Fayetteville Observer: Dole challenger brings campaign to region

July 26, 2008

By Drew Brooks
Staff writer

The bustling crowds moving along Hay Street on Friday stood in stark contrast to the day’s earlier campaign stops for U.S. Senate hopeful Kay Hagan.

The Democratic state senator representing Guilford County is challenging incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole this November and visited the Fourth Friday celebration in downtown Fayetteville, capping a day that included stops in Anson, Richmond and Scotland counties.

“There are too many shuttered up buildings,” Hagan said of her earlier stops, which were in some of the state’s hardest hit areas in terms of lost jobs.

Scotland County has the state’s largest unemployment rate at 10.3 percent.

She described the downtown districts of Laurinburg, Rockingham and Wadesboro as having too many vacancies and being covered with “For Sale” and “For Rent” signs.

“You don’t see the hubbub of activity,” she said, referring to the crowds walking past the Rainbow Room at 221 Hay St., where Hagan was greeting supporters.

Hagan said policies supported by Dole are partly to blame for the loss of jobs. She said she knows those jobs won’t come back, but said it is important to stop the hemorrhaging.

“People want jobs,” Hagan said. “When their children graduate, they want them to be able to find jobs (in the state).”

Among the policies criticized by Hagan were Dole’s support of CAFTA and NAFTA trade agreements which receive much of the blame for the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs.

Hagan said she doesn’t want those agreements abandoned, but would like to level the playing field by including enforceable labor and environmental standards, and preventing companies from moving their operations to places without controls.

“When done right, trade opens up nations to new products, new opportunities and new ideas,” she said in a news release dealing with Friday’s campaign stop. “For too many years, however, trade deals have been written to pull down wages and working conditions in the U.S. and other developed countries, instead of pulling up wages in the developing world.”

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