Hagan campaign best, but how about Dole's?

The Washington Post has proclaimed state Sen. Kay Hagan's victory over U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole the best Senate campaign of the 2008 election, Chris Cillizza of the Post blog The Fix has this to say:


Today we tackle the best Senate campaign. Tomorrow we'll do governors and on New Years Eve (a.k.a. Wednesday) we'll finish up with the House races.

Drumroll please.... And the best Senate campaign of 2008 is:

Kay Hagan of North Carolina -- Hagan, a state senator, got into the race against Sen. Elizabeth Dole after a number of better known candidates including Gov. Mike Easley and Rep. Brad Miller took a pass on the contest.

Hagan got into the race as a virtually unknown candidate both in North Carolina and nationally, but quickly showed a capacity to raise money that opened the eyes of many people in Washington. On her first trips to the nation's capital, she wowed even the most cynical of party operatives with a charisma about campaigning and a no-nonsense approach to what needed to be done to beat Dole.

Hagan got a major boost in her efforts by a significant amount of spending by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's independent expenditure arm -- including an ad featuring two men on rocking chairs debating Dole's effectiveness and closeness to President George W. Bush.

But, she proved a strong -- and on-message -- candidate in her own right. When Dole went after Hagan in an ad for attending a fundraiser with the Godless Americans political action committee, Hagan was quick to respond with an effective (and cutting) response.

In the end, the race wasn't close. Hagan beat the seemingly unbeatable Dole 53 percent to 44 percent.

My two cents' worth: Cillizza might also have given Dole the award for one of the worst Senate campaigns. She should have started running seriously years earlier by spending more time in her state -- and making sure people saw her often -- and also by tackling more issues that people cared about. The "Godless" ad that got so much attention didn't kill Dole's campaign, but it made the final margin of victory for Hagan larger than it would have been.