THE ANTIDOTE TO NORTH CAROLINA'S RUBBER STAMP REPUBLICAN ELIZABETH DOLE: JIM NEAL

Jim Neal with NC blogger Pam Spaulding

Polls in North Carolina are showing a dead heat between progressive Jim Neal and insider Establishment Democrat, Kay Hagan. Both candidates are vying for the seat currently held by Republican Senator Elizabeth Dole. Hagan has the very Old School Inside the Beltway approach of trying to blur differences between herself and Dole and make them fuzzy. No one will ever accuse Jim Neal of that! Just take a look at how strongly and resolutely he's been speaking out about Bush's warrantless wiretaps and retroactive immunity-- while Hagan does the ole "me too" to Dole's rubber stamp routine.

As the insurgent Democrat running for this seat, Neal can use our support. On Feb 29th, volunteers around North Carolina and beyond will be holding Leap Friday house parties around the state. And on March 1 Jim will be doing his first live blog session at Firedoglake. (I think you know what that means.)

I asked Jeff Smith, a Boston-based sculptor and an editor of Literary Outpost, to write up his interview with Jim for DWT.

INTERVIEW WITH JIM NEAL

When I heard the first openly gay man to ever run for the U.S. Senate was doing so in the red state of North Carolina against the beloved Elizabeth Dole, I laughed for a long time until I stopped.  Then I laughed again.  Was this the most Quixotic quest I had ever heard of, or was I just being a damned Yankee?
 
Jeff Smith:  Which do you prefer, North Cackalacky or the Tar Heel State?
 
Jim Neal: The Tar Heel State.
 
Jeff: Not North Cackalacky?
 
Jim: The Tar Heel State. It takes a lot of explaining before people can grasp it, but having grown up here and been here as long as I have, it just comes second nature to me.
 
Jeff:  What does it mean, The Tar Heel State?
 
Jim: During the Revolutionary War soldiers fighting from North Carolina got the nickname because they had tar apparently stuck to the bottoms of their boots which is where the moniker came from.
 
Jeff: Where did all that tar come from do you think?
 
Jim: I don't know. There's more red clay down here than tar.
 
Jeff: Back when George Bush was running against Al Gore, voters seemed more concerned about who they'd rather have a beer with than anything else. Didn't people know that it's not a good idea to drink beer with an alcoholic?
 
Jim: I think George Bush has proven to be a very dangerous drinking buddy, whether he consumes alcohol or not.
 
Jeff: Do you know of anybody who would want to drink beer with Elizabeth Dole?
 
Jim: I am sure there are plenty of people who would love to sit down with Senator Dole if for no other reason than that she has led a very long and interesting life in public service, and, not withstanding all the things that may separate us, frankly I would love to sit down and have a beer with Elizabeth Dole some day.
 
Jeff: So tell me then, what is Elizabeth Dole doing wrong that makes you want to take her job? I mean, she seems so nice and good looking and she ran the Red Cross and married Bob Dole. 
 
Jim: Because Senator Dole hasn't done anything for our state and she's been a poor representative in the Senate for our country. She doesn't have the same mass broad appeal that she had when she established her residency here in 2002 to run for the Senate. She moved from North Carolina when I was two years old and moved back a few years ago to run for the Senate. And we don't see much of her around here until now that it's election season, and she's back more frequently.
 
Jeff: But do you really expect the voters of North Carolina to elect a gay Democrat as their senator?
 
Jim: Why wouldn't they? I don't think the voters of North Carolina care a whole hell of a lot about narrow issues like my sexual orientation anymore than the voters of Massachusetts cared that Mitt Romney was a Republican Mormon. We are a blue state with two red senators. I've got to tell you, you sound like just another a misinformed Yankee.
 
Jeff: I grew up in Tennessee and if we talked long enough, you would start to hear a southern drawl.
 
Jim: I'm waiting. (Laughs) So far, you're sounding like some elitist from Beantown.
 
Jeff: Well, I wouldn't even want to ask you any questions about your sexuality because I don't think it's any of my damned business-- it's just the man bites dog aspect of the stor...
 
Jim: I'm not doing this for kicks and giggles for God's sake. Why wouldn't they accept a gay man as their senator? We are about to accept a black man as our president, but we might have had a Mormon, and we might have a white woman, and God forbid we elected a Roman Catholic from Boston to the presidency. We're all different in many ways, but there are more things that unite us than pull us apart. Anything's possible.
 
Jeff: Have you ever held elective office before?
 
Jim: Never.
 
Jeff: What in your background gives you the right stuff to be a senator?
 
Jim: In a sense, the same sorts of things that gave the last Democratic senator from North Carolina a decade ago the right stuff to be senator, and he'd never run for elective office and wasn't particularly well known around the state-- a guy named John Edwards. John Edwards was a trial attorney who was well known within the realm of the legal circles. I'm someone who has spent my life working on Wall Street, running a couple of small businesses and raising two kids as a single parent.  I've stood in an unemployment line and my mother was born in a mill village. My grandparents worked in a cotton mill, so I come from a kind of humble background. I was the first member of my family to get a college degree.
 
Jeff: You have been a fundraiser for the Democrats. Is that true?
 
Jim: I raised money for General Wesley Clark's presidential campaign and Senator Kerry's and Senator Edwards's bid for the White House as well as Erskine Bowles' run for the US Senate here in North Carolina.
 
Jeff: Are you a superdelegate by any chance?
 
Jim: No I'm not, thank God.
 
Jeff: What do you think of the superdelegates anyway? The whole concept seems more outdated than doilies. In fact, once humanity gained the technology to count votes, why were they ever necessary?
 
Jim: I don't understand the nature of many things that happen within our party. The superdelegates are the quintessential insiders … I don't think they are a very good representation of the democracy that the Democratic party is supposed to be upholding.
 
Jeff: What can we do about global warming?
 
Jim: The first thing we can do is quit debating and start acting. From the federal government standpoint we need to attack the issue with the same type of ferocity that we came together as a nation during the second world war. Global warming poses that kind of threat, except this time it's not just our country, it's our planet. The U.S. is the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth, and we've got to be a leader here. And the only way you lead is by example. So we need to be the nation that is setting standards for the world to follow in terms of developing alternative energy sources and weaning ourselves off fossil fuels… We don't have another two years or another four years or another six years to debate this. 
 
Jeff: Your background is business and finance, so maybe you can answer this question: Is our country completely broke?
 
Jim: We are not completely broke. We are still the wealthiest nation.
 
Jeff: Don't we owe a lot of money?
 
Jim: What we've done is we have spent beyond our means. We have borrowed too much and we have embarked on follies like the war in Iraq which has been a catastrophe on so many levels and cost so many lives of Americans and innocent Iraqis. The soaring cost of that war is going to top two to three trillion dollars. 

We still have an enormous amount of wealth in this country, and what we are going through right now as a society as we transition into a new global economy is we're going to have to compete more aggressively and strengthen our education system. We need to continue to be innovators and leaders in technologies and the new industries that are part of the new global economy where we can compete effectively. We've always been able to compete with anybody. We are a country of innovators , but we will go broke if we don't continue to maintain an edge in the educational opportunities we provide our young people.
 
Jeff: How can we compete in the manufacturing sector with people who make 25 cents an hour?
 
Jim: It's going to be damned difficult, frankly. In our trade agreements we should build in provisos for living wages and parity of work conditions as well as environmental standards, but the reality is that, with certain of the embedded costs in the U.S. within the manufacturing process, it is difficult.

In our state, textiles, apparel and furniture have all but disappeared. That's the loss, but with that loss comes the opportunity for innovation. I'll give you an example: we have the second largest boat building industry in the U.S., and we've begun looking for ways to capture more of the value chain--the supplies and components that go into boat building. We can create new jobs here. For every door that's slammed, there's a new one that's opened. We're just going through a very bumpy transition period here right now, but I think we're going to be able to compete as a leader in the new clean energy technologies, in agriculture and in the research and development that's coming out of the NIH and our colleges and universities in sectors like biomanufacturing, bio technology, and certainly in the new information age. Look at companies like Google and Yahoo. These were start-up businesses 20 years ago or less, and they've created enormous opportunity and growth. In fact, Google opened up a facility here in North Carolina this year.
 
Jeff: I want to ask you a question it is every American's right not to answer.
 
Jim: I have never refused to answer a question, so fire away.
 
Jeff: Who do you like for president right now?
 
Jim: Obama. I think the best ticket for the Democratic party would be Obama/Clinton. That's the ticket, the winning ticket for our party.
 
Jeff: I have one last question: If you're ever in Boston, could we go grab a beer?
 
Jim: Sounds good to me. I love Beantown.
 
Jeff: I won't call your state North Cackalacky if you don't call my city Beantown
 
Jim: You've got a deal.


UPDATE: CHARLES MERRILL EXPLAINS WHY HE ENDORSED JIM NEAL

Charles Merrill is a respected philanthropist and activist and a big supporter of Jim Neal. He explains why in an open letter. "...Jim Neal is not your typical political candidate. In fact, he is not a politician at all. He is a single father who raised his sons while working as an investment banker, and later, as a financial consultant, and he understands that it takes more than pandering to the public and a catchy slogan to solve the everyday problems faced by the average American."