Yesterday, former Democratic US Senate candidate Jim Neal posted a video that brought back a flood of memories. The interview on WRAL was Jim’s first meeting with TV reporters in his race to unseat Republican Elizabeth Dole and at the time, he was the only Democrat in the race. The headline says it all. “Neal Plays Up Being Outsider, Not Being Out.” Jim was only the second openly gay candidate in the history of the country to run for US Senate. At the time it was a big deal and a big controversy.
Jim contacted me in the fall of 2007 about running when nobody else seemed to be stepping up to take on Dole. The incumbent had rock-star status and a race against her seemed like a fool’s errand to many establishment Democrats. Jim, who had raised pile of money for John Kerry and John Edwards in 2004, believed he could make a go of it.
The world was different then. We hadn’t had much of the marriage equality debate and the idea of a gay US Senate candidate seemed far-fetched. In early meetings we tried to talk him out of it. We had long discussions about the impact on him and his family. Jim, though, was determined.
Jim came with a lot of assets but no political resume and one big liability. He was smart, well-informed, good-looking with a natural flair for retail politics. He had a commanding presence and access to people with money. He was also gay.
Jim announced his candidacy to little fanfare but a great deal of curiosity. We got a few blurbs in newspapers around the state but he was unknown in Democratic political circles. His announcement didn’t mention his sexual orientation and focused on defeating Dole.
Within a few days, we started getting calls urging Jim to get out of the race. When a caller told me, “Thomas, your candidate has serious skeletons in his closet,” I responded, “There is no closet.” Another caller told me that when news got out about Jim’s sexuality, he would jeopardize the whole Democratic ticket.
We had always known that we would have to break the news about Jim’s sexuality. We just didn’t know when or how. The time came more quickly than we had hoped. We were still in the early stages of setting up his campaign operation. However, we also knew that we wanted to control the message and the process.
We developed a plan to give us maximum coverage while having as much control as possible. We scheduled a series of interviews with state political reporters on a Monday and Tuesday in mid-October. We scheduled a live-blog for the preceding Saturday on BlueNC and publicized it on DailyKos, the national progressive standard bearer for blogs at the time.
The live blog started with a series of mundane questions about running for office and issues bubbling up in Washington. Then, a question came up that simply said, “I heard you’re gay.” Initially, some of the participants gave the questioner push-back, but Jim answered simply. “I am indeed. No big secret and no big deal to me—I wouldn’t be running if I didn’t think otherwise.” After several additional comments, the questions from participants went back to the issues of running for office.
Nationally, though, the news was travelling quickly through the blogosphere. Gay and lesbian bloggers like Pam Spaulding from Pam’s Houseblend, quickly got up stories. Low dollar contributions began pouring in and Jim instantly, if relatively briefly, became an internet sensation.
But those days were different. We didn’t have twitter and Facebook was still pretty much the realm of college kids. While bloggers across the country chatted and blogged about a gay candidate for US Senate in North Carolina, the mainstream media didn’t get the news.
On Monday, our first interview was with the AP. The reporter called me about two hours before the interview and he was hot. We assumed he would have gotten the news over the weekend. Instead, he felt blindsided. He calmed down as he came to understand that he was breaking the story for most the political establishment in the state.
With the AP article circulating across the state, Jim did a day of interviews on Tuesday with the political press, including the WRAL spot. We got a mix of support and skepticism. It was one of those times when, as they say, you find out who your friends are.
Within a couple of weeks of the interviews, Kay Hagan announced her candidacy. The next six months were the typical rollercoaster of a campaign—at times exhilarating, frustrating, and exhausting. Jim never got the support from the LGBT establishment—the professional gays, as he called them—but did receive support from other less expected places, like older Democrats who we thought would be more conservative on the issue.
Jim obviously didn’t win the primary but he did introduce a lot of young people to politics. I still work with people who first got into politics because Jim Neal ran for Senate. Jim always said he didn’t want to be a cause candidate or “the gay candidate.” But to some people, he was a cause. He was the first openly gay candidate to run for statewide office in North Carolina. It doesn’t seem like such a big deal today, but it did back then.
Maybe in eight more years we’ll wonder what the fuss over HB2 was all about. I hope so.
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 >
Thank you, Jim, for your very open and frank TMI post. It provides a perspective I didn’t have on politics in NC, and the ‘enemy within’ that you experienced from the Democratic party establishment. A tale of caution.
I recently decided to run for NC House in District 87 as a Democratic write-in candidate when HB-2 became the proverbial ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’. I have a transgender niece and I know the pain and discrimination she has suffered personally, leading to suicide attempts. Besides having compassion for the LGBTQI community, the other Trojan Horse topics hidden in HB-2 are pretty sneaky stuff that impacts all citizens of NC – the inability to sue for discrimination at the state court level and the inability of local jurisdictions to set a living minimum wage were railroaded into this heinous piece of legislation. It is a different world than when you fought the good battle, but obviously we have much more work to do even now. Thank you for sharing what must be some painful memories and thank you for your courage.
Thanks very much Terri. Good luck to you in your run and most of all keep your niece safe. I received a call from a transgender teen who was contemplating suicide on Sunday evening- I do not know him. He had a razor blade and has run a bathtub full of water. He cried and cried and I just listened. He is safe today but that sort of thing happens daily across the country. And we’re living in the most reviled state in the US right now. If everyone in North Carolina only knew someone who was transgender.
Advances in equality for the LGBTQI community since 2008 have came from the federal courts and executive action by the Obama administration. At the state level, things have gotten worse: first Amendment One, now HB2. Politicians still are not talking about human suffering. Their talking points emphasize the economy, jobs and everything but those with target on their backs.
I am in tears. Thank you for sharing.
Oh don’t cry for me! That’s very sweet of you. Lord knows when someone cried over me 😉 last. I’m fine- but there are members of the LGBTQI community- especially the transgender community- who are in a great deal of pain. I have a few people I didn’t know were trans contact me and to the one they all are having emotional ups and downs. Don’t cry for them either- get active.
Thomas’ post gave me an opportunity to share what it’s like to feel the jackboots on your back because you are gay- and in my case how it contributed to my own demise. It sucks- and politicians in NC have the hardest time saying anything about sexuality to this day…..unless they’re in a private setting. So- I purposely revealed TMI for the simple reason that it might help another person who is struggling. It’s interesting- the comments. Three women (I think) and a gay man. Not a single man had one word to say. Guess they’re still whispering ;-). Be well- jim
Thomas you have one helluva memory. Thank you for setting the record straight on behind the scenes events during my 2008 Senate campaign. For eight years I have been reluctant to speak out about that experience. I did not want to be perceived as crying sour grapes but time and circumstances are such that I am following your lead and ready to lend more context to your blog post. If for none other than perhaps I’ll inspire one person who reads this post.
North Carolina’s anti-LGBTQI law known as HB2- and others like it nationally- wound millions of Americans, young and old. I understand what it’s like to be targeted for special treatment because of my sexual orientation- as do transgender people who find themselves as the principal targets of HB2’s bully and badger effects.
Eight years ago, those who bullied and badgered me were not from the Republican Party. They were leaders of the Democratic Party in NC and Washington. Yes the Democratic Establishment actively sought to force me off the ballot in addition to a whole host of maneuvers behind the scenes intended to disrupt and discredit my candidacy. Thomas correctly relates that they opposed my candidacy because I was gay, fearing that social conservatives would flock to the polls to vote against me and other Democrats “down ballot”. Since I finished second in the Democratic primary to former Senator Kay Hagan the Democratic Establishment’s anti-gay theory was never put to the test. I felt then as now it was ludicrous. Of those that endorsed me, none mattered more than the largest African American PAC in North Carolina: the Black Political Caucus of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. Nobody thought the African American community would support a white, gay guy. They were wrong.
After the general election I fell into a deep funk. I sought out help from a psychologist who told me that I was exhibiting the same sort of reaction as someone who experiences PTSD. Doors and opportunities were slammed in my face; it was clear that I was reprimanded for daring to defy the Establishment. Democrats in government, the nonprofit sector and the business community snubbed me as if to teach a lesson to “that guy” as one member of the leadership at the NC General Assembly was fond of referring to me.
I felt bullied, battered, and betrayed. Sometime in 2013 my Wikipedia page disappeared. A friend and political consultant in Raleigh called and explained that it was no accident that “Jim Neal” had disappeared along with the links to North Carolina politics, the US Senate and Kay Hagan. I thought to myself “well they’ve wiped me from history so why give a fuck.”
I moved to Chicago where I began a descent into drug addiction. I became an IV drug addict- a junkie. Those were the darkest hours of my lifetime- and I suffered in near complete silence. My brother and my cousin were the only people who never gave up on me. I certainly had.
And then one day the sun came out. There was no angel landing on my shoulder, no parting of the Chicago River. I just realized that I was not done with life and had much yet to accomplish- for myself and for others. And I was determined to prove wrong the brilliant Tar Heel novelist Thomas Wolfe’s “You Can’t Go Home Again.” I moved back to North Carolina and consider myself to be a very lucky guy. Bitterness and self-pity make for poor bedfellows, especially for someone who has reclaimed a life that they had all but abandoned.
In the past eight years acceptance of the lesbian and gay community in America has shot upward. From the time I declared my candidacy in 2007 to 2015, Gallup reports that the percentage of Americans supporting same-sex relations has jumped from 50% to 68%, whereas those opposing same has fallen from 37% to 28%. Same-sex couples can now serve in the military and marry- in addition to other advances. However- and this is the point of the story I am telling- there are people you know who are at this very moment suffering in silence just as I did. Homophobia, transphobia, intolerance, bullying and religious oppression take an enormous personal toll on the mental health and self-esteem of those who happen to fall outside the heterosexual norm. Think of it this way: people in superior social positions almost never have to explain his-herself; the person in a non-normative position confronts questions about his/her social belonging and the indignity of having to explain his-or herself to the world.
Make no mistake: HB2 is not just another conservative law that discriminates. Nearly all of the statewide political candidates who oppose HB2 use vague, talking point language against “discrimination of any form” while avoiding exactly what that form of discrimination is. You won’t read on their campaign websites and press releases or hear in their press conferences once if at all the word “gay”, “LGBT” and certainly not “transgender”. They speak in terms of anti-business HB2, jobs, the economy, taxes- stump speech staples. Get real: HB2 is not just any discriminatory law, it is the most discriminatory and anti-LBGTQI law in the United States . And no community in North Carolina is more diminished and demeaned by the this vicious law than the transgender community. They are the principal targets of HB2 and God knows they deserve recognition for who they are, not what the consequences are by virtue of laws which discriminate against them. They are you neighbors, friends and co-workers. They are someone’s brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, aunts and uncles. The assault on them is not about commerce, it is about their dignity, respect, morality, equality and love. I’ll toss out some statistical and anecdotal observations for your consideration.
According to a study cited by the Southern Poverty Law Center a “staggering 41% of [transgender] respondents reported attempting suicide compared to 1.6% of the general population, with rates rising for those who lost a job due to bias (55%), were harassed/bullied in school (51%), … or were the victim of physical assault (61%).” The question is obvious: can you begin to imagine how alone you would feel if you were being characterized a sexual predator because you wanted something as fundamental as using a public toilet? Would you kick a puppy, drown a kitten or smack your child? Welcome to the world of those suffering in silence. HB2 is just shrill, dog-whistle, Republican politics that causes pain and lends probity to violence.
Though partly a personal comment mine is much more of a call to arms. Look- I am a privileged, “smart, well-informed, good-looking [man] with a natural flair for retail politics”. On my worst day, I faced nowhere near the oppression that a member of the transgender community faces. One thing has not changed between 2008 and today: I will fight like hell for the little guy, the people who need the most help. I don’t rely- nor should you- solely on outsourcing the downfall of HB2 to politicians. Sanctions by business and tourists, the judicial system and your commitment to vocalize opposition are the pillars that will roll back HB2. Back in the early days of the AIDS pandemic, the gay activist group ActUp had a motto that rings true today in the face of HB2: “Silence = Death”.
Nothing less than the heart and soul of North Carolina are on the line. The nation is watching us. We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.
Wow that was amazing, Jim Neal. I wish you were running for office again.
Thanks much. I appreciate your kindness. jim
“Jim obviously didn’t win the primary but he did introduce a lot of young people to politics.”
I got involved as a volunteer, and later as an intern, on that campaign starting in 2007. I had done some sporadic political volunteering in the past, but this was the first really serious campaign for me.
Though we lost that one, I went on to volunteer with President Obama’s campaign in 2008, to be the Volunteer Coordinator for former Mayor Kleinschmidt’s first run at Mayor in 2009 which we won by about 100 votes making him the town’s first openly gay mayor, becoming Vice Chair of my precinct for a few years, to being a 2012 DNC delegate in Charlotte, to getting a Masters of Public Administration degree from NCSU to get into this work more full time, and for the past 5 years after grad school working at Democracy North Carolina, a nonpartisan voting rights & clean elections nonprofit, which I have just stepped down from because I’m moving across the state because of my husband’s work.
While President Obama’s 08 campaign, Prop 8 in California which was really national in a lot of ways, and many other factors played a role in turning me into a political activist and organizer, that Jim Neal for US Senate campaign certainly played a prominent role for me as a young person fresh out of college.
Thanks Jake. I’m touched- and very proud of the trajectory that your career has taken. jim
Too bad he didn’t beat Kay Hagan. She is/has been a real failure for the democratic party and the country. Do you suppose the reason the Republicans have done so well is because the Democrats keep nominating political hacks?