Newspapers / Elon University Student Newspaper / Oct. 29, 2014, edition 1 / Page 2
Part of Elon University Student Newspaper / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
E Wednesday, October 29.2014.. ELECTION REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS 2014 NORTH CAROLINA SENATE CANOIDATES ENVIRONMENT HAGAN: Sen. Kay Hagan backed the Women's Health Protection Act, which would prohib it regulations that restrict abortions in North Carolina. In 2013, Hagan spoke out against measures taken by the North Carolina Legisla ture to impose restrictions on facilities that provide legal abortions. She also sup ported the Affordable Care Act, which covers the cost of COMPILED BY JONATHAN BLACK AND KATY CANADA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AND MANADING EDITOR KAY HAGAN THOM THUS DEMOCRAT REPUBLICAN HEALTH CARE EDUCATION TILLIS; In 2011, Thom Tillis, Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, he supported the state budget which pre vented Planned Parenthood from receiving state money. In Januaiy of 2 011, hw told the Raleigh News & Observer that "I am pro-life, I believe all life is sacred." More specifically, he said abortion should be illegal except to save the life of the mother and in cases of rape and incest. Hagan voted for the Affordable Care Act and supported a Med icaid expansion that would have increased the number of low-in come people benefiting from the health care law. She has been crit icized for incorrectly promising North Carolinians they could keep their previous health care plans. Hagan supported a bill to make college loans more accessible. The bill, attached to Obamacare, would have prohibited colleges from using federal education funding for lobbying ensuring funds are used for student finan cial aid. Hagan also pushed for incentives and more competitive Hagan supports fracking as long as regulations that take environmental and economic impact into account are im posed. She opposed a fracking bill passed by the North Caro lina legislature that made it a crime to reveai the chemicals used in fracking. Hagan also voted against an amendment that would require 60 votes to approve a carbon tax, making it more difficult to apply such a tax in the future. In 2013, Tillis claimed expanding Medicaid would hurt taxpayers, and throughout his campaign he labeled himself an enemy of the Affordable Care Act. As of Oct. 21, his views have changed. Appear ing on Time Warner Cable News, Tillis said it might make sense for the state to expand Medicaid coverage once the state has better control of the funding. An outside Democratic Political Action Committee has accused Tillis of cutting $500 million in education, but a closer look will show the number is a hypothetical. It's a two-year figure accounting for a "continuation budget," which acts as an illustration, not a bud get. Funding has increased about 1 percent since 2009, but North Carolina schools have increased by 44,000 students, or 3 percent. Tillis has denied the existence of climate change. Tillis has also supported a bill by Gov. Pat McCrory that would lift the prohibition on hydraulic frack ing for shale gas in 2015. Since the Duke Energy coal spill in 2013, Tillis has tight ened his stance on coal ash, pushing for legislation that regulates Duke Energy’s coal ash pits. Environmental groups have lashed out against the bill, claiming it weakens the state’s existing groundwater protection laws, allowing Duke Energy to cover pits rather than empty them. North Carolina spends record amount on attack ads SHAHEOH KAY HASAN! Hagan voted FOR taxpaver-tunded abortion. More money is being spent in this race between Hagan Kaitlin Dunn Assistant News Editor PHOTO COURTESY GOOGLE 1 and Tillis than any Senate race in United State’s history. 2,900 anti-Hagan ads have run, making her the eighth-most attacked national candidate in this election, j As the election season draws to a close, politicians are doing whatever they can to get their names out there and bashing their oppo nent is as good as any form of that. U.S. Senate candidates D-N.C. Kay Ha gan and R-N.C. Thom Tillis are running brutal ads slamming each other, making the North Carolina Senate race one of the most expensive and wcious in the country right now. But whether attack advertisements are really effective is up in the air. Scott Windham, Elon University assistant professor of German Scott Windham said he dislikes attack ads because they show a lack of integrity. “I’m generally disgusted by the way po litical candidates refuse , to engage jn what I consider good public discourse and respectful treatment of opposing opinions,” Windham said. “Attack ads are a great example of how candidates are not respectful of the other side.” According to Kantar Media/CMAG, which monitors TV signals for political ad vertising, North Carolina candidates and sup port groups have run more than 90,500 ads and spent more than S54.4 million this elec tion season. North Carolina politicians have spent more than $16 million more than the second state on the list, Georgia, with politi cians spending $37.8 million. The Center for Public Integrity reported that more than 10,800 of these ads in just one-week feature content that negatively tar gets either Hagan or Tillis. This means view ers are subjected to an average of one attack ad for every minute of television time. The same report revealed that in one week, the Hagan campaign ran more than 4,300 attack ads (including ads attacking Tillis for attacking her), while Tillis has only run 2,900 ads attacking Hagan. According to the Washington Post, Tillis has been attacked more than any other pol itician this campaign season while Hagan is the eighth-most-attacked politician. But the majority of the money being spent of the negative ad campaigns does not come directly from the politicians’ campaigns, but rather is paid for by independent or nonprofit groups such as Americans for Prosperity, which be gan running ads against Hagan last October, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has spent more than $17 million targeting Tillis. Hagan has criticized Tillis on his support for the voter identification law, fight to defund Planned Parenthood and cuts to education, while TiUis has slammed Hagan for openly supporting President Barack Obama, voting with him 96 percent of the time. Windham is frustrated by the lack of clari ty that comes with attack advertisements. “I wish that candidates would outline what they stand for in more detail instead of using empty words,” Windham said. “In the last election people were calling Obama a social- ist, and regardless of if you support him or not, the fact is that he is not a socialist-Anyonc who says that he is clearly has no idea whai the word means.” Like Windahm, Junior Anna Patterson said she is also disgusted by candidates ''dio run ads against their opponents and said she will be taking this into consideration when she casts her vote. “We need to elect people who will wor^ together to find common ground, not attaC each other and create greater di\ddes m already polarized system,” Patterson said, would be less likely to vote for someone runs an attack ad.” THOM TILLIS SHARED AN APARTMENT WITH HIS CHIEF OF STAFF More than 4,300 ads have run against Tillis in this campaign, making him the most targeti^ candidate th'® ^
Elon University Student Newspaper
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Oct. 29, 2014, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75