Rep. Robin Hayes (R-NC) broke his word to his constituents last year by voting for CAFTA.
Now an Iraqi war Democrat has:
Tim Dunn, a trial lawyer and military veteran from Fayetteville who served recently in Iraq, announced his intention Wednesday to challenge four-term Republican U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes for his seat in Congress.
Dunn, a Democrat, cited Hayes’ July vote switch on the Central American Free Trade Agreement as a key motivation for his campaign. Hayes had said repeatedly he opposed CAFTA, then changed his vote at the last moment to ensure passage of the agreement.
“He broke his promise to the people of the 8th Congressional District,” Dunn said in a telephone interview. “With NAFTA, fast-track and now with CAFTA, those are things that … will severely hurt our jobs here.”
…Dunn, 45, is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. Last year, he helped a special tribunal in Iraq prepare for the prosecutions of Saddam Hussein and other senior government leaders in that nation’s former regime.
Dunn also served in the 1990-91 Gulf War and in Kosovo and said he is worried that soldiers and Marines in Iraq have not gotten sufficient support from Washington…
Hayes noted in an interview Wednesday that Dunn has never served in elective office. His only previous campaign was for the Democratic nomination to the 7th Congressional District seat in 1996. Dunn lost the primary to Mike McIntyre, who captured the seat that fall and still holds it…
“Here’s a guy with no record in serving in any kind of public office,” Hayes said. “It remains to be seen what he’s going to run on.”
…Unlike many congressional districts, the 8th District is relatively evenly divided by party registration. Hayes won the open seat with just 51 percent of the vote in 1998 but has boosted his percentage of the vote to 54 percent or higher in each of his three re-election victories.
Rep. Hayes may come off as a good ol’ boy to non-Southerners but in fact he is the heir to the Cannon Mills textile fortune. Like President George Bush who affects a lower class Texas dialect but whose great-grandfather was a Robber Baron, Hayes is a bona fide artistocrat. His grandfather, C.A. Cannon, was an industrialist whose peers in North Carolina included the founders of the R.J. Reynolds, Hanes Hosiery and Duke tobacco fortunes, among others. When he was a child, Hayes’ family owned the town of Kannapolis where Cannon Mills was headquartered.
Maybe 2006 will mark the year that Americans “throw the bums” out – where “bums” are defined as pampered rich boys playing at politics.
