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• North Carolina Tobacco Farmers Find Friend in Sen. Hagan  

To hear Sharp rant is to understand why Kay Hagan, North Carolina's new senator, joined Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and 15 other senators to become the only Democrat to vote against the tobacco bill. And if any tobacco farmer has Hagan's ear, it is Sharp.

Last year, when Hagan was a little-known candidate running in an uphill battle to unseat Republican Elizabeth Dole, she campaigned at Sharp's farm. The fiscally conservative tobacco farmers along the I-95 corridor here make up a constituency that often helps swing statewide elections, and they backed Hagan strongly.

Hagan, 55, is no stranger to tobacco. A former lawyer and bank executive, she spent summers as a child stringing the leaves on her grandparents' farm. In the state legislature, she represented Greensboro, the headquarters of Lorillard Tobacco, which employs about 2,500 workers there.

To call Hagan merely a defender of the "golden leaf" industry would be an understatement. She is among tobacco's fiercest backers. In 2005, as co-chairman of the state Senate's appropriations committee, she helped shave back an increase in the cigarette tax from the 45 cents a pack proposed by the governor to 30 cents. During last year's campaign, Hagan received $19,200 from the tobacco industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

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