I'll just reprint the press release as I'm busy with some other things....
GREENSBORO, NC – Kay Hagan for U.S. Senate Campaign Communications Director Colleen Flanagan today released the following statement with regards to the Democratic U.S. Senate debate proposed by Durham television station WTVD. WTVD has decided to only invite candidates who reached a minimum of 10% in their latest WTVD/SurveyUSA poll. In the past week, three separate polls have been released in this race, all three of which have State Senator and U.S. Senate Candidate Kay Hagan in the lead, but show varying results for her primary opponents.“We have discussed the terms of the debate with WTVD, and while we would have been happy to debate had all the candidates been invited, we do not feel comfortable participating in a debate where some of the candidates were excluded. As others have noted, in North Carolina, we have primaries, not coronations, and it’s inherently unfair for one polling firm to determine which candidates voters get to hear from.”
To my knowledge, it isn't the Neal campaign trying to limit the participants, but WTVD. I just wanted to make that clear. Hagan has been consistent in asking that all candidates be allowed to participate.
Are the other three viable? Should they be invited? Well, we do have primaries here in North Carolina, not coronations...............................
Comments
All I can say is I remember how annoying the presidential
debates were when there were...what...8 of them fielding questions? One side of me says it is time to cut to the chase and the other side says that the other three who are actively campaigning, raising a little money, also deserve to have this opportunity for free publicity.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
For the Record
The aforementioned WTVD/Survey USA poll:
----
There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of the comfortable past which, in fact, never existed. - Robert F. Kennedy
----
There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of the comfortable past which, in fact, never existed. - Robert F. Kennedy
Here's an idea.....
Invite an active voter who is still undecided and include him/her in the debate asking questions. At this point Undecided is winning the race.
Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
If "undecided" split evenly
between all five, the lower three would all be over 10%.
That being said, I think it's much more likely that Kay would prefer the confusion that having five debate participants would provide as opposed to her being concerned about the fairness of excluding these candidates.
That sounds about right to me, sc
Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
As long as we get the debate/forum/whatever
I would like to see them all on stage, facing each other, answering questions, preferably meaningful ones.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi
Pointing at Naked Emperors
It looks like if we want to see these events
we're going to have to provide the live feed. We can do it if someone will attend the events with the right equipment and if the organizers will allow it.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
Hagan doesn't want to go head-to-head with Neal
Can't blame her for that. All the rest is noise.
Same can be said of Bev Perdue
She's declined every invitation(so far) except ours and that wasn't really a debate, it wasn't face-to-face or on camera. I don't think Richard Moore is any more dynamic than Bev Perdue. She's attractive, articulate and I think could hold her own - if not dominate in many areas. I've never seen them together, so I'm sure I'm missing something.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
I hate to bring this up
do you think it's a girl thing?
Are women afraid of appearing "bitchy" or "mean" in a debate where men would appear "assertive"? Are we still there?
Or are these two women (Perdue and Hagan) just part of the same machine?
Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi
Pointing at Naked Emperors
I tried not to go there, but I did think about it
The thing is that I think they would both do well against the men they're running against. Jim Neal might be impressive, but he isn't imposing and I don't think he makes for a bad comparison. (I don't know how to say it, but he isn't a "character" or a showboat...he's more real.) Both would be a tad nervous, but both have enough experience addressing people that I think they would do fine. I really see no reason why she should avoid a debate for that reason. The fact is many Democrats in NC are a close match to Hagan's politics and this would be an excellent opportunity for her to show people that. She's not going to lose the votes of true (?) liberals, since she probably never had those votes to begin with.
Why Bev Perdue won't debate Richard Moore is beyond me. I think she makes a real connection with people and it would give her a chance to take a final decisive lead over Moore. Personally, I think it is Moore who should be afraid to debate Perdue. (Disclosure: Moore supporter who has moved to the fence.)
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
not a woman thing I think
On the contrary, I've yet to meet a woman who didn't love to talk. *snark*
Just kidding folks!
Six televised debates for Perdue
Betsy, for the record Bev has agreed to 6 televised debates with Richard Moore. She has already participated in one for the NC School Boards Association, another for the NAACP, and two on UNC-TV. There will be another debate hosted by the NC Association of Broadcasters on April 22 and another debate on UNC-TV on April 24.
You can watch at least two of the debates on youtube.
Justin
Bev Perdue Campaign
(better disclose before I get rapped on the knuckles:) )
Oh....everyone knows who you are justing
you're famous. You've been in the paper. :D
She has now, I am wrong about that. There's one in particular that was organized by WLTT that Moore wouldn't agree to unless Bev Perdue was going and Bev wouldn't agree to it and then last I heard a television station had gotten in on the act and it might be on again. Any word on that? My contact is Curtis Wright at WLTT on this.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
That's right
Hagan's planning on letting her air war win the primary, and she's going to avoid debating Neal head-to-head.
I get the political rationale. She's running the numbers and sees that as long as she runs her game plan and doesn't offer Neal free publicity, she's the front-runner.
Her excuse is high-minded and all, but I wonder if she's ever made any similar statements regarding any other debates in any other races.
The more debates the better.
Scrutiny Hooligans - http://www.scrutinyhooligans.us
Too bad WTVD won't do what Public Radio East did
They set the date and planned to hold the debate...which turned out to be a forum...with or without Hagan. I realize it's different for WTVD, but empty chairs can be quite effective.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
Advertising on DU
She's advertising heavily on liberal blogs. I have asked Andrew Kain whether they intend to counter and have yet to get an answer.
Liberalism as a badge of honor!
No apologies, no excuses.
Liberalism as a badge of honor!
No apologies, no excuses.
I almost never go to DU
I heard about the ads on Talking Points Memo that were triggered when an IP address indicated the reader was in this market, but I haven't seen any of them.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
I have a screen shot.
That will be in Monday's post.
Jesus Swept ticked me off. Too short. I loved the characters and then POOF it was over.
-me
Do you think he really needs to?
I bet Neal has enough support in the state liberal blogosphere that he should direct his money somewhere else. Nationally, he's got Americablog, Blue America endorsing him and those are biggies. I don't understand why he isn't on the DailyKos/MyDD/SSP netroots endorsement page. (They changed the name and I don't remember what it is.) He should definitely be endorsed by that group. I honestly think Jim has locked down the liberal blogosphere and probably doesn't need ads. Another problem might be space availability. Other candidates might have already bought up the ad spots.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
Hagan never planned to debate
Hagan's strategists were never going to let her go on a televised debate. Why would they? She has $1 million to put up on television and can ensure a one-sided media campaign. When you have a large financial advantage or large lead in the polls, avoiding public debate is standard operating procedure in consultant-driven campaigns. It's not about public discourse. It's about winning. So much for the politics of change.
Urgh....we've been through this before
Because of who you are and what you do, you really need to disclose it each time you comment on this race. Please. I've said the same thing to every campaign that posts here. I believe James has also spoken to you about this. I know it's annoying to do it each time, but each day our readership is more than 40% new readers which means a lot of people do not know that you are with the Neal campaign even if regulars do know this.
Thanks,
Betsy
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
So, who is he
and what does he do, for those of us just tuning in.
:)
Liberalism as a badge of honor!
No apologies, no excuses.
Liberalism as a badge of honor!
No apologies, no excuses.
I won't disclose his real name,
but he is a professional consultant working for the Neal campaign. From his own site:
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
Better yet....
You could have given him more than 25 minutes to come back and just say who he is.
Jesus Swept ticked me off. Too short. I loved the characters and then POOF it was over.
-me
He hasn't come back in the past
He prefers to drop a bomb and then leave.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
Sorry, again.
I generally sign on periodically and read posts that are interesting to me--kind of like I do with my newspaper every morning. I do the same with the national blogs. Every once in awhile, something makes me want to respond. I usually post a response and move on to whatever else I have going on. I've never considered my posts bombs--just responses. I only came back to this one today because of the subject matter. Sorry to have cause a stir.
Thank you
Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
The Campaign Network - consultants in Carrboro
Thomas Mills and all of the staff usually do a great job.
They should get major kudos for electing Ty Harrell to the NC House and booting out Russell Capps last cycle.
Their work on behalf of their client in this case is laudable because it what they were hired to do. Whether their work in this race is positive work for Democractic victory in November is much more questionable.
Free advice to the consultants from a mere citizen: Have Neal remove the Bear Stearns reference from his web site - the dark grainy attack ads just write themselves.
Well, now that he is outed....
I would just say that the first time I met him was when he was working with Larry Kissell.
Jesus Swept ticked me off. Too short. I loved the characters and then POOF it was over.
-me
He was actually outed on a thread back in November
I can no longer find the comments. Someone recognized his user name and millstone had put that he lived in Carrboro on his profile. They put two and two together and challenged him to say who he was. It was on this thread.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
Sorry a third time.
I never saw a "challenge" to who I am. I certainly would have told folks.
It was lost in space
Your first apology worked fine.
Since you don't always hang around and since you appear to be here now, we are very sensitive to campaign staff and full-time volunteers (staff in every way but a paycheck) not identifying themselves as such. Our community has had other campaigns attempt to take advantage by allegedly planting stories.
Thank you,
Betsy
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
of course by giving us that verbatim website quote
you gave use his name, too....
Again, he has already been outed here on BlueNC
Unfortunately, I can't find those comments. If he is going to use his registration here as a sock puppet for the Neal campaign he needs to expect to be called on it. It is inappropriate for him to comment on the Neal campaign without disclosing his affiliation with the campaign. His identity has previously been discussed. I repeat. His identity has already been disclosed once. I'm simply asking him to disclose his affilitation each time he posts on this particular race.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
just saw this
Cool, i hear you. sorry, i think i was just being smart-alecky and feeling pretty cool that i cut-and-pasted a line from that into google to get the name. That's probably not that ingenious, but i thought it crafty and felt like blabbing about it. sorry though, i now realize that this was probably a pretty touchy subject. Feel free to whip me back into line whenever i step out. no, really, i need that sometimes :)
Too funny....
but I do the same thing. I mean....I do the smart-alecky thing and I search Google. Eh...you'll find what is touchy today is almost forgotten tomorrow. We have three weeks to get folks through the first round and on to the general in November so we can't get distracted, right? Thanks. :)
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
Oh...he works for the same firm that Andrew Kain and Jim Spencer
are with....so.....it's a consultant at a campaign run by consultants complaining about a consultant-driven campaign. Hilarious...yes, I know. Sad....even a little pathetic. Can you imagine the uproar here if the Hagan campaign was caught doing this?
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
How unfortunate.
Perhaps your next hit piece will be more effective, and end whichever campaign you choose?
First, I didn't write a hit piece
If you believe that we shouldn't examine a candidate fully before voting for him or her, that is your prerogative, but it's a bit silly to require that the rest of us sit back and just swallow what we're being sold. I expected positive campaigning from Jim Neal and that's not what he's given us. The real problem is that instead of going after something substantive - like Kay Hagan's record, the Neal campaign decided to attack petty things. This is a campaign for U.S. Senate, not student body president. It's about time they started acting like it.
We don't have to agree Christopher, but I've done nothing to you to earn your venom. I've questioned a campaign that has been run in a way that I find questionable. You would rather hide Jim Neal's shortcomings prior to May 6 and I would rather go into the voting booth fully informed.
If my one article ends Jim's campaign, then he had no business running in the first place. You are crediting me with having far more influence than I actually have and while I'm flattered that you think one criticism from me will end a campaign, I entertain no such delusions.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
A point about campaigns
The vast majority of successful campaigns from the legislative level up hire political consultants. That does not make them consultant-driven. Many are candidate or issue driven. Consultant-driven campaigns are those in which the candidate is highly scripted and whose message and movements are dictated by polling and the advice of consultants. Issue or candidate campaigns are driven more the personality or beliefs of the candidate.
Howard Dean, Ned Lamont, Paul Wellstone, Larry Kissell, Barak Obama, Ron Paul, Jesse Helms and John McCain's 2000 presidential effort are examples of candidate or issue driven campaigns. Every one of those campaigns had a team of consultants but the candidates or the issues they espoused were the central characteristics. John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, George Bush, Al Gore and Mitt Romney are or were consultant-driven campaigns. Very few decisions are made without extensive review, testing and input from the consultants.
Jim Neal certainly does not have a consultant-driven campaign. Anyone who has spent any time with him knows that he could never be put into that kind of box. Kay Hagan, on the other hand, has deferred to consultants or advisors since she reversed her decision and entered the race.
Point taken Thomas
I know the difference which is why I didn't say Jim's campaign was consultant-driven, but was a campaign full of consultants. You have to admit on the surface it was silly to have a consultant complaining about a consultant-driven campaign.
The problem is that some organization and scripting is necessary to win a campaign for U.S. Senate. When there are people speaking for the candidate without a coordinated message, when there are volunteers (from what I hear it was a volunteer) filling out endorsement questionnaires with numerous fairly serious errors and when the petty nit-picking coming out of the press office drowns out the positive message from the candidate then it's probably time to take another look at what is really driving your campaign and whether it is time to regroup.
You do realize that about the only people who care that Kay Hagan won't debate Jim are probably working in your campaign office, or are reading BlueNC regularly, don't you? The average voter couldn't care less.
Jim Neal came to BlueNC with a message that inspired almost every single one of us. In the beginning it was short on substance, but we didn't care. We were inspired. From where I sit, the campaign has squandered the opportunity to spread that message about Jim Neal and instead chose to campaign on whether Kay Hagan responded to event invitations in a timely manner or whether she was going to debate Jim.
Opportunity lost and I don't know whether there's time to get it back.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
I guess you haven't been paying attention.
I continue to be inspired by the Neal Campaign, but it's rarely here at BlueNC that it happens. It happens in an email or a quick note on facebook, usually. Sometimes it's been by hearing Jim speak - face to face, or to a crowd. His energy and the quality of his ideas come through. His integrity is palpable.
I'm sorry you feel that an opportunity has been squandered, but I imagine that the Neal campaign has been too busy to blog every single thing that has happened or done. Hindsight is 20/20 - if I were running for something, I might pick an issue a week or so to blog about. But that's asking a lot of someone who is trying to reach all 100 counties in an insanely short amount of time.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi
Pointing at Naked Emperors
I wasn't talking about blogging
Not one little bit. I too am part of the facebook group and receive emails. I watch the videos and if you read what I wrote on another thread then you know I also feel his energy is infectious and inspiring. I guess you missed that comment.
I wasn't talking about them bringing the campaign to us. I'm talking about the campaign they are using to try to get through to the press and the rest of the voters. Hundreds of thousands of potential voters won't meet Jim Neal and feel the energy that you and I feel even through a You Tube video...because he really does make you smile. The Neal campaign has chosen to reach these people through the mainstream media by complaining about Kay Hagan's timeliness in responding to a debate / forum invitation. Is that what will inspire people to vote for Jim Neal? I don't think so. I don't think it will even inspire them to take a second look.
That's what I meant by opportunity lost. With so many wonderful things to say about Jim Neal, they chose to go to the press with petty complaints about Kay Hagan. That didn't earn them much press and I don't think we can get back that time.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
Then I misinterpreted your post.
I"m sorry.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi
Pointing at Naked Emperors
No need to be sorry
We have about three weeks left. I think it's time to dust off the old LTE group. After I get the snail mail invitations finished today I'll see what I can do about that. I thought about that all weekend. It was very effective last cycle.
Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
Mo and I were just talking about LTE groups the other night.
It's definitely time to do that. I've got a lot of - political energy - and I want to channel it productively instead of getting into endless "no she didn't"-"yes she did" "he sucks", "no, HE sucks" battles here.
I do need to be sorry about being snippy and reactive to you and to everyone else. It's been a rough couple of weeks.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi
Pointing at Naked Emperors
I will see what I can do to get that module installed
in the next day or so. With our recent memory upgrade we should be able to handle it. May 6 will get here and we will all be thrilled to have a wonderful group of Democrats to support in November....because, by Goddess, they will be wonderful whether we agree with them 100% or not.
Just remember when it gets really bad over the next couple of weeks and you don't think you can make it to May 6 - remember and picture in your mind the endorsement that Yes! Weekly gave in the Republican Lt. Governor's race - Nobody. If that doesn't bring a smile to your face, nothing will. :D
Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
True, that.
I had forgotten about the module on here. Mo and I were talking about getting a group of good writers in our county together and taking on issues.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi
Pointing at Naked Emperors
That's an excellent idea
Even more fun if you have a letter writing party....any excuse for a party. Hey, maybe some of those kids on the debate team would want to have their name in the paper. You know they could succinctly state their opinion.
Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.
***************************
Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.
Pages