Hagan said the issues that are most important to voters are what will set her apart.  

"We need accountability to end the war in Iraq so we can re-invest those resources here at home. How can Washington reject health care for 123,000 North Carolina children, while continuing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on this mismanaged war?" Hagan said. "Making those kinds of decisions is hard, but I know it can be done - because those are the kinds of fights I've led in the State Senate." 

Throughout her career as a state legislator, Kay has proven to her colleagues and constituents that she is a tireless advocate for the people of North Carolina. Distinguished as one of the "Top Ten Effective Senators" in the state, Kay has been commended for being a diligent and successful voice for her constituency.  

"Kay Hagan is one of the strongest and most effective leaders in North Carolina," former Governor Jim Hunt said. "She has been a champion of improving education and creating jobs for our entire state. She has exactly the kind of good ideas, energy and drive North Carolina needs in Washington." 

"I'm proud of doing things the right way here - it's something Washington could use a lot more of," Hagan said. "I want this campaign to be about giving North Carolina a voice."

I've spoken with many progressive Democrats over the past week and there is remarkable unanimity in their views. Progressives are sick and tired of being used by the mainstream Democratic Party. It doesn't matter whether they're gay or straight, many have that uneasy feeling that the Democratic leadership wants progressive votes and progressive money - but not progressive voices. They think we'll sit still and take it while they continue to bungle on the parliamentarian front, as well as on the policy front. They think we'll fold our hands and accept their milquetoast efforts to end the war in Iraq, and still help fill their campaign coffers. They think we'll tolerate their back-room deals without a whimper of protest.

Even before Jim Neal outed himself, Kay Hagan was looking at getting back in the U.S. Senate race.  Now she’s getting more encouragement – from home and from Washington. 

Hagan, a state senator from Greensboro, had looked at running earlier.  She pulled back because Senator Charles Schumer from New York, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, was intent on recruiting Grier Martin.  Martin eventually opted out. 

Now Hagan is reconsidering.  She’s being wooed by North Carolina Democrats – and by Schumer.  The garrulous New Yorker’s first task was to eat crow with Hagan.

Twenty-five percent of the new registered voters in North Carolina are younger than 22, and a growing number don't want to be labeled Republican or Democrat. They're registering as unaffiliated. 

"From 2002 to present, approximately 25.7 percent of all new registrations that we were looking at were from 18 to 22 years of age," pointed out Gary Bartlett, director of the State Board of Elections. "As you get closer to 2006, you will see that among that age group the [unaffiliated voters] were more than registered Democrats or Republicans.”

Foreclosure filings increased by 61.7 percent in North Carolina in the third quarter, according to data compiled by California firm RealtyTrac.  

The company said there was one foreclosure filing in the third quarter for every 450 households. That ranks North Carolina 24th among all states and puts the Tar Heel State behind the national average of one filing for every 196 households. . . .  

What's worse is that the problem is likely not yet over, RealtyTrac CEO James J. Saccacio said in a written statement. Given the number of adjustable-rate mortages that are set to "reset" to higher interest rates through the middle of 2008, Saccacio said, foreclosure activity is likely to stay high or even increase over the next year.  

The problem is not just a national one. Triangle Business Journal reported in August that economic indicators tracked by state officials suggest that foreclosures will peak in the last quarter of this year and the first half of 2008.

Almost 50 percent of public-school students in North Carolina come from low-income families, reflecting a significant growth since 2000, the Southern Education Foundation said this week. 

The foundation said that 49 percent of the state’s students in kindergarten through 12th grade were from low-income families in the 2006-07 school year, up from 40 percent six years earlier. 

Across the South, the increase has been just as rapid. 

“For the first time in more than 40 years, the South is the only region in the nation where low-income children constitute a majority of public school students - 54 percent,” the report said. 

The 54 percent is up from 46 percent in 2000. 

“This is the most profound challenge to the South’s economic future,” said Steve Suitts, the author of the report, which was released Tuesday. . . .  

Students from low-income backgrounds begin school with disadvantages, said Cheryl Johnson, the director of the school system’s Title One program. 

Compared with more affluent children, they have little background experience, such as travel. 

“It only makes sense to assume that parents who are challenged economically are more than likely not going to be able to offer the same kind of educational experiences,” she said. 

Suitts said that low-income students tend to perform poorly in school, and they constitute a large percentage of high-school dropouts in an economy that depends on a highly educated work force. 

Nationwide, there has been an increase in the percentage of low-income students in grades kindergarten through 12. In the 2006-07 school year, 36 percent of students in the Midwest and the Northeast were from poor families; in the West, it was 47 percent.

The report defines low-income students as those who come from families who earn up to 185 percent of the official poverty level. For a family of three, that is less than $32,000 a year. The South comprises 15 states from Virginia to Oklahoma and Texas. 

The report by the 140-year-old foundation, whose mission is to promote fairness and excellence in Southern education, attributes the rise of poverty in the South to four factors: 

1.       Economic upheaval in the mainstay industries of mining, textile, tobacco and furniture. 

2.       An increase in immigrants from impoverished countries - especially in North Carolina, Texas, Florida and Georgia. 

3.       High birth rates among low-income black and Hispanic families. 

4.       High regional poverty levels that persist despite Sun Belt development and anti-poverty programs. 

Southern states as a whole spend less per pupil than the rest of the country, the report found, and low-income students are provided the least in educational resources. 

Needy students in the South not only lag behind their better-off peers, they also trail their low-income counterparts in the rest of the country. 

"We have to figure out how to educate low-income kids if Southern states are going to have educated adults who can get prosperous jobs," Suitts said.

While proposing another $196 billion for an unpopular war, Bush wants to strip $8.4 million from North Carolina classrooms. 

Bush threatened to veto the Labor-HHS-Education bill that the Senate approved last week. 

Sign this petition to tell Bush you continue to stand with our children. 

Bush and his Republican enablers Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr favor a draconian budget that would cut education funding for North Carolina and 43 other states.  

These misguided cuts could force local communities to find local tax dollars to meet those needs or shortchange their schools. 

Even during tough economic times, North Carolina Democrats have kept our promises to public schools while other states were forced to make cuts to the classroom.  

Public education is even more critical now that nearly half of North Carolina children live below the poverty line, according to a report this week from the Southern Education Foundation.  

Sign this petition to tell Bush and his Republican enablers that our children matter more than petty, partisan politics.

Each year, high school dropouts cost the state of North Carolina more than $873 million in prison costs, health care expenses and lost tax revenue, nonprofit organization Parents for Education in North Carolina said in a study released last Thursday.

The study, "The High Costs of Low Graduation Rates in North Carolina," coincides with renewed efforts to reform struggling public schools in Durham and around the state. It aims to demonstrate that the cost of dropping out extends beyond the individual, said Brian Gottlob, author of the study and a senior fellow at the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation.

"Dropouts have a social cost," he said. "It's not just about whether your own kids graduate. We all pay a price for the kids who leave."

If the high school dropouts from North Carolina's class of 2007 had instead earned diplomas, the state would benefit from an additional $11 billion in wages over the students' lifetimes, according to calculations by the Alliance For Excellent Education. 

The average annual income for a high school dropout in 2005 was almost $10,000 less than a high school graduate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Over a lifetime, it's estimated that a high school dropout earns $260,000 less than a high school graduate.