State Sen. Kay Hagan of Greensboro announced today that she will seek the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole next year.
Hagan, a 54-year-old attorney, said she would bring a fresh voice and a new accountability to Washington, Rob Christensen reports. She said she would be a voice against continuing the war in Iraq.
"We need accountability to end the war in Iraq, so we can reinvest those resources here at home," Hagan said in a video announcement on her Web site. "How can Washingtion reject health care for 123,000 children while continuing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on this mismanged war?"
Hagan had earlier this month announced she would not run for the U.S. Senate. But Democratic leaders in Raleigh and Washington had urged her to reconsider.
The Democrats have had difficulty recruiting a seasoned public official to challenge Dole. Numerous Democrats, including Gov. Mike Easley, Attorney General Roy Cooper, and state Rep. Grier Martin, had said they would not run.
Two Democrats have already announced their candidacy. Jim Neal, a Chapel Hill investment banker, said he plans to run. Also in the race is John Ross Hendrix, a graphic artist from Cary.
Read more after the jump.
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Hagan is one of the highest-ranking women in the state legislature, serving as co-chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
A native of Shelby and mother of three grown children, Hagan said she has a proven record of helping produce balanced budgets, increasing access to health care for 25,000 children, capping the gas tax and providing equipment to the National Guard.
Democrats have viewed Dole as vulnerable because of her support for the war in Iraq and her ties to President Bush.
But Democrats also have been wary in challenging her because she is among the best known women in American public life having served in two Cabinet posts, run for president, and served as president of the American Red Cross.
Hagan made clear in her announcement that she hopes to tap into public discontent with Washington, and to portray herself as an independent voice not tied to powerful special interests.
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Re: Hagan to run
GOOD NEWS DEMOCRATS!!! In a triumph of placation – in a solute to the middling –the National and NC Democratic Party have finally recruited a candidate! We can breathe a sigh of relief, she once was lost and now she’s found…apparently she was hiding somewhere over the rainbow :-) (Do emoticons work on this blog?)
Senator Hagan’s announcement, and party’s the blatant recruitment of a straight candidate, is disheartening for this, and I hope many other Democrats. A party that has been built, and thrived, on pluralism should be hanging their heads low.
First, Democrats shouldn’t have had to convince Senator Hagen, or any other candidate, to run for the United States Senate. No one should have to be convinced. You run for senate because you feel that there are real problems that demand real solutions; that fate has conspired to bring you to this place, and has provided you a unique opportunity to LEAD. You shouldn’t do it out of personal ambition or to mollify party elites. The job is too important – and it is the very least NC and America deserves.
Neal got into this race, even when the jury was still out on Rep. Martin and Senator Hagen. He saw wrongs, and wanted to right them. He saw a war, and wanted to stop it. He saw uninsured children, and wanted to insure them. Who was running, and what the party might think about his personal life, was trumped by Senator Dole’s shortcomings and Neal’s vision for a new direction in North Carolina.
Neal is a man with gravitas, someone with moral courage, (and if you listen to him, someone who is articulate, inspirational, and qualified). He is someone who got in this race, regardless of what polls said, to make a difference. He has shown up to lead. The party didn’t know him, and when they got to know him they didn’t want him. But he’s still here.
I’m not an upset far left-wing Democrat. I am disappointed Democrat. Maybe it’s the idealism in me; maybe it was the naïve belief that in the 21st century, NC could see pass sexual ordination and elect Neal, the way America saw past Catholicism and elected Kennedy. But regardless, even in these cynical, myopic times – even in cut-throat business of politics, principle should still be more important then winning. That’s always been why I’m a Democrat.