a trailer park. He’s sure that he looks good and has smart things to say. In reality, he just reminds North Carolinians that they just elected a camera-happy blowhard who they don’t like very much.
The 2014 US Senate race in North Carolina was a brutal, year-long affair. Both sides drove the other’s negatives sky high in an attempt to get voters to reject somebody instead of elect somebody. Both Tillis and Hagan came out of the fight damaged goods. Only time can heal those wounds. Voters need enough distance to forget.
Tillis would be wise to follow the example of Al Franken and Hillary Clinton. Both entered the Senate as stars. Instead of trading on their celebrity, though, they shunned the national media and focused on learning the ropes of their new jobs. They gained the respect of their colleagues on both sides of the aisle and proved to be effective Senators.
Tillis, though, seems to be focused on making himself a celebrity and leveraging that notoriety into his next gig. He’s entered Washington at a time when first term Senators become presidential contenders. The lesson he’s learned is that the more attention you receive from the media, the further your political career goes. That may be true in narrow circumstances, but I’m betting first term Senators who are publicity hounds earn the resentment of their more serious and more senior colleagues.
One beneficiary of the Tillis’ self-promotion could be Kay Hagan. The more he’s in the public eye, the more embarrassing mistakes he’s going to make. Voters will eventually, if they haven’t already, have buyer’s remorse. They elected a guy with more style than substance and even his style’s not quite up to par. While that bruising 2014 battle might keep Hagan from being viable in 2016, voters might want to correct their mistake in 2020.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
“Deserving” Thom Tillis is like deserving the shingles! Painful beyond words.
@Dwight W. – Your dad lived in different times. Now we have Citizens United to thank for our political candidates and our electoral outcomes. If our electoral system actually worked, we would deserve Tillis. As it is, his approval ratings reflect the opinion of the people he’s representing, but not his actual constituency, which is thoroughly pleased with his performance. Sorry, Mr. Mills, but Tillis understands how this hijacked system works. He doesn’t need to know the ropes in the Senate to move up. He just has to spout the right talking points for Roger Ailes and ALEC. Sad but true.
My daddy always said, “We get the government we deserve.” When NC voters fall asleep at the wheel and allow people of this ilk to be elected then we deserve the misery of enduring their term of office. Unfortunately for NC and for the U.S. Senate, 6 years is a long time to endure Thom Tillis.
“like a tornado to a trailer park.”…LOVE it!
Jesse Helms. Lauch Faircloth. Bank Run Burr. Ptomaine Thom. It wouldn’t be North Carolina if we didn’t have at least one US Senator to constantly embarrass us.
But right now we have two…
Thank goodness I don’t watch Fox News. I’ve seen enough of him here in NC.