Well I'm sure Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R. KY) isn't happy about this:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...
North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in North Carolina, declined to say whether he would support Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) if they both win in November because he wants to be an "independent" senator for the state.
"I'm not going to look past the most important election and that's the election in November," Tillis said to Buzzfeed on Saturday. "I think there are a number of people in Republican caucus [sic] who would be great leaders and it would be great for them to be in that position."
Tillis comments are notable given that he's been considered one of the more establishment candidates in the North Carolina Senate race. He was mainstream Republicans' preferred candidate in the divided Republican primary for U.S. Senate in the state. Tillis said he wants the Republican leadership to work with the minority if the GOP takes control of the Senate. - TPM 9/8/14
Here's a little more info:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/...
“I’m not going to look past the most important election and that’s the election in November,” he told BuzzFeed News on Saturday. “I think there are a number of people in Republican caucus who would be great leaders and it would be great for them to be in that position.”
He may not be looking past election day, but Tillis did try and lay out part of his vision for the Senate should Republicans take the majority. He is locked in a tight race against the Democratic incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan and considers his race the real majority-making state for Republicans.
“I’ve met with probably 30 members of the sitting Republican senators over the last year and I never neglect to let them know that I’m going to expect our leadership to do things differently,” he told supporters. “I’m going to expect our leadership to respect the minority.”
Hagan has also been vague about supporting Senate Majority leader Harry Reid next year should she win reelection.
“Harry Reid is our leader, and I certainly do support Harry,” she told Politico in April. “And I have a huge race going on right now, and I will be victorious. And I will be back next year. And we can talk all about that then.”
Republicans and the Tillis campaign’s major attack on Hagan is that she is a “rubber stamp” for President Obama and the Senate Democrats. Tillis, who served as the speaker of the state House said he would work to be “independent” for the state.
“We need somebody to cross party lines and finally get something done for this country. A senator who votes 92% with the president doesn’t work for us here in North Carolina,” he said.
“People here want someone who is going to be independent, someone who is going to stand up for North Carolina,” he added.
Tillis’ remarks were notable because he’s positioned himself as deeply conservative, and pushed through significant Republican priorities during his time as speaker. At the same event, a supporter asked him to clarify what he meant by “independent” and Tillis went on to say that it actually meant getting Democrats to vote with Republicans. - BuzzFeed, 9/8/14
Yeah, it sounds like Tillis really wants to distance himself from his own party, hence this:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/...
Thom Tillis, in his Wednesday night debate with U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, joined a growing number of election-year Republicans in support of over-the-counter birth control pills without a prescription. That’s quite a turnaround for the N.C. House Speaker, who is challenging incumbent Hagan for her North Carolina U.S. Senate seat.
In the past, Tillis has been less than friendly towards N.C. women’s reproductive rights. He led efforts in the N.C. legislature to block funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides contraceptives as well as other health services. And he pushed through an unwise bill mandating that doctors show ultrasound images and describe the fetus in detail to women seeking abortions; a federal judge struck down the provision this year. He’s also said company health plans shouldn’t be required to cover birth control methods and that states should have the right to ban contraceptives. He also supports so-called “personhood amendments” that grant legal protections to fertilized human eggs, which the American College of Obstetrician and Gynecologists says could ban some forms of birth control.
Other Republican candidates now publicly favoring over-the-counter birth control pills without a prescription have expressed similar views. So, this change of heart has the pungent odor of politicking.
Indeed, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, in a 2012 newspaper column, gave fellow Republicans a blueprint on dealing with women’s reproductive issues. In his “The End of Birth-Control Politics,” he urged Republicans to stop getting in the middle of the “personal issue” of birth control, and said contraceptives should be available over the counter without a prescription.
It’s good that more Republicans are now favoring better access to birth control pills. They should extend that support to the many other contraceptive options. Some, like the IUD, are more effective than the pill. - Charlotte Observer, 9/7/14
Of course Tillis doesn't fee he needs to "man-splain" anything to you:
http://www.politico.com/...
Thom Tillis, the Republican running for a North Carolina Senate seat that could well decide the majority in the Senate, has been pilloried since a debate last week against Sen. Kay Hagan by Democrats who see him as a condescending “man-splainer” who played into gender stereotypes.
But in his first comments on the controversy, the Republican state House speaker was unrepentant in a sit-down interview on the campaign trail, chalking up the firestorm to Democrats playing gender politics to boost Sen. Kay Hagan. “It’s just silly,” he said during a lunch stop this weekend with supporters over barbecue, fried oysters and chicken livers. “We’re talking about the future of the greatest nation on the earth, and this is what we’re going to?”
In a state that’s become ground zero this cycle for Democrats’ “war on women” strategy, the debate served as a flash point. There’s no race in the country where the gender gap is more pronounced than North Carolina — a must-win state for both parties. Democratic women’s groups Planned Parenthood and EMILY’s List have already announced their biggest 2014 investments will be in the Tar Heel State, where there are 500,000 more women registered to vote than men.
Polls have shown the race locked in a dead heat even with the wide gender gap. A USA Today/Suffolk University poll — conducted in August, before the first debate — had Hagan up 18 points among female voters and Tillis leading by 12 points among men.
The attacks began after Tillis, in a paid advertisement, jabbed at the incumbent, a former bank vice president, saying “Math is lost on Sen. Hagan.” Then, in last week’s debate, in which the Republican appeared better prepared overall, Tillis referred to her as “Kay,” even though she continued to refer to him as “Speaker Tillis.”
“We saw women on social media in particular who were bothered by his tone and more than anything they were bothered by his record,” said Sadie Weiner, spokeswoman for Hagan.
Tillis dismissed the criticism.
“I knew Sen. Hagan when she was in the state Legislature. I knew her husband, Chip. This race isn’t about titles. It’s about results,” he said. “And in Sen. Hagan’s case, it’s a lack of results. If you look at it just objectively, if that is what Hagan’s camp is focusing on in this debate, then they must have really felt in their own minds that they fell short on the issues. If it really comes down to that — I mean what about the substance of the debate?” - Politico, 9/8/14
Yeah, what a dick. We really do need to beat this clown come November. Click here to donate and get involved with Hagan's re-election campaign:
http://www.kayhagan.com/...