all the help he can get
Dumb ass:
U.S. Sen. Richard Burr is criticizing his Democratic challenger, Deborah Ross, saying she has failed to make clear her position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership – a trade deal that critics say could add hurt North Carolina communities already damaged by the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The Republican Burr attacked Ross in a Aug. 12 tweet that asked why she hadn’t spoken out against TPP. North Carolina sustained job losses in the aftermath of the NAFTA agreement and its residents are now caught in the crosscurrents of politics and big trade deals, said Ferrel Guillory, adjunct faculty member in University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s Department of Public Policy.
Ross hit back with this:
“I have always said that I am against TPP,” she said. “We need to protect American workers and we need to stop trade agreements. It hurts the middle class.”
Ross stated in a response to a questionnaire in Indy Week for the March primary that she was against the TPP.
“North Carolina has seen too many jobs get shipped overseas because of trade deals that didn’t work for us, and the TPP deal doesn’t do enough to protect North Carolina workers or the world’s environment,” she said in the response to the questionnaire.
Burr decided to go after her only because he wanted “to mislead the public about his record on trade,” she said.
“He voted for NAFTA,” she said. “He voted for CAFTA. He told people he wasn’t going to vote for trade deals, and he did.”
Burr supported NAFTA in the early 1990s, but he told a reporter in 2004 that his “assessment was wrong.” He also voted for CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, in 2005 after working with the state’s textile industry to make changes in the legislation. Former Burr campaign spokeswoman Samantha Smith said he voted more than a dozen times against Most Favored Nation status and other trade agreements with China.
And she also reminded us about this:
Ross also criticized Burr for supporting the fast-tracking of trade deals. Burr voted last year to pass the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, which allows the president to fast-track trade deals by restricting Congress to either approve the deals or vote against them. Lawmakers would not be able to amend those deals.
This fast-track process would make it possible for the president to speed up negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Ross has been putting up an aggressive fight against Burr’s
lame attacks:
In ads and press releases, Burr's campaign and a super PAC criticized Ross as too liberal, citing her "out-of-touch and extreme record" with the ACLU in the 1990s. Ross left her job as the state chapter's executive director in 2002 to run for the state legislature, where she served for a decade.
Ross pointed to the organization's recent court victory over a North Carolina election law as one way the ACLU fights for individual freedoms. A federal appeals court ruled last month that the 2013 law illegally targeted black voters "with almost surgical precision" to reduce their ability to vote.
Part of the law requires a photo ID to vote and reduces early in-person voting by seven days. U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is considering whether to keep it in place for November's elections.
"The organization, the ACLU, fights for individual freedom against government overreach, regardless of your race, religion, political belief," Ross said. "Right now, people are seeing the American Civil Liberties Union in a positive light."
Burr’s just throwing everything at her because even the conservative National Review fears that Burr is on his way out:
Burr faces Deborah Ross, a former member of the North Carolina General Assembly, in a race that few Republicans even considered competitive several months ago. Ross was not a top recruit, entering the race only after other Democratic hopefuls passed, and Burr — the well-liked chairman of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee — seemed to have little to worry about. But with less than three months to go until election day, Burr has barely begun campaigning, and it’s increasingly clear that his reelection is threatened by two forces beyond his control: Donald Trump and Pat McCrory, the unpopular Republican Governor who’s also up for reelection this year.
“If it was a normal year, and it was just Richard and Deborah, you’d have to say Richard had a solid advantage,” says North Carolina GOP consultant Carter Wrenn. But 2016, of course, is not a normal year.
A Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released earlier this month found Ross leading Burr 46 percent to 44 percent among registered voters, raising eyebrows among some politicos who until then hadn’t registered the race as competitive. “It’s certainly not where we wanted to be three months away from the election: neck-and-neck in the polls,” says one North Carolina Republican.
Elsewhere in the poll was worse news for the North Carolina GOP: Hillary Clinton leads Trump 45 percent to 36 percent in the state, and maintains a nine-point edge among independent voters, who make up a growing and increasingly crucial voting bloc statewide. The lead reflects a brutal truth for state Republicans: Trump, many of them say, has virtually no organization in North Carolina. The Clinton campaign has made clear it is planning to invest serious resources. Clinton made her first joint campaign appearance with President Barack Obama in Charlotte last month; she and running mate Tim Kaine have both visited the state since.
That’s why Burr needs all the help he can get:
A conservative group is entering North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race with a $1.5 million TV advertising campaign promoting incumbent Republican Sen. Richard Burr.
One Nation is running the ad for 10 days on TV stations in the Raleigh and Charlotte markets. It warns that cancer patients are “at grave risk” because of the Obama administration’s proposed changes to Medicare.
“Sen. Richard Burr has been a fighter to protect Medicare,” the announcer says. “Now Burr is fighting hard to stop Obama’s Medicare changes and to make sure seniors get the care they deserve. Tell Richard Burr: Keep fighting for North Carolina seniors.”
One Nation is a Washington-based 501(c)4 nonprofit advocacy group run by Steven Law, a former chief of staff for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Since it’s not a political action committee, it must advocate only on policy issues and isn’t required to disclose its donors. That’s why the announcer urges viewers to call Burr and doesn’t directly suggest voting for him.
One Nation is linked to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads Super PAC, and it ran similar ads praising Burr last year.