Rudeness in North Carolina

“If you can’t say anything nice about anyone – you can come sit by me.”
- Cross-stitch Pillow at the home of Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Several election cycles ago a co-worker once asked me why on earth was Strom Thurmond still getting elected to the Senate. After all, my co-worker pointed out, Thurmond could barely walk, hear or even think. And yet South Carolinians kept sending him back to the Senate. My response was that South Carolinians were just being polite. Thurmond had nothing else in his life but the Senate, and it would be rude to vote him out when you pretty much knew he wasn’t going to be around long anyway.

That story goes to underscore there are rules and limits even in the hurley burley of a campaign. Some things about a candidate are fair game, others are off limits. Politics, like the Mafia has its rules and code, and you violate them at your own risk.

So it was no surprise to me that Sen. Elizabeth Dole lost her re-election bid. The race was close until she all but accused her opponent of being atheist. My first reaction when I saw the “Godless” commercial she ran against Kay Hagan was “How rude.”

You can call people out on a lot of things in politics but you don’t call them out on their religion. That is just rude. Anyone from North Carolina could have told Dole she was stepping over the line. North Carolinians take religion very seriously and would not dream of questioning someone’s faith. Unfortunately for Dole, she had been out of the state so long she didn’t understand that.

Obama just squeezed out a victory, Bev Perdue had a solid but not huge win, but Kay Hagan won by the largest margin of the three. The difference was the “Godless” advertisement. Hagan’s win proves that it doesn’t pay to be rude – even in politics.