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FAYETTEVILLE - State Sen. Kay Hagan stood among friends — about 1,000 teachers and principals — at the N.C. Association of Educators convention in Fayetteville this month .

The politically potent teachers group had already endorsed Hagan, one of two leading Democrats who want to take on U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, a Republican, this fall.

"We have the opportunity this year to elect someone who I know will be accessible to us because she's been accessible to us already," said Eddie Davis, the group's president. Unlike Dole, who has not met with the group in recent memory, Hagan's door has been open, Davis said.

Hagan is Senate Appropriations Committee co-chairwoman, a powerful budget-writing post, so she can take a share of the credit for securing pay raises for NCAE members last year.

As Davis exhorted members to welcome her to the stage, the coliseum hall erupted into cheers, with the Guilford County delegates sitting to stage right holding up campaign signs and putting that much more vigor in their applause.

"What I want to do is give Miss Liddy Dole a pair of ruby red slippers," Hagan told the group, trotting out a well-worn campaign line. "So she can click her heels three times and go home to Kansas."

After her speech, Hagan walked away with a $5,000 campaign contribution from the NEA, the teachers group's national affiliate.

Money. Allies. Name recognition. Such are the perks of running on the strength of nearly 10 years in the state Senate.

* * * Hagan tells groups large and small that "Washington is broken" and that she will work across party lines to craft legislation.

"If there's anything that prepares me to deal with partisanship, it's having one child at UNC and another at Duke," Hagan told the educators, a timely joke delivered during the ACC Tournament.

That sentiment ruffles feathers among some in the party, particularly among those who think congressional Democrats have done too much compromising with the Republican White House.

"I think, especially in a room like this, to heck with the Republicans and their plans; they haven't worked," said Johnny Kaleel, chairman of the Democratic Party in Sampson County. "I want to hear about: 'Let's focus on what we think is the right thing to do and what we know historically has been the right thing to do, and then gather the Democratic majorities, and let's make it happen.' "

Later, on a drive between events, Hagan is unapologetic.

"I'm a pragmatic person, and I'm a realist; that's who I am. I think to have effective government at the U.S. congressional level, in order to get something done, especially in the Senate, you've got to work across party lines," she said. By and large, she said, most voters are sick of partisan infighting.

"I also know that legislation is a compromise. ...I learned that very quickly in Raleigh," she said.

Hagan went to Raleigh after running the Guilford County operations for former Gov. Jim Hunt's 1992 and 1996 campaigns for governor. It was Hunt who tapped Hagan to run against then-state Sen. John Blust, a Republican, in 1998.

Since then, she has been part of Democratic majorities that have run the chamber and a key ally of Senate President Pro Tempore Marc Basnight . Like other leaders in the Senate, Hagan has a reputation for being relatively friendly to business interests, supportive of the UNC system, but keen on backing public education and social programs such as health insurance for poor children.

Jim Neal, Hagan's foremost opponent in the May 6 primary, criticizes her record and stances as being too close to those of Dole.

"Do you think North Carolina is going to elect someone who is essentially a Republican state senator to replace a Republican U.S. senator?" Neal asked.

* * *

In Greensboro, Hagan may be better known for her parochial loyalties than her political ties.

She has helped land state support for Greensboro's International Civil Rights Museum and, along with colleagues from the House, helped secure funding for a UNCG-N.C. A&T nanotechnology center during the past legislative session.

Some of her legislative causes have been more quixotic. One of the legislative accomplishments Hagan talks about the most in speeches is a program that requires that financial literacy be taught in public high schools, a relatively small program in the scope of the state's $21 billion budget.

"I talk a lot about the budget in many, many places," Hagan said. "But a lot of times, numbers glaze over people's eyes, and they want to hear what's affecting them personally. And typically, without an exception, somebody knows somebody who has gotten into financial trouble, and it's very personal and it hurts and they don't want it to happen to their children, their friends, their grandchildren."

The bill also highlights her background as a banker, a job she left after her third child was born.

All three kids have some role in the campaign. Tilden, who is soon to attend medical school, has helped wrangle technology for the campaign offices and occasionally serves as advance man for Hagan's appearances. Carrie, Hagan's youngest, has introduced her at events. Even Jeanette , who is in California working on her doctorate in geology, is due to return and help the campaign.

All of that is karmic payback for the days Hagan spent handing out bumper stickers for her uncle, Lawton Chiles, a former Florida governor and U.S. senator, and perhaps for services rendered as a rock Sherpa.

Part of Jeanette's work for her dissertation involves mapping the types of rocks found in the Sierra Nevadas and collecting samples along the way, each coded with GPS coordinates.

"And I carry these rocks in my backpack," Hagan said. "I'm the rock Sherpa."

Even for the former ballet dancer who has, until recently, been a regular in the gym, Hagan said the treks with her daughter have tested her.

An elliptical trainer in her basement has replaced regular workouts such as a erobics, Hagan said, because she needs the time to prepare for less physical challenges.

* * *

Hagan seemed to be tested early in her campaign by the rigors of speaking to groups. In some of her earliest appearances this year, it wasn't unusual for her to reference a small stack of note cards. During more recent appearances, Hagan appears more at ease with her delivery, something she chalks up to repetition and practice.

"You've got to practice, and you've got to have time to practice," she said during a drive between two stops on a hectic day of campaigning .

As rain beat down on a car driven by her campaign staffer, Hagan recalled summers of her youth on her grandparents' farm in Chesterfield, S.C.

"When the mules would bring the tobacco leaves in on a sled, I would take the tobacco and get three leaves and hand it to the stringer, and they would put it on the wooden stick and then we would toss it up to the cute guys who were hanging it up," Hagan recalled. The work was hot, and her hands would get sticky with the juice from the leaves.

"I would do that and the watermelon," Hagan said. "We'd have a little tractor...and we'd shuck the watermelons up there to them. I'll never forget, after lunch the first time I did it, I couldn't get up after. I couldn't move my arms."

Although she might have gotten the afternoon off that day, she was up the next morning tossing watermelons again.

Years later, Hagan would retain her love of the outdoors, leading weeklong camping trips for Greensboro Day School students with lawyer Locke Clifford, himself an avid backpacker.

"She knows her stuff," said Clifford, who became an Eagle Scout in 1957. "She's just totally upbeat and energetic, as she is with everything she does. ... She can build a fire, she can carry a pack, and she can recognize a wildflower at 50 feet."

This upbeat determination, described by her friends and colleagues, makes the start of her U.S. Senate run so curious. By her own account, Hagan first talked to political insiders as much as two years ago about getting into the race. That speculation ramped up in late 2007 when party leaders openly mentioned her name as a potential candidate.

After a summer of speculation in 2007, Hagan said in October that she wouldn't run. A few weeks later, she changed course and jumped in.

At the time, Hagan said she was angered by Dole's vote on a popular children's health insurance program. Less charitable theories have abounded, foremost that party leaders pressured her to reconsider when they learned that Neal was gay. She denied those theories.

"So many people got in touch with me and said, 'Kay, we need you in the U.S. Senate,' " Hagan said. "I took it to heart. I talked to my family about it. ... I'm so excited about this race."

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com

On The Issues: They Both Want Dole Gone

State Sen. Kay Hagan and Chapel Hill investment adviser Jim Neal agree on a few things: Incumbent Elizabeth Dole has not returned to North Carolina enough and has voted too consistently with President Bush, for example.

But there are differences between the two.

On the children's health insurance bill vetoed by President Bush that Congress failed to override:

Hagan: Said she would have worked to reduce the bill's reliance on raising tobacco taxes before it was passed but would have ultimately voted in favor.

Neal: Would have voted for the bill before Congress without reservations.

On the federal wiretapping bill and granting immunity from legal actions to telephone companies that cooperated with the government:

Hagan: Has not taken a firm stand on the FISA bill but said that each particular version needs to be viewed on its own merits. "I think it depends on which amendment you're looking at and which bill you're looking at, and we've got to look at all of that and see what's best for North Carolina."

Neal: "I was disappointed that the Senate buckled on the issue of retroactively granting immunity to the telecom companies." Allowing lawsuits, he said, would allow lawyers to probe what kind of pressure the Bush administration used and figure out why some companies felt they had to cooperate and at least one did not.

On Hagan's legislative record:

Hagan: "We do things right here in North Carolina." She points to teacher pay raises and the renewable energy bill passed by the legislature last year.

Neal: He criticizes Hagan as a "political insider" and has pointed to the renewable energy bill as a bad deal for North Carolina because it allows utilities to recover construction costs from rate payers.

On what to call their Republican opponent:

Hagan: Frequently calls her "Miss Liddy," offering to give her a pair of "ruby red slippers" so she can find her way home to Kansas.

Neal: "She is Senator Dole or Elizabeth Dole. I don't know her; I don't have permission to call her by her nickname."