It seems most political observers are in agreement that Thom Tillis is going to be the GOP nominee for US Senate on May 6. Tillis and his supporters keep saying that the prospect of facing the speaker scares Hagan and the Democrats. But that’s not the case at all.
Thom Tillis is no powerhouse. On the contrary, he’s proven himself to be a very flawed candidate. That said, his opponents, Greg Brannon and Mark Harris, are unelectable in a general election. So of course Hagan would rather face them.
A lot has been made about Harris being a more disciplined candidate and lacking the baggage that Tillis carries. However, he still takes unwavering views on social issues and believes that the world is only 6,000 years old. That’s not the kind of person North Carolina elects statewide. We’ve never elected a candidate with a similar profile to statewide office, though several have tried.
And Greg Brannon gets in trouble every time he opens his mouth. He’s been repeatedly accused of plagiarism and he was found liable for misleading investors. He doesn’t believe in separation of church and state. He’s an extremist who wouldn’t get out the starting gate in a general election.
Tillis, by comparison, is moderate. But that’s a relevant statement when your chief rivals reside on the fringe of the political spectrum. As he likes to note, Tillis brought a revolution to North Carolina. He denied pay raises to teachers, leaving the state 46th in the nation in teacher salaries. He cut funding to our public schools and universities. He kicked more than 170,000 people off of unemployment when there were no jobs to be had. He denied medical care to 500,000 people by rejecting the Medicaid expansion. He restricted women’s access to abortion. He raised taxes on working families while offering massive tax cuts to the wealthy. He instituted voter suppression laws that targeted minorities and young people. And while he and the governor like to brag about a Carolina Comeback, our workforce is shrinking while our population is growing. These accomplishments have left his legislature with an approval rating in the mid 20s.
But those are just his legislative accomplishments. He’s also got ethical baggage. He paid severance pay to employees caught in sex scandals and denied knowledge even though one person was his roommate and chief of staff. And he’ll say anything. He argued he’s not the establishment candidate despite being the sitting speaker of the house with the endorsement of the US Speaker of the House, the Senate Majority leader, the US Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove. How much more establishment can he get?
While Thom Tillis is certainly more of a threat to Hagan than his GOP primary opponents, that’s a pretty low bar. And Tillis would have had trouble getting over it if not for the air support of millions of dollars in advertising from outside groups. If the old rules had applied, Tillis would almost certainly be facing a runoff. He’s winning because his opponents don’t have the resources to compete, not because he’s a great candidate.
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 >
Well Mr. Mills, if you premise were correct, why would Kay Hagan spend big dollars mailing 4R Primary voters with a giant slick postcard that talks about his Bill Lumaye show (out of context) utterances about Obamacare, hmmmmm?
Gotta keep the troops from complete and utter despair, right?
Remember when the GOP was saying the same thing in 2006 and 2008? I do. And of course all of the polls were wrong then, or so the GOP base was told. And of course the enemy was “them” as in “Soros” and billionaires and stuff. Some here might recall how annoying their GOP friends were before those elections, and how those ended up.
Personally, I’d think that the only way to avoid catastrophe is for the Dems to propose a ton of fixes for ACA, and actually get it to a vote and get it out of the Senate. It’s not enough for Kay et al to say “we are in favor of XYZ reforms”, they actually need to vote on something that passes out of the Senate. But for reasons lost on me, the Dem leadership (Reid) is stuck on stupid — not only refusing obvious fixes, but seeming to have a wish to end his Senate Majority Leader tenure.
And for Kay — it’s her crappy constituent services for 6 years that doom her. Nothing she can do about that now.
Purely from a curiosity standpoint, who is your Congressional Representative and did you contact them when the answers you got were not to your satisfaction? Did you turn to the office of Sir Richard Burr and likewise pose those questions of his staff?
Just curious.
Troy — Great Questions!
Rep. David Price’s staff was great, top to bottom. They took the time to hear me out, and certainly commiserated. Their ACA expert and I disagreed, but she was most agreeable, and openly offered to discuss my suggestions to fix the problem PROVIDED the fix had a chance in hell of passing (uh, yeah, well….). While I don’t agree with Mr. Price’s votes on many subjects, I respect his staff greatly, and I’m sorry to see guys like him go.
Sr. Burr’s office at least heard my concerns. They noted that they had absolutely no chance at authoring any legislation that would even get a hearing. As I recall, they (like the other offices) gave me the ACA navigator number. At least they seemed to see the problem. HOWEVER, there was no follow-up from any sort of subject expert, nor did they offer to let me discuss the issue. Should Burr continue doing this level of services he’ll feel the consequences IMHO. This one set the bar for lowest possible level of services.
Kay… sigh. Seriously, you could tell that the phone staff were members of the Young Democrats from some campus. They were still faithful to the talking points (and let’s be fair, Kay is never at odds with her party’s latest talking points either), to the point where they’d argue with you.
The kicker came when I asked for specific answers for my questions.
Question #1: “How does the ACA define income ’cause I was making 6 figures until I was unemployed before I ran out of unemployment and I’m sure I’ll do more than 6 figures again soon.” Honest to Gawd Almighty, they said “Call the IRS.” Honest. Have you see the press on the IRS’s ability to handle phone calls from even CPA’s and certified preparers?
Question #2: “Obama today said he changed things to let us keep our catastrophic plans, but BCBS says that I still can’t keep mine. What do I do now?” Answer… with God as my witness, was “Call the White House.” Yup, “Call the White House.” “Hey, Mooch? Geek here. Yeah, is Barry off of the golf course yet? I need to ask him a question about what he said yesterday. Yeah, Kay told me to call….” Hell, I’d have the Secret Service checking out my FBI and NSA records within minutes. Jeez.
It’s one thing to vote for something that screws you over. Still another to have staff that are “rah rah our side.” But to come off as totally uncaring???!? Seriously?
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For comparison, when I had health care law issues with Deb Stabenow’s office a few years ago, I got her specialist on the phone, who went to United on my behalf, and we got it fixed. She got re-elected, beating a guy who had Burr’s level of services to get the office.
When I contacted my MI-7 Rep about my student loan issues, I got his expert on the phone. When I called another MI-7 rep asking about my mother in law’s medicaid woes, I got his Medicaid specialist who explained things.
And those are certainly lucid answers. And even though the staffers in Price and Burr’s office listened, the result was essentially the same, albeit for different reasons.