Kay Hagan has nobody to blame but herself
Published December 10, 2014
by Barry Saunders, News and Observer, December 8, 2014.
Oh yes there is something new under the sun.
During an evening out with several readers last week, one asked me a question I’ve never been asked before: “Are you Jewish?”
Baptist, I replied.
She wondered, she said, because in my columns I sometimes use expressions such as “ Oy vey” and “ meshugganah.” I used to favor “ schmuck” until a former editor put the kibosh (not Yiddish) on it: she deemed it derogatory.
Hey, that’s why I said it.
I explained to the reader that despite not being Jewish, I find Yiddish very expressive. Here, then, is another Yiddish word, and it is the only word in the history of spoken communication to describe Sen. Kay Hagan’s latest move: chutzpah.
Hagan, in an interview last week, sought to blame President Obama for the November wipeout of Democratic candidates. She was defeated by Thom Tillis, who at times during the campaign affected a phony accent that sounded like something out of the cornfields of “Hee Haw”.
Using ‘the bully pulpit’
“You look at the economy right now,” Hagan told a McClatchy reporter, then ticked off a list of developments that Obama could have trumpeted during the recent campaign: gas prices are low; the stock market is at an all-time high and jobs continue to grow. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy lost 600,000 jobs the month Obama took office – the worst loss in 34 years. It reportedly gained 321,000 last month.
“The president hasn’t used the bully pulpit to get that message out in a way that resonates with people,” Hagan said. “And I think that’s an issue that the Democrats should not cede.”
Oooweee, that’s chutzpah, girlfriend.
During the campaign, she had an equal bully pulpit to trumpet those developments. She declined to do so. After Hagan lost to Tillis in November, I wrote a column excoriating her for running away from Obama. Other Democratic candidates and she – suffering from B.O.A.: Blatant Obama Avoidance – treated him like a political leper.
Now she’s going to blame him for not touting his successes? Oy.
Dems Lite
The late Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, a Democrat whose name Hagan and some other Democrats in name only are not worthy to utter, once said that if you give voters a choice between a Republican and a Republican, they’ll pick the Republican every time.
That’s what happened in November, because in their campaigns Hagan, Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky and many others tried to portray themselves as – if not Republicans – then at least as Dems Lite.
If you have political aspirations, you would understandably be loath to accept advice from me – or from any other former candidate who received only 14 votes when he ran for the Rockingham City Council – but even I knew that Hagan’s strategy was doomed. Her Obama avoidance strategy was designed to avoid antagonizing those voters who despise or disagree with President Obama instead of appealing to those who think we’re better off than we were under the other guy.
There are people who will hate Obama regardless of what he does: Look at polls showing the number of people who think the Affordable Care Act is swell but who hate Obamacare. Ruminate on that for a minute.
Those are the types of voters Hagan feared offending during her campaign? What a meshugganah.
As NCCU associate political science professor Jarvis Hall said in my November political post mortem column, everyone already knew for whom they were going to vote: the campaign became a matter of energizing and getting out one’s constituency. The way Hagan refused to even acknowledge Obama was guaranteed to de-energize, if not infuriate, much of the party’s base.
Yet now she’s going to try to blame him?
Chutzpah, indeed.
Shalom Aleichem, y’all.
December 10, 2014 at 11:26 am
Norm Kelly says:
K just can't help herself. You see, K is a demoncrat. When demons do not get their way, do not win elections, they find someone to blame. Demon pols NEVER, EVER accept blame for failure. To paraphrase Jimmy V, they never, ever give up. Not on implementing socialism while calling it something else. Not on finding someone else to blame. Not on hiding their true intentions.
So, K lost. Even though it's obvious to anyone who has the ability to think, K avoided the occupier for the same reason all the other democRATS avoided him. Because they agreed with him over 95%. If K dared letting the occupier show up in her commercials, be seen as endorsing her, then she would not have been able to run campaign ads that blatantly lied to potential voters about what a moderate she is. If the socialist, racist, America-hater, was to appear to endorse K, then she would have been tarnished as well. Just like every other demon who found it necessary to attempt to lie to their constituents, they knew that their failed policies would drive too many people away from the polls.
We've seen many demoncrat pols, advisers, etc. blame bad messaging for their failures. It's more likely that the messaging was extremely effective, but just rejected by a majority of those who chose to vote. They told us that socialized medicine, despite the FACTS, was successful. They told us that, despite the facts, unemployment was near a record low. The labor participation rate is at an all time high, which has a lot to do with the low 'unemployment' numbers, but the socialists want us to ignore this because it proves the lie to their message. The demon pols had no response to the central planners targeting private business. This is not a government 'for the people' when they attack the very engine that creates employment opportunities for citizens. The socialists told us that it's NOT private sector businesses that create jobs. And they tried to prove that by preventing Boeing from building a NEW manufacturing facility, and HIRING NEW employees to work at the NEW plant. Yet, not one demon pol had anything to say about the government trying to PREVENT a business from expanding. Also, demon pols had ZERO to say about allowing the XL pipeline to be created. This is a completely political issue, where the central planners are once again trying to prevent private business from hiring American citizens. And they lie about the reason they prevent additional energy supply to our country. And demon pols couldn't run on anything to do with supporting ALL Americans when they were complicit with the IRS targeting political opponents. The list of negatives associated with the demon party is much, much, much longer than the list of negatives associated with the Republican party. Even though libs find it necessary to demonize their opposition, like the TEA people, average, thinking American citizens see through their lies. And eventually make the right and proper choices.
As for gas prices coming down, this has NOTHING to do with the central planners. This is exactly the opposite of what the central planners wanted to happen, and they worked hard to make sure it couldn't happen. The occupier TOLD us that his policies would force the cost of 'energy' in our country to sky-rocket. And the demons in Washington, including our own K, did their best to help make this happen. But private business, that does NOT create jobs, worked around government regulation and created jobs and 'energy' anyway. This despite the fact that the occupier did what he could, and sometimes broke the law, to encourage 'alternative' energy production. How many of his boon-doggles succeeded? This was the record K had to run on. Which explains why K did NOT run on her record. Which explains why she kept the occupier so far away.
December 10, 2014 at 12:30 pm
Greg Dail says:
Barry I love your sense of humor, your politics and command of the facts not so much.
