Mark Binker says he hasn't heard anyone call her "Fibber Kay."
In a new TV ad from U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, a narrator says that "They call her 'Fibber Kay Hagan.'"
But the Greensboro News & Record reporter writes on his blog that nickname is new to him:
Who the heck are "they?" Now, I'm not going to say I've talked to all 9 million residents in North Carolina, but I get around. Until the ad aired, I never heard anyone use that moniker. (And yes, I've heard some people use some nicknames for Hagan, not that one though.)
Dome's never heard the nickname either, though whether some Dole supporters pick it up from here could make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
At the same time, we have to say it's kind of an odd choice.
Obviously, Dole is avoiding calling Hagan a "liar" — which might come off as too harsh and kill the light-hearted tone that she's aiming for in the ad. But "fibber" is a word straight out of a sockhop and perhaps unintentionally reinforces the age subtext in this race.
The No. 2 link for the word on Google, after all, is a radio show that went off the air in 1959.
Update: The Dole campaign says they did not come up with the nickname.
"We're not sure who coined it, but we hear people call Kay Hagan 'Fibber Kay' on the campaign trail and we hear it frequently," writes spokesman Hogan Gidley in an e-mail.




Does anyone even still work here?
I'm glad the SPAM Council showed up.