Former North Carolina state Senator Hugh Webster, a Republican from Alamance County, officially announced on Tuesday his intention to run against Democratic Congressman Brad Miller in the November election, receiving mixed responses from students.
Webster said his main issues are taxes, protection of the Constitution and securing the country’s borders.
He specifically said the country’s tax system is a “tyranny of pushing buttons and pulling strings” that controls citizens’ lives.
On the rising cost of college education, though, Webster had some ideas.
“Get rid of tenure. Make the teachers teach,” he said of how to lower the cost of college. “That’s a start.”
But Douglas Massengill, a sophomore in political science and the president of the North Carolina Federation of College Democrats, said Webster is out of touch with the state’s educational system.
“While he was a state senator, he continued vote after vote after vote to raise his own salary, but refused to vote to increase the salary of teachers in the state of North Carolina,” Massengill said. “And I think that’s just an injustice.”
Massengill, a Teaching Fellow, said it’s been a consistent pattern for Webster.
“Anyone who is not a proponent of North Carolina’s education system as it relates to public school, how can you expect them to be an advocate of our colleges and universities as well?” he said.
Meanwhile, Emily Wahab, a sophomore in history and secretary of the College Republicans, said the election will come down to more of the two candidates’ staunch records with their parties.
“It should be a very interesting race. Hugh Webster has a very big conservative record, and Brad Miller has a very liberal record…There’s really no middle ground,” Wahab said.
While Massengill said he sees Webster as an extremist all too willing to personally threaten opponents and as a man who once supported apartheid while living in Rhodesia, Wahab said she’s not sure what to think yet of such judgments.
“I feel like he has to explain himself. Personally, from my experience, though, Democrats, just like Republicans, sometimes really blow up the opponent’s record,” Wahab said. “So he’s obviously going to have to explain himself and tell the constituents and the people who he really is and what his platform and ideas really are.”
Webster said Miller focuses on the problem of predatory lending rather than an education system Webster said has failed the people who often take out these loans.
But LuAnn Canipe, communications director for Miller, said the Democratic-controlled House has done a good job of making college more affordable and raising the minimum wage.
During his news conference announcing his candidacy, Webster recalled some bitter exchanges from the days when he and Miller were both in the Legislature.
He even referred to a time when he challenged Miller by asking him why the redistricting plan he drew up was in violation of North Carolina’s Constitution, to which Webster said Miller replied “because I can.”
Canipe, though, said Miller is hoping to avoid such a bitter type of rhetoric in the campaign, which was prevalent in Vernon Robinson’s run for Congress against Miller in 2006.
“The congressman is not going to get into a name-calling campaign…It won’t be, at least from the congressman,” she said.
While Webster spoke extensively about the problem of illegal aliens crossing into the United States, he conceded he’s not sure what is the best way to handle the issue. One thing he said must happen is a better effort by the U.S. to welcome those who come into the country legally.
“Our borders should be protected, not because I hate immigrants — I love them,” Webster said. “But they must come here legally.”
He also stressed that he doesn’t dislike Miller, just his policies and demeanor.
“I have never hated him,” Webster said. “I just hate what he stands for.”
Even so, Canipe said the campaign for Miller will be about things that affect voters’ everyday lives, not rhetoric about Legislature confrontations many years in the past.
“That was a long time ago,” Canipe said.
