‘Kay’ and ‘Speaker Tillis’
September 5, 2014 - by
Candidates and their advisers spend a lot of time during debate prep thinking about how to address their opponent, so it was no happenstance that Tillis called Hagan “Kay” and she called him “Speaker Tillis.”
Tillis didn’t want to give her the benefit of incumbency, so he took the risk of looking sexist and offending women voters, as Laura Leslie noted on WRAL.
Senator Hagan wasn’t being “respectful,” as her partisans suggested. She wanted to tie Tillis as closely as possible to the legislature and what it did on education. Tillis knows he has that problem, so he and the Republicans are pushing back as hard as they can on teacher pay raises. But they’re not getting any reinforcement from teachers.
Reporters and viewers clearly were frustrated by all the canned lines and talking points, but what the candidates said still tells a revealing story about the hidden forces behind this election.
In other Senate races across the country, President Obama’s ever-falling job ratings are hurting Democrats. But in North Carolina, Senator Hagan has an even more unpopular villain to attack (hard as that is to imagine). That’s the legislature, and that’s why he’s “Speaker Tillis.”
‘Kay’ and ‘Speaker Tillis’
September 5, 2014/
Candidates and their advisers spend a lot of time during debate prep thinking about how to address their opponent, so it was no happenstance that Tillis called Hagan “Kay” and she called him “Speaker Tillis.”
Tillis didn’t want to give her the benefit of incumbency, so he took the risk of looking sexist and offending women voters, as Laura Leslie noted on WRAL.
Senator Hagan wasn’t being “respectful,” as her partisans suggested. She wanted to tie Tillis as closely as possible to the legislature and what it did on education. Tillis knows he has that problem, so he and the Republicans are pushing back as hard as they can on teacher pay raises. But they’re not getting any reinforcement from teachers.
Reporters and viewers clearly were frustrated by all the canned lines and talking points, but what the candidates said still tells a revealing story about the hidden forces behind this election.
In other Senate races across the country, President Obama’s ever-falling job ratings are hurting Democrats. But in North Carolina, Senator Hagan has an even more unpopular villain to attack (hard as that is to imagine). That’s the legislature, and that’s why he’s “Speaker Tillis.”