Posted on Sun, Jun. 22, 2008
Senate rivals try to link each other to problems
By Rob Christensen

Democrat Kay Hagan on Saturday sought to tie Republican U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole to public discontent with Washington, especially regarding the economy and the war in Iraq.
Dole responded by connecting Hagan, a state senator, with rising state budgets and taxes and a lack of action on immigration in Raleigh.

The first face-to-face forum in North Carolina's U.S. Senate race – held before hundreds of lawyers at the N.C. Bar Association convention – was at times a contentious affair. For the most part, Hagan played the aggressor against Dole, one of the best-known women in American politics.

Hagan, a Greensboro attorney making her first run for statewide office, said that Dole shares the blame for the failures of Washington, including rising gas prices, an unpopular war in Iraq and the lack of universal health care. She said Dole had voted with President Bush 92 percent of the time.

“People talk a lot about experience, a lot about major-league clout,â€