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Our choice: Hagan over Dole in U.S. Senate race
James Nix / jnix@independenttribune.com
Democratic state Sen. Kay Hagan poses for a portrait in the Independent Tribune offices before her interview with the Independent Tribune editorial board.
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Published: October 28, 2008
The race for U.S. Senate features two dynamic personalities, incumbent U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole and challenger N.C. Sen. Kay Hagan.
No one should doubt Dole's long record of service to our nation. She has been Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Secretary of Labor, president of the American Red Cross and U.S. Senator from North Carolina, and all Americans should commend her work in those jobs.
Her accomplishments through the years have been a source of pride for we who call North Carolina home. Only the pride of our friends down the road in Salisbury, her hometown, can surpass our own. Her achievements have been our achievements.
And we have been able to keep up with her because the national media seem to seek her out at every opportunity. TV news shows love to play up her small-town roots and her soft Southern accent. But she is much more than that. She has always been an advocate for the causes she sees as dear to her heart, that's for sure.
But a complaint against Dole is that one of those causes — national partisan politics — seems too often to take precedence over the affairs here in North Carolina. Granted, she is a part of the national spectacle that is Washington, D.C., and it is hard to criticize her for becoming involved in a landscape that she has had to negotiate for decades now. But the fact and the perception remain: Too often, as a North Carolina senator, she prefers to be a Washington senator instead.
There are a lot of people hurting in North Carolina these days. People need to see their elected officials in these times not only on their television sets speaking at a lectern in Washington, but in their local community centers, their volunteer fire department gatherings, their municipal meetings and wherever else people go to find answers to the problems they face.
If re-elected to a second term in the U.S. Senate, we doubt Dole will visit the people of North Carolina any more than she did in her first term. This is one reason why we believe her opponent, Kay Hagan, will be a better senator for North Carolina.
Hagan, a Democrat, has served in Raleigh as state senator for the past 10 years. She has demonstrated initiative and enthusiasm to find the right solutions to the problems North Carolinians face. She knows the fight. She knows what the obstacles are and she knows how North Carolinians feel because she sees them every day.
Dole and Hagan spoke to the Independent Tribune editorial board in separate meetings. Hagan proved through her comments to be prepared for the task at hand and demonstrated an ability to communicate her vision and course for representing our state as U.S. senator. Dole, on the other hand, failed to bring into equal focus her plans for a second term in the Senate.
North Carolina and our nation are in a crisis. We are in uncharted economic waters and are trying desperately to keep afloat. This is a time we need the best of plans, the best of focus and the best of representation in the Capitol.
The days of absentee leadership are over. The days of on-the-ground, in-the-trenches leadership are here.
We endorse Kay Hagan for U.S. Senate because we believe -- at this point in her career -- she better understands us as North Carolinians, better understands what we face in our everyday lives and better understands the kind of leadership we need from our senator.
• Unsigned editorials represent the views of this newspaper. Respond with a Letter to the Editor by e-mailing news@independenttribune.com.
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