(UPDATE 2 [5PM]: Jim Neal has his own diary up at DKos, FISA, Telcos, Equality and Fair Play.

UPDATE: Participate in a MoveOn.org poll on this race here. And the DKos thread on this is hopping…)

For those of you out there who don’t have the North Carolina U.S. Senate race on your radar, it’s time to take a look, because you need to see the positions of the candidate the Democratic establishment is backing for the May 6 primary. I know the posts on this race don’t usually garner many comments, but folks need to wake up — adding Blue Dog Dems to the U.S. Senate won’t help LGBT or progressive causes one iota when there is a clear viable choice.

The two main candidates vying for the nom are State Senator Kay Hagan, and businessman and long-time Dem fundraiser Jim Neal (who’s openly gay, which is of course what has garnered the MSM interest so far). As has been noted on the Blend before, Hagan has the backing of the Dem establishment, including Chuck Schumer and the DSCC as well as former gov Jim Hunt and current gov Mike Easley. All the talk from the insiders so far has been about “viability.” However, Hagan and Neal are currently in a dead heat in the latest SurveyUSA poll (24% for Hagan and 23% for Jim Neal), despite Hagan’s war chest, so to write off Neal is a big mistake, for more than that reason, as you will see below.

There was a forum in Winston-Salem on Sunday that folks should take note of. Both candidates appeared, but Hagan refused to appear on stage to take questions alongside Neal, so it wasn’t a true debate. Based on the following on-site report from Kosh (David Allen) at BlueNC (also here), I can see why she balked.

Today I was in Winston-Salem to see Jim Neal address local Dems and hear his views before making my decision on who to support in the primary race the US Senate. When I arrived at the venue I learned that it was actually a double bill, with Kay Hagan as well.

I was told by one of the folks helping organize the event that Ms. Hagan had been invited to appear with Mr. Neal so that questions could be put to both candidates at the same time, highlighting their similarities and differences on the issues of the day. Ms. Hagan, however, declined to appear with Mr. Neal for some reason, so she was first up on the stage and took questions from two moderators, who picked from questions submitted by the audience.

…She was asked if she would have voted for, or against, the FISA bill this week which would have granted retroactive immunity to Telcos for felony violations of the current FISA law.

Ms. Hagan explained that she was against Telcos spying on Americans, but that she would have voted FOR the bill, and granted them immunity, but that future law breaking would not be tolerated.

I’m sorry, but such an answer is worthy of Joe Lieberman and shows that Ms. Hagan is either hopelessly in the pocket of the Telcos, or completely ignorant of FISA, what it entails, and why these people must be prosecuted, or the whole rule of law becomes a joke.

I inferred from her remarks that she believes that the Telcos broke the law with “the best of intentions” and that is why they should get a pass. That AT&T et al, were so concerned about national security they agreed to something they didn’t realize was illegal.

Sorry, that is just pure crap. They knew what they were doing, and if we put their asses on trial we’ll probably learn the reason they did it was the promise of future contracts (after all, we need somebody to monitor these taps since we don’t have enough FBI agents for the job and Halliburton’s plate already full). We will also learn that the wiretaps were going on long before 9/11 and that the people being watched were probably probably watched for political, not criminal reasons. Retroactive immunity is the price Bush is willing to pay to keep these people off the stand and talking.

…No matter how we address it, Ms. Hagan has has expressed her willingness to excuse multiple felonies committed against the American people in order to “reach across the aisle” and “compromise” with the Republicans in the spirit of “bi-partisanship”.

For the record, Jim Neal was completely opposed to immunity and would have voted NO on the bill.