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If television commercials are to be believed, the U.S. Senate campaign features a Republican ne’er-do-well incumbent in league with an unpopular president versus a snippy state senator with a penchant for raising taxes and apron strings tied to powerful Democratic figures.

It’s hyperbole, to be sure.

Neither U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, the Republican incumbent, nor Democratic state Sen. Kay Hagan live up to the images on TV ads of late — for good or ill.

But who are the women portrayed in these ads? Have they been effective legislators?

Is there some truth in advertising?

“I’m telling you, Liddy Dole is 93,” croaks an old codger in an ad by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

“Ninety-three?” asks his equally crotchety friend in the rocking chair next to him.

“Yup,” says the first codger. “She ranks 93rd in effectiveness.”

The ad refers to Dole’s standing among the 100 sitting senators in rankings by www.congress.org, a nonpartisan Web site affiliated with the newspaper Roll Call.

“I can tell you her colleagues, Republican and Democrat, don’t look at her as the 93rd person in seniority or in effectiveness,” said Republican Sen. Richard Burr, North Carolina’s other member of the U.S. Senate.

Burr calls Dole “absolutely instrumental” in protecting North Carolina’s military bases during the most recent round of the Base Realignment and Closure process that saw many states lose military facilities. North Carolina gained in the number of soldiers stationed here.

Dole also can claim a portion of the credit for helping to push through the federal tobacco quota buyout critical to the state’s farmers.

Her most prominent legislative victory may have come as part of the group of senators that blocked the 2007 immigration bill, which she regarded as too soft on border security and on punishment for those who came here illegally.

Since then, Dole has touted her work in helping county sheriffs identify and help deport illegal immigrants.

But none of that has translated into a reputation as a legislative leader or go-to technician among those who follow Congress for a living.

“I don’t know of any signature piece of legislation that Elizabeth Dole has been involved with,” said Eric Uslaner, a professor in the department of government and politics at the University of Maryland. “I can tell you that she is widely regarded as a minor player in the Senate.”

Uslaner said Dole went to the Senate under high expectations because she had served as a Cabinet secretary and head of the American Red Cross. But, he said, to observers like him, it appears she has “coasted” after the election.

That notion makes Dole’s campaign staff bristle. They point to a 2003 quote by Gov. Mike Easley reported in The Charlotte Observer shortly after a hurricane.

“When I need something done in Washington, I call her office,” Easley was quoted as saying at the time.

Asked about the quote last week, Easley neither owned it nor disavowed it, hinting that he might have been trying to curry favor with the Republican administration.

“I can’t recall anything specifically I’ve asked her to do,” Easley said, adding that he thought Hagan would be “more aggressive.”

'It’s a valid question to ask’

“One tax, two tax, three tax, four,” reads a kindly voice more suited to reciting Dr. Seuss than smearing a candidate. “Vote for Kay Hagan if you want to pay more,” the ad continues as a cartoon Hagan mugs on screen.

The ad by the National Republican Senatorial Committee takes advantage of Hagan’s decade of votes in the legislature.

It’s the same history that Hagan touts on the campaign stump, including her ranking as the seventh most effective state senator out of 50 by the nonpartisan N.C. Center for Public Policy Research. The nod reflects her spot as co-chairwoman of a powerful budget-writing committee and her close relationship with Senate leader Marc Basnight.

Around Greensboro, she cultivated a reputation as a power player able to bring home state funds to an area that often felt neglected by the state budget writers. Appropriations for a UNCG-N.C. A&T nanotechnology school, funding for the International Civil Rights Center and Museum and backing for the High Point furniture market bear her fingerprints.

“She was my MVP,” said Keith Holliday, the former mayor of Greensboro who worked with Hagan on a number of issues. “All of the representatives and senators were helpful. But Senator Hagan stood out ... for her strong, personal, get-it-done kind of mind-set for the city of Greensboro.”

Hagan plays up her work on the budget in her own ads, with one released last week that says she “balanced five budgets in a row.”

Left unmentioned is the fact the state constitution requires a balanced budget or that more than a dozen legislators play high-level roles in drafting the budget each year. And some question whether the state’s budget is truly balanced.

“I do think it’s a valid question to ask — 'How has she balanced those budgets?’” said Sen. Phil Berger, a Rockingham County Republican and his party’s leader in the state Senate, who said the state has relied too much on borrowing not approved by voters.

Berger says so much of the budget process is closed off from public view that it’s hard to know what role Hagan has played.

“We really don’t know how much of it was her and how much of it was just her following orders,” he said.

On keeping, breaking loyalties

Dole and Hagan have been slammed for their institutional and party loyalties.

Hagan’s ads hammer away at Dole for supporting the president’s economic and war policies.

Locally, Republicans have raised questions about Hagan’s loyalty to Basnight, a coastal politician whose allies have run the state Senate for 16 years.

“Almost everybody votes with their party 90 percent of the time,” said Ran Coble, who heads the Center for Public Policy Research. “A lot of this — especially the work in the Senate, state or federal — is done by consensus. The real work is not the floor votes; it’s in the committees.”

An analysis by Congressional Quarterly showed that during her term in office, Dole backed President Bush 88 percent of the time, the same as the average Republican senator.

A News & Record analysis of state Senate votes showed that Hagan voted with Basnight about 99 percent of the time during the 2007-08 session. That compares with Berger, whose votes corresponded with Basnight about 90 percent of the time.

Most telling, experts say, is when candidates have differed from their allies.

In Dole’s case, the immigration bill became a high-profile example of a break with Bush, who favored creating a “path to citizenship” for those here illegally. More recently, Dole opposed the financial industry bailout package promoted by the president.

Hagan differed with Basnight on 13 votes during the past legislative session.

The most prominent break came over a bill to repeal real estate sales-tax authority recently given to counties. Basnight opposed the repeal; Hagan backed the measure. It passed the Senate but stalled in the House.

Hagan also broke with Basnight over a bill aimed at restricting gun sales to those ordered into mental treatment. Basnight supported a stricter version of the measure, while Hagan backed a change that made it harder for people to be entered into the database used to restrict firearm purchases.

Campaigns remain relentless

With early voting beginning Thursday and less than a month left before Election Day on Nov. 4, neither campaign shows any sign of relenting.

Since before the primary, Democrats have done their best to cast Dole as a carpetbagger, someone more comfortable in Washington or Kansas. One of Hagan’s well-worn campaign lines is that she wants to give Dole a pair of ruby red slippers so she can click her heels and go home to Kansas.

A report by Media General suggesting that Dole had spent only limited time in the state during the past six years played into that image. In 2006, the story said, reporters documented that Dole had spent 13 days in North Carolina.

“Dead wrong, unfair, all of the above,” said Dan McLagan, a spokesman for the Dole campaign. The report, he said, took into account only time logged by official travel records or noted by news releases.

“What it doesn’t count is her just going home on her own dime,” McLagan said. “I guess from now on we’ll put out a press release when she feeds the dog and starts the dishwasher.”

Likewise, Hagan swims upstream against the “tax-and-spend liberal” charge levied against virtually any Democrat running for statewide office in North Carolina in the past 30 years. And Hagan’s time as a budget writer gives Dole’s campaign ample ammunition.

“Crushing taxes,” intones an announcer as depressing black-and-white scenes flash by in one of Dole’s latest ads. “Home foreclosures. North Carolina families are hurting. It began in our legislature, where Kay Hagan called herself 'the budget expert’ but raised our taxes by more than $5 billion, and she doubled North Carolina’s debt to $7 billion.”

Hagan could rightly point out that the $7 billion debt figure falls well within the debt affordability range established by the state treasurer’s office or that North Carolina has a AAA bond rating, the highest for government-approved debt.

Hagan spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan called the suggestion that state legislative action was responsible for the state or national economic woes “completely disingenuous,” saying it was federal leaders who failed to regulate financial institutions.

“We’ll pass on taking advice from the woman who said President Bush’s economic policies were 'just right,’ ” Flanagan said. “I think more North Carolinians would disagree.”

Playing the party blame game

In the end, this Senate election could have less to do with the records of the individual candidates than with those of their parties, political scientists say.

A recent Elon University Poll asked respondents which party was to blame for the flagging economy. About 48 percent said the Republicans, compared with 24 percent who blamed Democrats.

About the same number, 46 percent, said it was “time for a new person to have a chance” when asked about Dole and the U.S. Senate race.

“Any time the economy hits like this, it overshadows every other issue,” said Hunter Bacot, the poll’s director.

So why blame Republicans, the president and their record when the Democrats control Congress?

“It’s a function of the president and the presidential party,” Bacot said. “The public always finds it easier to blame one person than 500-plus in the legislative body.”

So voters may view this election not as a choice between two candidates but rather as an opportunity to reward or punish the Republican administration and its handling of the economy. Or, as political analyst Charlie Cook said of Hagan during an appearance on Elon’s campus last month:

“My reaction is it’s not about her. It’s a referendum up or down on Elizabeth Dole and, to a lesser extent, Republicans. Kay Hagan is a vessel.”

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com