Charlotte Observer: Hagan Easily Wins Dem Contest for U.S. Senate

Challenge will be November face-off with GOP incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Dole
By DAVID PERLMUTT
Charlotte Observer
Published May 07, 2008

State Sen. Kay Hagan easily won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate on Tuesday, but her biggest challenge looms: Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole.
Their race will be historic for the Carolinas, the first time two women have faced off for the same U.S. Senate seat. That’s happened only six times nationwide, according to the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University.
With 95 percent of precincts reporting, Shelby native Hagan held a huge lead over Chapel Hill investment banker Jim Neal – her closest of four challengers – with 60 percent of the vote to Neal’s 18 percent.

Among the other Democrats, Lumberton attorney Marcus Williams got 12 percent; Lexington trucker Duskin Lassiter, 5 percent; and Chatham County podiatrist Howard Staley, 4 percent.

Dole, 71, finishing her first term, demolished her only competition, Pete Di Lauro of Weldon, a former Marine and New York City police officer. With 56 of precincts tabulated, Dole won 90 percent of the votes.

Hagan, one of the state’s chief budget writers, said Dole is beatable and that she’s well-positioned to do it.

“I truly think that everything is broken, from the economy to the war in Iraq, to immigration,” said Hagan, 54, a Greensboro lawyer who has served in the N.C. Senate since 1999. “She (Dole) has voted with President Bush 92 percent of the time, 100 percent of the time on the Iraqi War. Our veterans are hurting; I think the military is stretched so thin we’ve got to end this war. Right now it’s not making America any safer.”

Dole’s nomination was a foregone conclusion. The Hagan-Neal race was spirited, but got overshadowed by the bitterly fought presidential primary and gubernatorial campaigns.

Beating Dole will be daunting. The wife of former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, she’s well-connected across the state and has already raised nearly $8 million for her re-election. Polls show at least half of North Carolinians approve of the job she’s doing.

Yet Democrats have long thought Dole is vulnerable because of her ties to Bush and the war. In the 2006 midterm elections, she was criticized for Republicans losing control of the Senate after chairing the National Republican Senatorial Committee. At home, she’s been criticized for not spending much time in the state.

Tuesday, Dole voted in her hometown of Salisbury and flew back to Washington. In a telephone interview, she dismissed the charges as “political stuff.”

Dole said she’s disagreed with Bush on a number of issues: support for the tobacco quota buyout, trade issues that hurt N.C. workers and the president’s immigration-reform proposal that Dole said she helped defeat.

She said she’s one of the few Republicans working to cap greenhouse emissions, legislation Bush doesn’t support. And she said she’s spent weekends and holidays traveling the state to listen to concerns.

Hagan was a reluctant candidate at first, withdrawing her name from consideration – along with a succession of well-known Democrats unwilling to challenge Dole.
But days after Neal disclosed he is gay on a liberal blog’s online forum, Hagan announced she’d reconsidered and was joining the race.

Hagan said Tuesday the primary has given her a chance to boost her name recognition by advertising statewide and making campaign stops in 75 to 80 counties.

She joked she’s got two things going for her over Dole: “I live in North Carolina and my husband can vote for me.”

http://www.charlotte.com/elections/story/613107.html

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