This week, the attack on Kay Hagan is that her husband’s company benefitted from stimulus funds. It’s not much of a hit. The New & Observer and WRAL both looked into the allegations and found that Hagan did nothing wrong or unethical. In fact, the GOP controlled Department of Environment and Natural Resources said nothing was unusual about the grant in question.

Regardless, conservatives all in. In fact, they cite each other, instead of any outside or independent organizations. The attack ads and a National Review article both cite the Carolina Journal, the Art Pope-funded newsletter as a source. That’s like the Hagan Campaign citing The Progress Report, the newsletter of the Center for American Progress. Maybe this one will stick, but it has the feel of a Hail Mary.

The attack is the latest in a long list of unrelated criticisms of Hagan. We spent the first seven months of the year hearing that Hagan cast the deciding vote for Obamacare and that the program would crash the economy, kill jobs, make premiums unaffordable and cause skyrocketing health care costs. It didn’t happen.

So as Obamacare lost its punch, the Tillis campaign shifted to the VA scandal. They tried to blame the whole thing on Hagan. However, Hagan has always been responsive to veterans’ concerns. She’s reached across the aisle to help military families with problems like the Camp Lejune water problems. Besides, most voters understand that the VA problems are much bigger than any single Senator.

Once Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki resigned, the issue faded from the news cycle and the Tillis campaign was looking for another issue. So they turned to the to the tried-and-true “96%” approach. Kay Hagan voted with Obama 96% of the time. However, the disappointment with Obama is less about what he’s done than what he has not done. He’s just part of the gridlock and hyper-partisanship of Washington instead of the post-partisan leader who would unite the country. So voting with him is not that grievous a sin unless you’re already mad at him for Obamacare.

Next up was ISIS and a missed committee meeting. To hear conservatives tell it, if Hagan had attended that meeting in February, ISIS would have been defeated and we wouldn’t have this mess in Syria and Iraq. Nobody really believes it.

Since ISIS doesn’t have enough punch, they’re throwing in Ebola–you know, because Republicans are the party of increased foreign aid and funding for public health initiatives. In essence, everything that goes wrong in the world is Kay Hagan’s fault. If they can just scare voters enough, maybe they’ll vote for somebody besides Kay Hagan.

So, with nothing else working, and only three weeks left, they throw in an attack on Hagan’s family with an oppo dump from 2010. Instead of being part of story line or overall comparison, it’s just a one-off hit being pumped on social media and in conservative media.

Maybe throwing a host of disjointed attacks at Hagan will work but I’m skeptical. When Hagan defeated Dole, she had consistent message. Dole was absent from the state. It was believable and based in fact. Dole had lived in DC for almost 40 years before she ran in 2002 and then talked about “vacationing” here once she was elected. Hagan’s attack on Tillis is that he led a legislature that cut education and is outside the mainstream of most North Carolinians. Given that every news outlet in the state was saying the same thing in 2013, the story resonates with voters.

The closest thing to a consistent message from Tillis is that Hagan is Obama, but this latest, last-minute attack has nothing to do with the president and nothing to do with anything that’s happening in the world today. Tillis best shot seems to be the continuing deterioration of the political environment for Democrats, not anything specific that he’s done.

Thomas Mills

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 >