Joe Guarino comes out swinging against outside money in the NC Senate race, calling the massive infusion of cash "profoundly wrong and unjust on several levels." 

More: 

The 17th Amendment to the constitution clearly intends that the people of North Carolina choose their United States Senator. Our extraconstitutional party system determines who the major nominees will be. It is terribly wrong that out-of-state, wiser-than-thou national party bosses have such a disproportionate influence on choosing the state's nominee. This is supposed to be for Carolinians to decide. 

To be clear, Joe is pissed about Karl Rove funding Thom Tillis, but I'm sure the same logic applies to those Koch-financed anti-Hagan ads and the general election. (Sidenote: I rarely see North Carolinians refer to themselves as "Carolinians.")

Joe's a Brannon man. I've seen Brannon supporters, like Palin fans before them, say Democrats pay so much attention to their favorites because they fear them. Trust me on this one: North Carolina Democrats are rooting for Brannon just as hard as Joe is. This GOP primary is Kay Hagan's dream scenario; combined with her ability to run against Raleigh and the improving ACA story, her seat looks a lot safer than it did a few months back. 

Comments

[Andrew Brod]

"This is supposed to be for Carolinians to decide."

Maybe he meant the student newspaper at UNCG.

[Kim]

cognitive dissonance?

[Ed Cone]

The blog is riddled with internal contradictions. It's all about strict originalism, except when Greg Brannon doesn't like Jefferson's wording, in which case it's not. It venerates our deliberately secular Constitution, that prime artifact of Enlightenment thought, yet decries the Enlightenment's move away from omnipresent religion. Fascinating stuff.

[John]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Never underestimate the Republicans' ability to stomp on a flaming bag of dog poop.

Idiots like Gaurino are drooling at the prospect of running Brannon against Hagan. That would work out just as well as, say, Sharron Angle against Harry Reid.

Tea Party types never learn. A Tillis-Hagan race no doubt makes the Dems' blood run cold.

and not for nothing, Ed, but I think you may be putting too much emphasis on "improvements" in ACA. I think the numbers touted by the Obama Administration are suspect to say the least. And there's lots of people in this state who believe Hagan must answer for her support of Obamacare.

[Kim]

Well, now the "Senate Majority PAC" is telling me that Tillis is the spawn of the Koch brothers.

[Ed Cone]

John, I don't mean to overstate the wellness of ACA. Clearly the picture is much better than it was a few months ago. As I've said here before, Hagan owns ACA in this race, so her only hope is for the positive trends to continue, and for a strong messaging effort underscoring its value to be presented as early and often as possible once the GOP primary is over. I agree that there are many people in NC who "believe Hagan must answer for her support of Obamacare," but anyone who looks it in that light wasn't going to vote for her anyway. She needs to convince the people in the middle that it's working pretty well, and that it's a better alternative than the ones put forward by her opponent. That seems like a plausible if not easy task to me, pending the performance and analysis of ACA in the next few of months. My guess is that the Democratic base is ready to mobilize against Raleigh/voter-access etc., and I think that helps her chances.

[Bill Bush]

If the obstructionism against the ACA is considered, the program is doing miraculously well. The Democrats need to own the program and call out the Republican failure to ever produce anything better for what it is: failure to produce anythng better. I still remember a certain Senator from AZ waving a sheaf of paper with a cover sheet identifying it as the Republican alternative. He later admitted it was a pile of blank pages. The Republicans still have the same pile.
They need to be smacked with it over and over and over. A parade of ads featuring people who are being helped by the ACA would help, too.