It's only fair: Elusive senator makes trip to Wayne County

This newspaper has been particularly critical about the rarely-seen-unless-there-is-an-election-afoot senator from North Carolina, Kay Hagan.

So it is only fair that we tell you that Sen. Hagan stopped in Wayne County Monday.

Her office called our office that morning to announce that she would be making a trip into Goldsboro to "thank her supporters" later that afternoon.

There are many reasons why it was not the right thing to do to rush down to meet the senator. The most important of them is that this visit was simply a publicity stunt.

The senator made news this weekend in the wake of her comments that President Barack Obama's administration has not acted quickly enough on the Veterans Administration health scandal.

OK. Well, we hope that Sen. Hagan really means what she says. But is it just us or is it coincidental that those comments come months after the scandal broke -- not the first one that affected Wayne County, by the way -- and that the president's coattails are not such a good place to be anymore?

We would have loved to talk to Sen. Hagan -- as would, we suspect, many of her constituents, about real issues -- and not just the ones she wants to talk about.

We would like to hear her explanations about Obamacare, how she stands on the president's actions with regard to the Middle East and her dogged support of the president -- even when her state was against the measure for which she was casting her vote.

We would like to talk to her about her record and why the state of North Carolina should believe that she will speak her mind in the interest of her constituents when there is party pressure to do otherwise.

We would like to hear her vision for this nation and answers to questions about entitlement programs, budgets and political shenanigans in Washington.

But that isn't going to happen at a visit of a very short duration to "thank her supporters."

There is a reason Sen. Hagan's people are so busy buying up ad space. They are trying to change an image. But be wary of any slick-produced campaign commercial. It is selling a product, pure and simple -- and there is no real "truth in advertising" test.

And by the way, Republican Senate candidate Thom Tillis doesn't get off scot-free either.

We are waiting to see if he knows that North Carolina's major highways don't just go to Raleigh, Charlotte and Greensboro.

Published in Editorials on August 26, 2014 10:50 AM