I get so sick of the niceties when it comes to campaign lies. They aren't distortions, they are lies. The video after the break is Kay Hagan's first commercial, which in addition to being a boring biographical commercial is also spreading the lie that she "brought change, raising the minimum wage". Kay Hagan is one three Senators that controls the purse strings in North Carolina, the same purse strings that sought to cut Medicaid services to the blind and elderly while bringing shockingly high tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations. With that control Kay Hagan sought to cripple the benefits of the minimum wage increase through a Republican tactic that was pioneered by....are you ready for this.....Elizabeth Dole.
If you want a corporate Democrat that will stand up for profits over people, then by all means support the status quo and support Kay Hagan. But, if you want a progressive Democrat to win in North Carolina, then it is up to you to support Jim Neal.
The DSCC has decided to back the corporate Democrat, the Lieberman Democrat over Jim Neal in the primary. They have even gone so far as to not include him in their North Carolina news feed. But, as Jim Neal told James Carville, "We have primaries here in North Carolina. We don't have coronations."
Where to begin with Hagan's lies about the minimum wage. Perhaps here:
"Raising the minimum wage" might be dicier (to claim) and here's why: Within the General Assembly the House was the first chamber to really push for the minimum wage. And within the House, Rep. Alma Adams, who like Hagan is from Greensboro, was the recognized leader of the 2006 effort that was eventually successful.
Alma Adams has been fighting for the minimum wage for a long time, the same cannot be said of Kay Hagan. In fact, they didn't see eye-to-eye on the issue at all.
In fact, after a particularly contentious Senate Commerce Committee meeting, Rep. Alma Adams and Sen. Kay Hagan, both Greensboro Democrats, were -- for lack of a better description -- right up in each other's grills.
Thanks to some handy audio work by a radio reporter, Scoop confirmed that he had heard Adams say the following to Hagan:
"That's what they said, and that's what you heard, so why didn't you ask the damned question?"
Hagan was explaining that she didn't know the new Senate version of the bill went as far as it did. That wasn't really the good bit from the aftermath of that meeting, but Scoop can't print the good bit in a family newspaper.
But, back to Hagan and the Senate:
When the measure crossed to the Senate, the chamber held the measure up as the state budget was negotiated. Essentially the minimum wage increase to $6.15 an hour seemed to be a barter item in the budget negotiations.
Also, when the Senate did finally get around to passing the minimum wage, there was some drama about instituting a "training wage," that would have been lower than the minimum. Hagan was among a number of Senate Commerce Committee members who initially voted for the training wage before reversing themselves under pressure from groups like the NAACP.
Training wage? What's that?
Early Friday, senators changed the bill to create a lower training wage of $4.25 an hour that could be paid to workers under 20 years old for their first 90 days on the job. That prompted an outcry from those who backed the minimum-wage increase, who called the move outrageous and pressured senators to remove the provision. "We don't give people who are 18 half a vote," the Rev. William Barber, president of the state conference of the NAACP, told a Senate committee. Propping a can of Campbell's soup on the podium, Barber said, "That can of soup costs a dollar for everybody." Senators removed the training wage before voting.
Wow, what a crazy-ass idea. Who came up with that?
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the chief Senate sponsor of minimum wage legislation, said he thought the Administration had failed to reach a final agreement on the bill until the last few days. ''But I can't tell you what a very significant departure this is from what we've had over the past eight years,'' Senator Kennedy said.
Publicly, Mr. Kennedy remains opposed to a subminimum wage, and particularly to the type of training wage outlined by the Labor Secretary, Elizabeth Dole. ''This training wage gives training a bad name,'' Mr. Kennedy said in an interview. The system proposed by the Administration would effectively undercut any increase in the general wage, he said.
Elizabeth Dole.
Doesn't it just blow your mind that we are attempting to send Elizabeth Dole (R-Kansas D.C.-NC) back to Kansas where she belongs and the candidate the DSCC wants to replace her with SUPPORTS her positions on things like the minimum wage? Not to mention her other shortcomings, which I will focus on tomorrow when we'll talk about Kay Hagan on FISA (she supports telecom immunity) and the Iraq war (she opposes a timetable for withdrawal).
In the meantime, support the right candidate by supporting Ten for Jim - Pocket Change for Positive Change. Jim needs us to support him, so that he can represent us.
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