Party activists favor Neal
by Matt | February 25th, 2008 |An article from the The News & Record (Greensboro, N.C.) says that progressive party activists in the N.C. Democratic Party are leaning toward openly gay Chapel Hill financial advisor Jim Neal in the primary race for U.S. Senate.
Jim Neal faces Greensboro state Sen. Kay Hagan and three lesser-known candidates in the May primary. The victor will face Sen. Elizabeth Dole in the general election in November.
The N&R article included interviews with numerous party activists, including James Protzman, who writes under the name of Anglico at BlueNC.com. In October, Protzman announced he was leaving the Democratic Party and registering as unaffiliated following the dust-up over perceived mistreatment of Neal by Hagan, leaders in the state party and the Democratic National Committee.
According to the article:
Passionate and motivated, progressives — particularly the activists among them — are not given to lockstep thinking.
Still, those who identify themselves as progressives seem to be rallying more to Chapel Hill financial adviser Jim Neal than to Greensboro state Sen. Kay Hagan .
The voting bloc is far from decisive. But if the trend holds, it could be good news for Neal, whose campaign relies on the grass-roots one-on-one politicking that progressive activists favor.
For Hagan, it exposes a liability that comes along with one of her greatest strengths: experience in government and connections to the state’s powerful Democratic establishment.
“I feel pretty clearly pulled toward Neal in this case,” said Dan Coleman , an Carrboro town alderman, who borrowed lingo now being used in the presidential debate to frame the decision between the Democratic Senate front runners.
In the last poll numbers I’ve seen Neal and Hagan are running neck-and-neck. Hagan had 24% support and Neal had 23%.
One Response to “Party activists favor Neal”
Jim Neal is a great man. I saw him speak at UNCG about 2 weeks ago and boy, he has me hooked. Not only does he have better ideas than Hagan, he will speak openly about LGBT issues, regardless of his sexuality.
Any candidate, gay or straight or otherwise who is willing to stand up for the lgbt community, I will take a second look at it.
By Samantha Korb on Mar 10, 2008