That was part of the “where does she really live?” question. The topic came up in her first campaign but didn’t make much of a ripple. However after she won,she seldom came back to the state.
I was involved at the county and district level in the Republican party. We begged her to attend events in our area and she repeatedly declined. When she began her second campaign she had no qualms about asking us to send her our hard raised money. Money she had not helped us raise. And she still would no agree to a dinner or meet and greet to help us raise more.
The Kay Hagan gaffe was a stake in the heart of Dole’s campaign. Hagan could and did produce people who knew where she lived, worshipped, and worked. She was able to present the face of a real North Carolinian and Dole was shown to be what she was, a real DC insider.
It’s too bad Jesse Helms didn’t try to push a replacement, but he didn’t think that was his prerogative to do so. J. Bennett Johnston, Jr., in LA though, pushed Mary Landrieu as his successor, and she’s still there, for a while at least.