Winston Churchill once said, “History is written by the victors.” So the Thom Tillis campaign team took exception to the narrative that Kay Hagan’s campaign team ran a good race. They’ve gone out of their way to debunk the theory.
To paraphrase their candidate, that sounds like whining coming from winners. The Tillis campaign certainly did some things very right. In particular, they never gave up the fight even when Hagan seemed to hold a solid and persistent lead and they exploited every opportunity down the stretch.
But to trash the Hagan campaign is a classless act and to hang their victory primarily on the strength of their candidate is pure folly. They’ve fallen victim to believing their own spin. They’ve mixed fact and fantasy to come up with a story that just didn’t happen.
They are correct that Hagan “never corrected the high negatives.” They are also right about Hagan’s gaffe following the second debate when she told a reporter she had skipped an Armed Services Committee meeting to attend a fundraiser. And they are also correct that the controversy over stimulus money going to a company owned by her husband hurt her down the stretch. The Tillis campaign did a good job of exploiting those opportunities
But they are wrong that the race was about Thom Tillis “talking directly to voters about his personal story of achieving the American dream.” That’s laughable. We were here, remember? Voters heard “Obamacare!” for about seven months, “96%” for about two months and “ISIS!” and “Stimulus money!” for about six weeks.
The consultants have invented a Thom Tillis that people in North Carolina don’t know when they talk about “humble, decisive leadership.” In all my time talking to Republicans and Democrats in this state, I’ve never heard anybody describe Tillis as “humble.” And as for decisive leadership, this is the guy who was for Medicaid expansion before he was against it before he was for it again. He’s an ambitious pol who said he wanted to head the NRSC before he even won a primary. He likes campaigning more than he likes governing.
This election was a rejection of Obama and Washington gridlock; not a vindication of Thom Tillis and his leadership. Contrary to what the consultants claim, few people in North Carolina believe that Tillis and the legislature increased education funding or teacher pay. The legislature still has an approval rating almost as low as Congress.
This piece was more about changing the narrative of a candidate who narrowly won in an environment where he should have had a wide margin than it is about setting the record straight. It ignores the fact that the Hagan campaign kept the message focused on the legislature for most of the race, despite a continually deteriorating national environment. And it also leaves out the part about Hagan maintaining a narrow advantage over Tillis for most of the year, while other Republican candidates in states that Obama actually won opened up wider leads as ISIS and Ebola became center stage in October.
The Tillis campaign ran a good race. But so did the Hagan campaign. The outcome, though, had as much to do with the political environment as the brilliance of the Tillis campaign or Thom Tillis himself.
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 >
Sorry Thomas, the real reason that Hagan lost was a republican piece of trickery called Crosscheck. The following is the beginning of the report by Greg Pallast.
“Interstate Crosscheck is a computerized system meant to identify fraudulent voters. While Crosscheck’s list of nearly 7 million names of “potential” double voters has yet to unearth, as of this writing, a single illegal vote this year, it did help Republican elections officials scrub voters from registries; enough, it appears, to have swung several important Senate and governor’s races in favor of the GOP.
There is good reason to believe that Crosscheck-related voter purges helped propel Republican candidates to slim victories in Senate races in Colorado and North Carolina, as well a tight gubernatorial race in Kansas.
Interstate Crosscheck is a computer system designed to capture the names of voters who have illegally voted twice in the same election in two different states. The program is run by Kansas’ Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Kobach’s office compares the complete voting rolls of participating states to tag “potential” double voters, those who have illegally voted twice in the same election in two states.
These names are then sent back to the state governments to inform an investigation of duplicate names on the voter rolls. While Kobach advertises Crosscheck as matching numerous identifiers, including the Social Security numbers and dates of birth of voters, a six-month investigation by Al Jazeera America revealed that Crosscheck rosters caught nothing more than matching first and last names. And voters remain on the suspect list even when middle names, Social Security numbers and suffixes (Jr., Sr.) don’t match. Yet all these people — the list contains nearly seven million names — are subject to losing their vote.
The program’s method of identifying and purging voters especially threaten the registrations of minority voters who are vulnerable because African-American, Asian-American and Hispanics are 67 percent more likely than white voters to share America’s most common names: Jackson, Washington, Lee, Rodriguez and so on.
….
•In North Carolina, Republican Thom Tillis upset incumbent Senator Kay Hagan by just 48,511 votes. North Carolina’s Crosscheck purge list targeted a stunning 589,393 voters.
The article, like everything Pallast does, is eye opening, and can be found at :
“http://www.gregpalast.com/”
Thom Tumb is so far to the left that he left his loyalty with that corporation he worked for instead of giving it to the people of North Carolina when he moved to the legislature.
I believe the real winners of the this last mid term election is not the republican voters, not the media and certainly not the candidates. The real winner are those folks who put up the money for these candidates. They now own and operate there very own politician in addition to the numerous corporations and a pony. Let us have a few moments of reverent silence for “Citizens United”.
Yeah, Ken, what NC really needed was to elect a senator who was so far to the right that s/he would only add to the partisan, pro-corporate, anti-middle-class, hate-and-frustrate-Obama-and-the-Dems-instead-of-leading-or-reaching-across-the-aisle tide in D.C. Yeah, that’s what we needed. Gridlock would have ended in a jiffy, for sure…….
It was with heavy heart that I voted for Tillis, because I do not see much difference between Hagan and him. They are both bad for North Carolina. They are both WAY to the left of where we need to be. Hagan lost because she was tied to a weak president’s poor policies. Tillis won because people like me were not going to let Obama continue to have his way and we turned out while lesser motivated people stayed home.
Hagan and Tillis both are not who needs to represent our state. They both ran poor campaigns and spent way too much of other people’s money that had no business in NC politics. I would have been upset by a Hagan victory, but as my consolation prize, the ads have stopped.
The real winners of this election are the media who benefited from millions of dollars in television, radio, and print ads.
Sort of astonishing to realize there are people old enough to vote who feel Tillis is too lefty for NC (but voted for him anyway.) Not sure how much more right Tillis could get. Good luck finding that level of insanity in a candidate.
Troy: I believe also that the current economic recovery from the 2008-09 recession is the first ever in US history to be accompanied by a DECLINE in median family income. Another factoid showing, as you say, the gutting of the middle class in America.
Lily: You mentioned government shut downs, repeal attempts vs. ACA, and the undermining of SocSec/Medicare as actions that the GOP might waste our nation’s time and resources on. I’d add impeachment efforts, a lawsuit against Obama by the House, and ignoring substantive immigration reform. With the way they are already huffing and puffing ahead of taking over the Senate in January, it seems that the GOP rather dismantle good things and employ spiteful P.R. tactics, instead of trying to address the nation’s major issues.
Indeed Mick. As far as the middle is concerned, it might as well be a Depression. I’ve seen recessions and what we have just experienced and so far survived resembles none that I’ve lived through to this point.
The architect of NC’s great shift to the right won against a weak candidate – with less than 50% of the popular vote. Some mandate….
With regard to GM, the CEO who left after the company crashed in 2008 had been in the C-suite for nearly 20 years. Some leadership… But he got $10 million when he left.
Frankly, I think we’re getting a preview of what we’re going to get for the next six years.
Almost completely unrelated, I happened upon a piece of information that I found stark and telling. I’ve been waiting to add it to an appropriate comment, but none are forthcoming, so I’ll throw it out here.
Robert Reich wrote in a column back in March about how, 50 years ago, the largest employer in the United States was General Motors. The average hourly wage then, adjusted for 2014 dollars was $35.00 an hour. Today, the largest employer in the US is Wal-Mart and the average wage is $8.50 an hour.
Now some geewhiz genius will be quick to point out, rather superficially, that GM went bankrupt without pointing out all of the rules and regulations that sprang forth that dismantled our manufacturing capacity, dismantled collective bargaining, and essentially caused a gutting of the middle class across the last 34 of the past 50 years. Rules and regulations passed and enabled by Republicans while Democrats stood idlly by and watched or superficially gave lip service against.
We can argue and debate a plethora of topics that are morosely benign and irrelevant to our existence as a people and a class. But if you can’t look at those numbers that Reich spoke of and see how we have gotten to where we are and who lead us there, then we are truly blind indeed. No nation can build prosperity upon the bones of its own citizens and if those who must see are blinded, how long will can we endure in this place of sightlessness?
Tillis ran on prejudices of a small group of low information folks, who would vote against their own best interests regardless of what the facts may or may not be. Unfortunately, the turn out was low, so to say Tillis, would be able to repeat his performance in a presidential election year would be a gross exaggeration. Couple this with a huge infusions of money from the KOCH Boys and others, he won. There is nothing slick about that. We will see how Burr holds up. He embodies the republican ideals of contempt for the middle class. Hopefully, the GOP will pull a couple of goverment shut downs, and move the economy back to the Bush days which pretty much insures a Democrat victory in 2016. Oh yes, I forgot to mention, repeal of the ACA. and turn social security into a wall street run investment program and medicare into a voucher program. Maybe then, these low information voters will get the hint, they have nothing in common with republicans.
Low info voters you say, well maybe but the left has relied on low information voters since forever so what are you complaining about? Anybody who believes this “war on women” crap while going into their sixth year of unemployment qualifies. Plus, the hated (by the left) Koch brothers are 59th on the big donor list according to Open Secrets, George Soros and his many MANY front organizations comprise about 10 of the first 20. Soros has openly bragged about “buying” the Democrat Party, do you have a problem with him? Incidentally, Hagan outspent Tillis by a few million dollars, are you upset she didn’t outspend him more?
By the way, I long for the days of the Bush economy. You may recall what precipitated the financial crisis was government (Democrat) meddling in the mortgage business (Barney Fwank, Chris Dodd et al.), of course you may not because if I read you correctly YOU are a typical low information voter.
Right, Greg. No war on women; the GOP has done nothing but positively advance women’s causes. The Bush Administration, in office for the 8 years leading up to the recession, had nothing to do with the worst economic plunge this nation experienced in 79 years. And the Koch brothers are so transparent in their giving, their donations are easy to track. And pig’s fly, too…
Go back to Open Secrets and read this: “The real story of the election’s campaign finance chapter was not which side had more resources, but that such a large chunk of the cost was paid for by a small group of ultra-wealthy donors using outside groups to bury voters with an avalanche of spending. Both sides had plenty of support from outside spenders, but Republican and conservative outside groups outpaced the spending of Democratic and liberal ones. Democratic/liberal groups channeled most of their money through organizations that disclosed donors, while their more conservative counterparts relied heavily on secret sources funneling money through political nonprofits.”
But I will give you one thing. You seem to have effectively swallowed the claptrap that conservative talk meisters have serve up. That doesn’t make you a “low info voter”; it make you a “below info voter.” Congrats!
George Soros? Really, you understand the 90s are over. Where and when and to whom did Soros brag he bought the Democratic Party…it is the Democratic party not the red herring you right wingers toss out “democrat” party. And as far as Hagan out spending Tillis again you need to check your facts. Tillis and Tillis supporters did out spend Hagan and did so for a year prior to any vote being cast. Bush economy…sorry you mean the Bush depression don’t you? You are confused, have no information, lots of misinformation and a sophomoric delivery much like the Tillis campaign.
Bottom line: republicans are obsessed with (1) a black president, who beat them twice, (2) women’s reproductive issues, (3) privatizing social security (4) turning medicare into voucher system, (5) privatizing education-provided they can do it with tax payer subsidies, (5) giving tax payer funds in the form of hand outs to major corporations (6) cutting taxes for the wealthy, (6) convincing folks science is just a scam when it comes to the environment. (6) making sure nobody except white folks immigrate to this country. What could possibly be wrong with these objectives? And who in their right mind would buy into them? I suspect low information voter is to kind. .
If you long for the days of Bush, them you have got to be a hedge fund operator, banker or governor of Florida…Seriously, we tried it your way, an it did not work out so well. Why not try it a way which best serves the interests of the middle class.
I’d have written your last sentence as “The outcome, though, had as much to do with the political environment and lower midterm voter turnout as it did with any so-called ‘brilliance’ of the Tillis campaign, or any personality traits of Thom Tillis himself.” But that’s just whiney me……