Kay Hagan an insider who speaks out

Hagan, pro-business Democrat, wields power for district

GREENSBORO -- State Sen. Kay Hagan was showing Senate leader Marc Basnight around her hometown one day when she asked whether he would like to go with her to Pilates.

Sure, said Basnight, who was puzzled when they arrived at a gym for an exercise class.

"I thought it was an Italian restaurant," Basnight recalled.

For Hagan, a Democrat seeking the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Elizabeth Dole, mixing politics with Pilates is natural: Her life is a balancing act.

She began her political career 10 years ago after taking a break from her career as a lawyer to raise her three children. She is a soccer mom and political insider, a well-to-do civic leader who sent her children to private school in Greensboro while advocating in Raleigh for public education. She is someone willing to confront the same authority that helped put her in a position of political power.

But much of Hagan's U.S. Senate campaign is based on her record as one of the state's chief budget writers.

During her decade in Raleigh, Hagan has carved out a reputation as a pro-business Democrat. She is regarded as a team player who works with the leadership, as someone willing to bring home state money for programs and projects in her district. She is regarded as a tough negotiator and a demanding perfectionist.

"My record speaks for itself," Hagan told Democrats gathered recently at Cary High School for party precinct meetings. "I was listed as one of the 10 most powerful senators. I know what works -- education. We do it right in North Carolina."

Republican-lite?

Her opponents, including Chapel Hill businessman Jim Neal, her major rival in the May 6 Democratic primary, say that record is based on Hagan's being part of the powerful Democratic machine that has ruled the state Senate for years. Neal refers to her as an "ambitious career politician" who is running a "Republican-lite" campaign.

"She follows orders well -- whatever Basnight and [Senate Majority Leader] Tony Rand want," said former Republican state Sen. Mark McDaniel, a Greensboro businessman who lost to Hagan in 2002.

"She has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of contributions from Basnight, and that makes her beholden. You don't want someone taking orders from [U.S. Senate leader] Harry Reid. You want someone taking orders from the voters of the state."

But Hagan said that when she first talked with Basnight about the possibility of heading the budget committee, she told him: "I am an individual. I stand up for my constituents. I am not someone to go along with the crowd."

A native of Shelby, Hagan was reared largely in Florida as part of a political family. Her father, the owner of industrial warehouses, was a mayor of Lakeland. Her uncle, Lawton Chiles, was a governor and senator. She married into a political family in Greensboro -- her husband, Chip, is a prominent corporate attorney and a former county Democratic chairman.

Hagan worked as a lawyer in the trust division of what is now Bank of America until her third child was 2.

Her children are now in college -- at UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke University and Caltech.

Hagan became a Greensboro civic leader and Girl Scout leader who lives in a house with a tax value of $943,400. The Hagans sent their children to the private Greensboro Day School, and the family belongs to the Greensboro Country Club.

Christmas service

It is a family with a social conscience. On many Christmas mornings, the Hagans go to a home for severely handicapped people to cook breakfast, wash dishes and play Santa Claus to relieve the home's staff.