If Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC) has been hoping for a change in the narrative for her 2014 reelection bid, she may have gotten her wish. Unfortunately, the change seems to be in the form of the story getting even worse. Thom Tillis, the state House Speaker, has wasted no time in going on the air and pointing out Hagan’s role as a lead engineer on the Obamacare train wreck.
North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis (R) is attacking Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) as an Obama lackey in his first television ad — while playing up his own business credentials instead of his legislative experience.
“Kay Hagan enabled President Obama’s worst ideas. She refuses to clean up his mess, so you and I have to clean up hers,” Tillis says in the spot.
Polling shows Obama’s weakened position could hurt Hagan in the state. An early December automated poll by the North Carolina-based Democratic firm Public Policy Polling found his approval rating had dropped to 44 percent, with 55 percent disapproving. In that poll, Hagan had a narrow 2-point lead on Tillis, who was unknown by most voters.
Hagan’s support of ObamaCare has been a focus of the attacks against her. Tillis joins in, ripping the law as a “disaster,” and knocks politicians of both parties for failing to rein in the national debt.
Even better, Hagan tries to hit Tillis for supporting special interests. It’s fairly shocking that Kay Hagan would attack anyone on special interests. Her list of special interests and lobbyist backers — including her buddy Tony Podesta – is as long as your arm. (See here, here and here for starters.) This isn’t even counting the $1million+ that political action committees have poured into her campaign or her financial reports from her time in state legislature. This has led some to begin calling her “Special Interest Kay.”
There’s one seriously hilarious sub-plot to this story as it unfolds in the Tar Heel state. One of the bigger Democrat super pacs, the Senate Majority PAC, is out there doing their best to defend all of Hagan’s good work in implementing Obamacare. Of course, they had to find a way to do it without actually mentioning the Affordable Care Act by name.
The Senate Majority PAC is up with another big ad buy on behalf of Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), a top GOP target in 2014.
The ad focuses on stressing Hagan’s support of aspects of ObamaCare — without once mentioning the law by name — and criticizing her most likely opponent, North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis (R), on healthcare issues.
At this point, these efforts to “help” Hagan are really doing little more than teeing up the ball for Tillis. And the state party supporting him wasn’t about to let this slow, fat pitch sail over the plate.
“It’s evident that Kay Hagan and her liberal allies have seen her campaign completely implode because of her unwavering support for Obamacare, and now they are desperately trying to do damage control to save her Senate seat,” says North Carolina Republican Party spokesman Daniel Keylin. “No amount of political spin and sugar-coating over the airwaves will change the fact that Kay Hagan repeatedly misled the public to justify casting the deciding vote for this train wreck. North Carolinians know that Kay Hagan owns Obamacare.”
If you’d like to help out Tillis as he pushes to flip this Senate seat from blue to red, you can check him out here. And here’s the video referenced above.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member