Muscle
Cross-posted from Capital Beat.
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From this story in Sunday's paper:
Kay Hagan's chief rival in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate has accused the state senator of using her status as a powerful and politically connected committee chairwoman to intimidate his potential supporters."There is an inside machine that is working very hard to lock down the money in the state," said Jim Neal, a Chapel Hill investment banker and Greensboro native. On the stump and in phone calls to potential donors, Neal has told audiences that potential supporters were being "muscled" by political operatives friendly to Hagan.
"Someone will agree, 'Jim, I'll throw a fundraiser for you.' And then all of a sudden we won't hear from them for a while and the next thing you know, they're throwing a fundraiser for Kay (Hagan)," Neal said when asked to describe how this muscling worked.
Hagan said she had "not heard of this at all" and said she was shocked Neal was making the allegation as part of his stump speech.
Coming next Sunday: profiles of the two leading candidates in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary.