News-Record.com

For those of you on any sort of political campaigns direct mail or e-mail list, this note sent by Sen. Kay Hagan's campaign ought to look familiar:

Everyone wants to make a difference and I am convinced that if we want to make a difference here in North Carolina, we need change in Washington. Please join hundreds of other North Carolinians by contributing to my campaign for the U.S. Senate.

[snip]

P.S. Your contribution of any amount - $25, $50, $100 or more before the December 31st reporting deadline will help me demonstrate to the rest of North Carolina that I can win this race! Click here to contribute now! Thanks again for your support.

Dec. 31 is a key deadline for candidates seeking to build credibility for next year's run. The Democrats lining up to take on U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole certainly fall into that camp.

Hagan, a Democratic state senator from Greensboro, and Jim Neal, an investment banker from Chapel Hill, are the front-runners and running roughly neck and neck in the polls. A fundraising lead on this coming report could help one begin to build a lead in the polls.

But just how important it is depends on who you talk to.

Thomas Mills, Neal's campaign manager, says candidates want to have enough money on hand but won't be playing the "who-has-more" game get. He points out that both Hagan and Neal jumped into the race at the beginning of the current campaign finance reporting quarter. While both should have been able to build up some funds, neither the race nor the money chase will be over Jan. 1, he said.

"There's nothing going to be make or break for either campaign with this report," Mills said.

True enough. But money in politics begets more money. People like to bet on a winner. And if one of the Democrats can roll out an eye-popping total on their end-of-year report, it could suck the wind out of their opponents fundraising.

As for Dole, she had $2.3 million in the bank as of Sept. 30 and has continued to raise money. It was more important for her to raise money early in the year to show that she could still put together the kind of finance effort that helped bring her victory in 2002.

"With the amount of money she's raised, whatever needed to be answered for Sen. Dole has been answered," said Mark Stephens, a consultant with Dole's campaign.

In fact, the leading Democrats' eyes do seem more on Dole than on each other.

"I look at it as if I'm running between now and next November against Elizabeth Dole," Hagan said this week.

This just in from the Guilford County Democrats:

Due to a very enthusiastic response, the date, time and location of the January Democratic Lunch Forum with SENATOR KAY HAGAN has been changed.

The Forum will now be a Town Hall Meeting and will be held at 6 p.m., THURSDAY, JANUARY 17 at Golden Corral (at Wendover & I-40).

To ensure that we have adequate space, RSVPs ARE STRONGLY RECOMMENDED!

To RSVP, call Democratic Headquarters at 315-5532 or respond to this e-mail.

There is no admission fee for the meeting. If you choose to eat at Golden Corral, the cost of the meal is yours.

If you plan to eat, please arrive early. The meeting will start promptly at 6 p.m.

Hagan is running for Senate, but you knew that...right?

In some ways this release from Public Policy Poling on Democratic primaries makes perfect sense to me. Edwards trailing in NC? Sure - especially after losing two early primaries. About 67 percent of folks not having a choice in the Lt. Governor's race? Heck, I bet a good number of those weren't aware the Lt. Governor was elected separately from the governor.

But the U.S. Senate race results confound me.

No, not the part where 66 percent haven't made up their mind. I actually sort of expect that at this stage in the game.

But Greensboro Sen. Kay Hagan leads the field with 19 percent of the vote, 12 points ahead of Chapel Hill investment banker Jim Neal.

It's not that Hagan isn't a legit candidate with a good shot. But she hasn't been doing a lot in terms of outreach or grass-roots campaigning that I can tell. She's been doing fundraisers and getting her campaign team together, but that's not the sort of stuff that tends to give you an advantage in the polls.

Neal, by contrast, has been actively on the stump.

And it's a bit at odds with polls that tested Hagan and Neal against incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole, which showed they were pretty equivalent options among voters. So what gives? Some possibilities:

• * There is a certain segment of the population that will choose a female candidate over male candidates when presented with little other information. Hagan is the only woman in the field.

• * A derivative of my last thought, but primary voters may think that running a female candidate and/or one with a few years of legislative experience is their best shot of taking out Dole.

• * In those versus-Dole polls, some large percentage of voters are basically taking anyone who isn't Dole without much regard to policy or background.

• * Hagan's standing as a state Senator and the chairman of a powerful committee is good for more than just a coffee in the LOB break room.

• * For all of Jim Neal's early campaigning and grass-roots work, he's not hitting a broad segment of the Democratic primary audience. I know the on-line activists really like him, but they're not the bulk of the Democratic primary electorate.

One more note: PPP's Tom Jensen notes:

There continues to be very little movement in the race. Jim Neal barely out polls fringe candidates John Ross Hendrix and Duskin Lassiter. Hagan expands her lead over Neal from 9 points last month to 12 this month, but actually has her standing drop from 22 to 19.

In a poll with a margin of error of +/- 3 percent, I wouldn't get that excited about it. I'm more interested in the relative position of the candidates. But I'll be interested to see what Jensen has to say about that later this week.

Update: Click here for Saturday's story.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

State Sen. Kay Hagan announced she had raised $561,836 in the last three months of 2007 for her U.S. Senate campaign. Really, that's the last two months of 2007, since she officially launched her campaign and filed paperwork on Oct. 30.

Her chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Chapel Hill investment banker Jim Neal did not release numbers today, saying "I know we had a good quarter but we could have done better." He forecasted that the first three months of this year would be “very big.”

Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole raised $1.1 million in the final three quarters of 2007, her campaign said. That would bring her total fundraising effort for the year to $4.8 million.

Conservative projections suggest the Democratic nominee will need to raise a total of $8 million to take on Dole, while others say the number could go as high as $12 million.

More on all this in Saturday's paper (I think).

Democratic Senate candidate Jim Neal put out the following on his fundraising for the third quarter of 2007:

"Our filing will show that as of December 31st we have raised more than $210,000. We are very proud of where we are. We are meeting our fundraising goals and we are building a strong grassroots campaign.

I'm most proud of the hundreds of small dollar contributors from across North Carolina supporting our grassroots campaign to defeat the special interests that control the political agenda, whether in Raleigh or Washington D.C.

Our movement will continue to grow and we will prove that North Carolina's citizens are more powerful than the special interests."

Previously, Hagan reported roughgly twice that fundraising number.

Kay Hagan was scheduled to speak to a town hall meeting of Guilford County Democrats tonight. In fact, I find myself in Greensboro to attend and therefore find myself a bit disappointed. From the party via e-mail:

Due to adverse weather conditions, tonight's Town Hall Meeting with N.C. Senator Kay Hagan has been postponed. The meeting will be rescheduled within the next few weeks.

Hagan is running for U.S. Senate and is in a pretty good primary battle with Chapel Hill investment banker Jim Neal.

You can add another to the roster of candidates hoping to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole this year.

Howard Staley, a podiatrist who practices in Sanford, sent word by way of a news release that he intends to run as a Democrat. You can click her for his FEC info.

State Sen. Kay Hagan and Chapel Hill investment banker Jim Neal are the front runners in the race. Also declared are John Ross Hendrix of Cary and Duskin Lassiter of Lexington.

In his news release, Staley writes:

"Instead of this Nation bolstering corporate profit, we need to be concerned with the genuine needs of American people," Staley said today. "We need to encourage pride in a United States of America that rewards its citizens with a guarantee of their basic needs - specifically good jobs, affordable housing, unadulterated food and water, and worriless healthcare."

My Google reader has been culling stories related to North Carolina's U.S. Senate campaign over the past week. It looks like the leading Democrats are on the road.

State Sen. Kay Hagan was spotted in Florida, playing up her local connections to win a campaign in North Carolina, where she's playing up her local connection. Hagan last week was in Lakeland, where her father was mayor at one point. Her uncle, Lawton Chiles, was a governor and U.S. Senator from Florida.

"Let's just say I was born in North Carolina, went to law school in North Carolina, worked all my career in North Carolina and have three children who went through the schools there. So I can represent the people of North Carolina," Hagan said in an interview with the Lakeland Ledger.

Also on the road was Jim Neal, a Chapel Hill investment banker.

The New York Observer noted Neal would be in town at the end of January, as did Page Six, which famously decided that Jesse Helms had passed on to the great Senate seat in the sky before he actually had.

Meanwhile, Dole took a swipe at her would-be rivals last week, saying they shouldn't support the SCIP children's health insurance program at the expense of the state's traditional cash crop, tobacco.

"To fund it on the back of North Carolina's economy - and especially on the backs of the tobacco industry - when there are other funding options, is unfair," Dole said in a speech to the Tobacco Growers Association of North Carolina.

I am apparently way unhip, or just too slow to understand how this story in the Village Voice winds its way to talking to Jim Neal, a candidate for U.S. Senate here in North Carolina.

But it does...eventually...half way through. I think it's meant to be funny, except, well, it's not.

It's just sad, stuck somewhere between elitist and ignorant.

Here's an excerpt from the story that will give you some idea of the style:

But might Elizabeth Dole be every bit as rotten as Limbaugh- I mean Helms - was? "She's not as polarizing in terms of her stance on social issues," said Neal. "Jesse Helms will be remembered as being a very polarizing, mean person. An old-line party activist in North Carolina named Betty McCain said, 'Helms is so mean that when he was a boy, his mother had to tie a pork chop around his neck so the dogs would come play with him.' " "I thought that was to keep away the Jews," I remarked, saucily. "There aren't any!" replied Neal, laughing.

Right. Cute. Someone might want to mention that to these folks or maybe these folks. From the Temple Emanuel website:

The Greensboro Jewish community had its first permanent settlers in the middle 1890's. At this time, the earliest Greensboro members of the Cone and Schiffman families arrived and were soon joined by relatives and in-laws.

Did I mention Neal grew up in Greensboro?

I know, I know, I'm letting facts getting in the way of witty repartee and New York condescension on us backward southerners. And I'm going to do it again. More from the Voice piece:

Has Neal's out sexuality become an issue in the campaign? "You're the first person who's asked me that casually," he said, as my gay jaw dropped. "It's been very awkward for journalists. I've been all over the state like a junebug and no one has asked me once about my sexual orientation!"

Right. It's been a total non-issue except for the audio clip on this page or this story or maybe this here from Charlotte or ... well, you get the idea.

Now, I've met Neal and interviewed him both over the phone and in person. He strikes me generally as a thoughtful, temperate observer and speaker. So, I don't know, maybe he was quoted out of context. I haven't spoken to him about this story so don't know what the deal might be.

I'm not calling BS on Neal right yet. But on the Village Voice, oh yes, if for no other reason than indulging in the same ol' ugly stereotypes of North Carolina. Don't get me wrong. You'll find your share of homophobes and religious intolerants around here.

But let's document them for who they are, rather than as part of some cartoonish sketch that paints the state as some kind of backward monolith where Willie Stark might be at home. Heck, if nothing else, the story does a disservice to the North Carolina's not insubstantial pockets of progressives. (Hello, the Speaker of the North Carolina House is Joe Hackney for cripes sake.)

Or am I just over-reacting. Probably. I mean, they're just having a laugh, right?

Chapel Hill investment banker and Greensboro native Jim Neal will be in Greensboro next Tuesday. Details from a news release, after the jump:

By way of Lex who picked up from Schaver, the folks at MapLight are offering cool widgets that show fundraising for federal candidates. For example, here's a snapshot of the U.S. Senate race here in North Carolina.

I've been meaning to do this sooner, but I've been home with a sick child. Anyway, I finally got on the phone with Senate Candidate Jim Neal regarding the Village Voice story.

First, be forewarned: Yes, I know the Village Voice is a condescending bastion of New York humor, but I did ask the candidate respond as if answering someone (like me) who didn't quite get the joke.

Secondly, I recorded audio with Neal's permission so I'm going to give you a short form response and then you can listen to the full take if you're interested.

First up, this suggestion that there might not be any Jewish folks in North Carolina, or at least that there weren't at the time of Jesse Helms' youth.

"To say there are no Jewish people in North Carolina is pretty preposterous," Neal said. He has some Jewish ancestry himself.

Click here for that full answer.

Secondly, I asked why he seemed to be getting asked about his sexual orientation a lot outside the state, while it's kind of died out as a topic here.

"The story of my sexual orientation played out here, outside of the state when I talk to reporters, they're reporting it for the first time," Neal said.

Click here for that full answer.

I asked Neal what was taking him out of state, and he emphasized that he had only been to New York once this year. He pointed out - rightly - that anyone trying to run for national office from North Carolina is going to have to look out of state for money.

Then he made this pledge, for what would presumably be his re-election campaign:

"After I'm elected Senator, for the record, I will never accept a campaign contribution more $250, never. Because in six years, the Internet is going to displace the bundlers, and the PACs, and the special interest groups who write the bigger checks," Neal said.

Click here for that full answer.

The follow up to that question was whether it was harder for Neal to raise money in North Carolina because he was gay. This is something that I have heard, off the record or not for attribution, multiple times.

"No, I don't think so at all. I think it's harder for me to raise money from outside North Carolina because I'm from outside the system," Neal said.

Click here for that full answer.

The conversation rolled around to the potential of having a competitive Democratic primary in North Carolina and whether that would be good or bad for folks like him lower down on the ticket. He said it would be a good thing, drawing attention to the state.

He said that folks outside the state still thought about Jesse Helms when they thought of North Carolina politics.

"North Carolina today is about John Edwards, that's where most people should associate North Carolina," Neal said.

Click here for that full answer.

So, did he answer whatever questions you might have had?

State Sen. Kay Hagan was on the stump in Greensboro this evening, speaking the Guilford County Democratic executive committee and local Dems at the Golden Corral over on Wendover. Hagan, a Democrat, is aiming to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole.

She played to a crowd of about 50-75 folks and was introduced by Don Vaughan, who hopes to take her state Senate seat. The short take:

• * She delivered what is apparently becoming a stock line for her: "I think we need to send Miss Liddy Dole a pair of ruby red slippers and let her click her heels three times and go home to Kansas."

• * The far better line of the evening: "My husband can vote for me."

• * Last of the read meat: Hagan said that for years, the state was represented by "Senator No," a reference to Jesse Helms. "Now we have Senator Who?...We're now going to have Senator Can Do, and that's going to be Kay Hagan."

• * Hagan spent a good deal of her speech outlining her accomplishments in Raleigh, including helping to land more Smart Start funding for Guilford County, bolstering state support for the furniture market and helping to keep payday lenders out of the state.

• * She told the crowd that a remake of her website is in the works and would be online within two weeks.

Like Kay Hagan, U.S. Senate candidate Jim Neal was also on the hustings in Guilford County Tuesday. I caught up with him as he spoke to students at NCA&T.

Quick impressions:

• * Neal spoke to about 20 students, spending most of his time fielding questions.

• * Neal was asked how he could be incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole in the fall. "Sen. Dole is a very polarized figure," Neal said, explaining that he believed Dole's base to be among very conservative voters. "She is in a position to lose some of the more moderates." Neal said that he's in the better position to win over those moderates because of his experience in business.

• * While talking about bridging political differences, Neal seemed amazed at Dole's moral flexibility on basketball. Dole was photographed at the UNC-Clemson game this week sitting next to Erskine Bowles, opponent in the 2002 Senate race. "She sat next to Erskine Bowles and pulled for Carolina and she went to Duke - that's the most whack thing I've ever seen."

• * Neal got fired up when talking about economic inequities. He was talking to a room of mostly African American students, and noted that blacks were more likely to die earlier than whites and that an African American male was born with a 1 in 3 chance of winding up in jail. "You weren't born with a gene that says go to jail, die soon...We have failed a large segment of the population."

• * Neal was asked about the inequities between colleges in the UNC system, specifically those of the state's flagship campuses and Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The differences, he said, were visually striking when he walked onto an HCBU campus like NCA&T.

  "It doesn't look like Chapel Hill, it doesn't look like N.C. State does," he said. The problem, he said, had to do with the money and influence wielded by alumni. "Why don't we just have one endowment for the overall university system...It has everything to do with money and power and it's the same way in Raleigh as it is in Washington."

Kay Hagan has a campaign flier that she's been handing out while on the hustings. It basically highlights her accomplishments and gives a brief bio. Pretty standard stuff. One bullet point caught my attention.

"While Washington continues to run outrageous debts, Kay, as co-chair of the Budget Committee, made sure North Carolina had a balanced budget."

Hagan can take credit for a lot of things, but I'm not sure this is one of them.

Article III of the state constitution says: "The total expenditures of the State for the fiscal period covered by the budget shall not exceed the total of receipts during that fiscal period and the surplus remaining in the State Treasury at the beginning of the period."

In other words: the state is constitutionally required to have a balanced budget.

Jim Neal is keeping pace with State Sen. Kay Hagan in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary, according to this poll by Survey USA. Hagan had 24 percent in the survey, Neal had 23 percent.

This is markedly different than the last PPP survey, which had Hagan way ahead, 21 percent to 6 percent.

I'm not quite sure what to make of the disagreement between the two surveys.

From the Google news alert service regarding the front-running U.S. Senate candidates:

• * Southern Political Report says incumbents rules in campaign fundraising - shock! "Democrats are beginning to raise significant funds in North Carolina, where the GOP's US Sen. Elizabeth Dole had just under $2.7 million on hand, not as impressive as one might expect for the former chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. In the Democratic contest to oppose Dole, state Sen. Kay Hagan has much more cash on hand than investment banker Jim Neal, $516,000 to $139,000."

• * Bay Area Report: Neal will be on the west coast for a fundraiser. Neal tells the paper he opposes DOMA but would back civil unions.
  

  "I think that the federal government and the state has no right discriminating against anybody on any basis, period. Churches are free to marry whomever they want to, they enjoy that right as non-secular institution," said Neal. "But the state has no business. Clearly, DOMA I think usurps the constitution's full faith and credit clause."

The North Carolina Association of Educators has endorsed Kay Hagan in her U.S. Senate bid.

From their news release:

Hagan has demonstrated strong leadership on public education issues while serving in the North Carolina Senate. In addition, she is opposed to school voucher proposals, supports reforming the No Child Left Behind Act, and wants to close the achievement gap for minority students.

It does not mention Hagan's opponents. Worth noting is that Hagan is a lead budget writer and the NCAE takes an active interest in the budget process. I guess they like her work.

So I have story for Sunday - click here to read it - that seemed like a really good idea when I thought it up a week ago. I'm less sure right now, in part because I ended up having to hack the substantive bit that got me interested in writing it.

The premise is this: after talking to and watching the Internet posts of progressive/liberal/activist left Democrats, it seems they are lining up more behind Chapel Hill investment banker Jim Neal rather than Greensboro state Sen. Kay Hagan.

Now, there is a natural danger in writing about any one group of people. First off, not all members of the group will adhere to your thesis. Progressives are even less cohesive and consistent by their nature. Also, this is a story that requires some measure of nuance, which a 30-inch newspaper story doesn't always get at real well.

That said, I don't think the thesis is completely off base.

Neal sounds more like a progressive on the stump than Hagan does. His campaign thus far has been engineered around a robust web presence and talking in front of any gathering of more than five people who will sit still for him.

And Neal tends to take more black-and-white stands on the issues of the day, while Hagan is a bit more scholarly/circumspect in her approach in exploring new issues.

A good example of this, the bit I had to cut. Check out David Allen's blog post, which started tongues-a-waggin' in the liberal blogsphere. And it lead to this:

After hearing Hagan speak about the wiretapping bill now before Congress, Allen said he could not vote for her. Among other things, the bill would give phone companies immunity for illegal acts they may have committed in cooperating with phone taps requested by the Bush administration.

Democrats, Allen said, should be pushing back against that bill.

"What I get tired of is people like Kay Hagan telling me why it can't be done," Allen said.

Interviewed Friday, Hagan did not offer a yes-or-no answer as to whether she would have backed the Senate version of the wiretap bill to which Allen objects.

"I think it depends on which amendment you're looking at, and which bill you're looking at and we've got to look at all of that and see what's best for North Carolina," she said.
Neal was more definitive when asked.

"I was disappointed that the Senate buckled on the issue of retroactively granting immunity to the telecom companies," Neal said. Allowing lawsuits, he said, would allow lawyers to probe what kind of pressure the Bush administration used and figure out why some companies felt they had to cooperate and at least one did not.

Others who I spoke to for this story agreed that the telco issue would be a big issue for progressives.

Also worth noting is there were several people - all from Guilford County - who I approached for this story who either declined to talk to me or agreed to do so if their names weren't used. Both Hagan and Neal have Guilford County connections and it seems some were afraid of offending one or the other.

Update: Tom Jensen at PPP points to a post he wrote about a Survey USA poll that showed liberals in North Carolina slightly favoring Hagan over Neal. As he wrote then, it doesn’t make a great deal of sense given the tenor of the race.

But it does jibe with something James Protzman, better known as Anglico out there on the Internets shared. He said that activist, vocal liberals seem to be favoring Neal. But the next layer, those who may share progressive values but are not as active or outspoken, are split. Maybe that's what the Survey USA poll got at. Maybe not...I've been gun-shy about polls as of late.

The Elon University Poll put its latest results out this morning.

While slightly over 50 percent of respondents give U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole a positive job approval mark, only 37 percent say they're going to vote for her.

In a written statement that comes along with the numbers this morning, Poll Director Hunter Bacot writes:

"While Senator Dole receives decent reviews from North Carolinians overall, the Bush presidency is tempering her support a bit in the state, and this could prove a liability as she runs for reelection this fall."

President Bush did get pretty bad reviews, but his name isn't going to be on the ballot. I'm not convinced that all the difference in Dole's numbers can be chalked up to Bush - maybe part but not all.

There's might be a little bit of Coble effect at play - the "those guys in Washington are crooks but my guy is okay" take voters seem to have no matter where they are.

The data, by the way, on the question "Who do you think is the best candidate to oppose Sen. Dole," is all over the map. Hagan gets the nod, but her number is in the single digits and not significantly different from Neal's. More than 80 percent answered either "Don't' know" or "Too early to tell." The only thing that speaks to is none of the Democrats have enough name recognition right now to effectively wage a campaign against Dole.

Click here for the raw feed from the poll.

Cross-posted from Capital Beat.

Let me first say I've been covering politics at some level or another off and on for about a dozen years, from towns of under 1,000 residents to Congressional campaigns. I take nothing, and I mean NOTHING, about a campaign personally. Everyone has different ways they want to go about their job, I have my way, and we see how things work out.

Now to the news of the day:

Dome reports that Kay Hagan showed up to file the paperwork necessary to get on the ballot today. Lots of candidates make this a big production and I largely ignore these little shows because: 1) everyone does them and quite frankly there's too many political critters out there for me to attend every one; 2) the candidate is displaying no more skill than those he or she should have acquired by the third grade, namely the ability to fill out a form and follow directions.

Hagan was apparently escorted by her new campaign manager, Crystal King. Dome details the following exchange:

Kay Hagan has hired a campaign manager.

And here's the first and last quote you might hear from her:

"I do not go on the record," said Crystal King, unprompted, to two reporters Monday after one of them asked her name, David Ingram reports.

King had just started to usher Hagan out of the State Board of Elections after filing as a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.

Not exactly a warm greeting.

Huh.

So let's flashback to last week when I was working on a a piece about Hagan, Jim Neal and progressives.

I had originally given Hagan a buzz on her cell phone in the morning and ended up talking to her later in the day. But in between, campaign spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan gave me a call to chat me up. Fair enough.

After learning what the story I was working on was about, Flanagan took it upon herself to get me a written quote. (This is another story, but when I KNOW a candidate or other live human is available to spend five minutes on the phone, I don't typically deal in written quotes. They sound phony, pre-thought-out and half the time don't address the question.)

What's relevant in this case is who the quote is from: Crystal King, who Dome says doesn't go on the record. That struck me as odd, or at least calls into question by what she meant.

So in the interest of full disclosure - and at the risk of aggravating people I would really like to keep talking to me - here is Flanagan's e-mail, which contained a quote from King, which was very definitely on the record.

Hi Mark -- good speaking with you earlier. Looking forward to meeting you soon!

Statement below from Crystal King, Kay's campaign manager:

"Progressives are an important part of the Democratic community, and their desire and energy to replace a Washington politician like Elizabeth Dole is just as strong as Kay's And the Hagan campaign is doing everything thing we can to earn their votes in the primary -- and have them as a foundation for a winning general election campaign. The issues Kay's been highlighting: changing course in Iraq and reinvesting in America, taking care of our vets, and finally getting something done to make health care more affordable will appeal to voters all across the state of North Carolina."

The quote also mentions that Hagan will be announcing more campaign staff and a re-launch of the website in coming days.

What to make of this? I'll leave that to y'all.

John Ross Hendrix, a candidate for U.S. Senate as a Democrat, is dropping out of the primary and endorsing Jim Neal.

"I think Jim Neal can do an effective job," Hendrix said. "He has my full endorsement and support."

A major factor in his decision to drop out was a lack of fundraising support, Hendrix said.

Neal, a Chapel Hill investment banker, is one of two leading Democratic contenders. The other is Greensboro state Sen. Kay Hagan.

Hendrix said that endorsing Hagan was never an option in his mind.

"I examined Kay Hagan's record as a state senator early on and decided there was absolutely no way I could support her," Hendrix said.

Hendrix said he now plans to run in 2010 against Sen. Richard Burr.

Sen. Elizabeth Dole's legislative press office just sent out this PDF which gives the senator's own rundown of what she did in 2007.

This is pretty much a "here's why you should vote to send me back to Washington" type of missive, fairly typical for any incumbent. It's also the type of document I would expect her political opponents to try and pick apart.

For example, listed as a "key accomplishment" was this:

Opposed Washington-Beaufort Counties site for a Navy outlying landing field and had funding for the OLF stripped from defense bills. Elizabeth Dole has stated that broad local support for an OLF is essential. She has assured North Carolinians and advised the Navy that she will oppose the Navy’s efforts to acquire any site in North Carolina that fails to meet this standard.

But those without long-term memory damage will recall articles and editorials like this one that my friend Scott Mooneyham wrote in early 2007:

North Carolina's two U.S. senators, Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr, apparently don't want to insert politics into the process.

So, despite pressure from critics back home, neither has taken a stand on the Navy's plan to build a practice jet landing field near a pristine federal wildlife refuge in the eastern part of the state.

They haven't done so even though opposition to the Navy's plan is fierce among residents in Washington and Beaufort counties living near the proposed site.

Dole's supporters will argue that in the end she helped derail the project. Opponents will argue that she came in to shoot the wounded only after constituents complained loudly.

At any rate, a document like this gives a strong hint of the sort of things Dole will be running on come the General Election. Interestingly, I bet it also gives us a glimpse of the type of things that her opponent will try to chip away at as well. Speaking of "chip," here's another accomplishment that her eventual opponent will likely hammer away at:

Called for reauthorizing and responsibly expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program so that all eligible children in North Carolina are covered, and opposed a bill that would have disproportionately burdened North Carolina’s economy to fund the program. After this bill was twice vetoed, Dole successfully advocated for a long-term extension of SCHIP to end the uncertainty facing North Carolina and preserve coverage for children in our state. Elizabeth Dole continues to advocate for a bill to reauthorize and expand this valuable program in a way that truly helps, not hurts, North Carolina.

Democrats say that the Republican-lead resistance to the SCHIP expansion actually denies coverage to children who need help. And Sen. Kay Hagan, one of two Democratic front-runners, listed Dole's opposition to SCHIP expansion as a reason she got into the race.

State Sen. Kay Hagan recently did an interview with NBC17 about her Senate run. It looks like the station itself has posted it to the internet, so I have no guilt about sharing it with you.

Let me know what you think. The comment lines are open.

Ah, a statewide political campaign - how glamorous, right?

Sort of.

Tuesday night Chapel Hill investment advisor and U.S. Senate candidate Jim Neal visited local precinct meetings and other small gatherings in Davidson, Charlotte and the area. At these sorts of gatherings, a legit statewide candidate is a rock star of sorts. Everyone's happy to have the attention, wants to shake a hand, etc...

But there's the less glamorous, less public part of the day. Aside from doing media interviews with one of us scruffy media types (not me) this morning, Neal has spent a good deal of his day on the phone, chatting up donors. In this picture, he's working on a blog post, editing the rough draft a staff member sent along.

On the road, coffee shops (and anywhere else with free wireless access) become temporary offices. This one happens to be a Panera bread north of Charlotte.

By the way, that headset is attached to a fantastically dinged-up Blackberry, taped at the corners and scratched to high heaven.

This afternoon, he's is off to more interviews and more donor calls before doing some "meet-and-greets."

Neal's blog is here, although the post he was working on above isn't up as of this post.

In the Democratic U.S. Senate primary, Chapel Hill investment advisor Jim Neal and Greensboro state Sen. Kay Hagan have played nice with each other in the press releases, mainly targeting their sharpest comments at Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole.

Looks like that's over.

Neal's campaign put out a news release titled "Where's Kay?" today. That echoes the regular stream of attack pieces that party organs have launched against Dole under the title "Where is Liddy?" ( Here too.)

I'm told by a Neal campaign staffer that was a "happy coincidence," but there you are. (Update: I'm told by the Hagan campaign that she has agreed to do the League of Women Voters forum, just confirming earlier this week.) From the release:

The people of North Carolina will have the opportunity to hear the views of all the Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate - all except for State Senator Kay Hagan.

Ms. Hagan has ignored the invitation from the League of Women Voters and Public Radio East to participate in the debate at Craven Community College in New Bern on Friday March 28 at 8 p.m. It will be broadcast on public radio stations statewide. The deadline for participating passed this week with no response from Hagan.

Jim Neal, the Chapel Hill businessman running for U.S. Senate, is calling on State Senator Hagan to participate in a series of six debates across the state in Charlotte, the Triangle, the Triad, Asheville, Fayetteville, and New Bern.

"These debates will give voters an opportunity to see who the Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate really are and what we believe. It seems Appropriations Chairwoman Hagan thinks this campaign is about calling in favors from high-dollar Capitol insiders to pay for carpet bombing the state with poll-tested political ads, but the people of North Carolina deserve better. They deserve a real discussion of the issues facing our state and our nation," Neal said.

Hagan's failure to appear at the New Bern debate is not Hagan's only rejection of an unscripted exchange before the voters.

Hagan has ignored requests for a debate sponsored by WTVD-TV ABC 11 Eyewitness News Raleigh-Durham.

That will sound kind of similar to folks following the Democrat gubenatorial primary, where Treasurer Richard Moore has accused Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue of ducking debates.

More news from the U.S. Senate Primary:

• * Hagan has a new website. Via Cone.
• * Dome says Hagan has a new Googlely ad.
• * PPP says Hagan is running a classic Washington media-blitz campaign while Neal is tapping grassroots.

Update: So after Neal's first news release goes out, Hagan's campaign says they are signed up for the Public Radio debate. Then comes this from Neal:

State Senator Kay Hagan has made another public about face. Her campaign is now saying she will join the Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate in a debate on March 28 - after failing to meet the deadline for the forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters and Public Radio East.

The Hagan campaign's assertion that she will participate in the debate came after the Jim Neal campaign revealed that Sen. Hagan failed to tell Public Radio East she would attend the debate. Her campaign web site does not list the debate at Craven Community College in its "Kay's Upcoming Events" section.

Sen. Hagan has also failed to respond to an invitation from WTVD-TV for a televised debate among the Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate.

Today is not the first time Senator Hagan has abruptly changed course.

Hagan, a chair of the state Senate Appropriations Committee, inexplicably entered the Senate race after publicly announcing she had no interest in challenging Elizabeth Dole for the U.S. Senate. (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHaauvJnNLA&feature=related

Jim Neal, the Chapel Hill businessman running for U.S. Senate, is calling on State Senator Hagan to participate in a series of six debates across the state in Charlotte, the Triangle, the Triad, Asheville, Fayetteville, and New Bern.

Still no word from Senator Hagan on that.

Update: And about five minutes after that second release from Neal hit my in box, this came from the Hagan campaign:

GREENSBORO, NC- State Senator and U.S. Senate Candidate Kay Hagan (D-Guilford) this weekend will continue traveling the state talking to voters in North Carolina who believe that Washington is broken and the state deserves new leadership in Washington which puts their needs first.

Kay will speak at the North Carolina Association of Educators annual meeting on Saturday in Fayetteville and then meet and greet voters in Clinton, Sanford and Asheboro later that day. On Sunday, Kay will head to Charlotte to speak to the Black Political Caucus of Charlotte-Mecklenburg.

Earlier this week Kay’s campaign confirmed her attendance at the League of Women Voters/Public Radio East Debate, scheduled for March 28 in New Bern, and also reached out to members of the African American community to propose a debate specifically addressing issues important to the African American community.

“It’s important to Kay to meet voters one-on-one and talk with them about the issues they feel are most important in this election, but Kay doesn’t feel that interaction should be limited to those people who can get themselves tickets to a debate,” said Communications Director Colleen Flanagan. “That’s why, in addition to debates, she’s out-and-about all over the state in the remaining weeks before the primary, talking to voters about the things in Washington they believe need fixing and how she’ll do that as a U.S. Senator.”

Who was it that said, "Now's the fun part?"

Jay Ovittore endorsed Senate candidate Jim Neal in a blog post on the BlueNC site. This is a bit of an internecine feuding. Ovittore is from Guilford County, as is state Sen. Kay Hagan, Neal's primary opposition in the primary.

From the post:

I have tried to work with both camps in the Senate race and the only one that will give me the time of day is Jim's. The straw that broke the camels back however, Kay Hagan will speak at one of my primary opponent's events. This is after pledging to help my campaign and never following through.

For those of you asking what sort of effect this sort of thing has, I don't know. Ovittore is not a well known commodity and it seems unlikely he's going to swing a lot of voters in state races. Still, he seems to be well-liked by some activists, so maybe those who were fence-sitting in the Senate race might be pushed over the Neal camp.

Just by way of information, the other candidates in Ovittore's primary - 6th Congressional District, now held by Rep. Howard Coble - are Teressa Sue Bratton and Johnny J. Carter. Hagan and Bratton seem to be on pretty good terms.

For those wondering, political consultants would agree with Ovittore when he starts out his post by saying he shouldn't be endorsing anyone. Candidates with their own primaries tend to stay out of one another's' primaries since they run the risk of hacking off potential friends and supporters. That's doubly true in the case of Hagan, who is by far the most influential sitting legislator from Guilford County and backed by a number of local politicos.

U.S. Senate candidate Jim Neal, of Chapel Hill, picked up an endorsement from the Black Political Caucus of Charlotte-Mecklenburg today. Both he and Greensboro state Sen. Kay Hagan spoke to the group over the weekend. From Neal's news release:

Dwayne Collins, Chairman of the Black Political Caucus of Charlotte-Mecklenburg says, "The membership of the Black Political Caucus is proud to support Mr. Neal with our endorsement in the U.S. Senate race. We thought Jim is the ideal candidate to defeat Elizabeth Dole, and that is why we are behind his candidacy. He was the best candidate on the issues that affect all citizens, but especially members of the African American community. We look forward to working with Jim Neal to improve the lives of the human family of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County."

Neal has been working hard at cultivating support in the African American community. As an example, I'm told both by Neal and folks who were there that he was working the room pretty hard during the CIAA tournament earlier this year.

In other campaign news: Hagan's camp has announced they've "officially" re-launched her website. The re-launch actually happened on Friday but they sent out the news release today.

'Tis the season for political endorsements, and state Sen. Kay Hagan of Greensboro just landed one of the blue chips of the endorsement world. From a news release:

State Senator and U.S. Senate Candidate Kay Hagan (D-Guilford) today was endorsed by EMILY's List, the nation's largest political action committee and financial resource for women running for elective office. "Kay Hagan personifies the strength, experience and tenacity needed to change Washington and to bring North Carolina's priorities back from those of President Bush," said Ellen R. Malcolm, president of EMILY's List. "A no-nonsense legislator and accomplished businesswoman, Kay has proven herself as someone who delivers and has worked across party lines in the state Senate to enact critical legislation for North Carolinians. EMILY's List and its members are proud to support Kay Hagan in her efforts to bring a fresh and effective North Carolina voice to the U.S. Senate."

Oka