An openly gay candidate vying for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 election for an open U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina said the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) had been hostile to his candidacy before taking him seriously more recently.

“The DSCC had played an active role in recruiting a candidate to run against me,” said Jim Neal, referring to how the organization asked Kay Hagan, a member of the North Carolina state Senate and co-chair of the body’s Appropriations Committee, to run for the nomination.

Hagan initially declined, but after Neal declared his candidacy, the DSCC asked her to run again, he said. She declared her candidacy Oct. 30.

“My opponent had opted out of the race, had pulled her name out of contention, only to change her mind some three weeks later — an amazing epiphany of sorts,” he said.

Some, including lesbian blogger Pam Spaulding of the popular Pam’s House Blend site, have speculated that DSCC asked Hagan to run again because it does not believe that an openly gay candidate can win in a conservative state like North Carolina.

“It was pretty clear that they didn’t return Jim Neal’s phone calls,” Spaulding said.

Whatever the initial problems were, Neal said he and the DSCC are now “getting along swimmingly.”

“I’m hoping that we have moved beyond any differences that we had earlier on in the campaign,” Neal said.

Neal met with DSCC officials to discuss his campaign.

“We have reached an understanding with them … they’re going to leave us alone in the primary, that they’re going to share the same information with us that they share with any other candidate and that ... nobody associated with DSCC will ever make the statement that a gay person can&rsquo ;t win in North Carolina,” he said. “And they have assured us that if they change their mind, they’ll let us know.”

DSCC spokesperson Matt Miller said his organization was never hostile to Neal’s candidacy and that DSCC does not endorse candidates until the Democratic nominee has been selected.

Miller said accusations that DSCC had treated Neal unfairly were “not accurate at all.”

“We, in fact, have regular conversations with him,” Miller said. “He participates in a number of the services that we make available to the candidates, including policy briefings.”

Miller said DSCC had been talking with Hagan and other possible candidates months before Neal announced his intention to run.

Linda Cary, treasurer for Hagan’s campaign, said there was “no truth” to speculation that Hagan decided to run for the Democratic nomination because Neal announced his candidacy. Cary said Hagan decided to run because incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Dole is vulnerable and because Hagan’s success in the state Senate over the last 10 years makes her a viable candidate.

The primary that will determine the Democratic nominee is scheduled for May 6.

The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund has not yet endorsed Neal. Neal said he has initiated the process of securing an endorsement from the organization.

“The Victory Fund is a cumbersome organization, like a lot of organizations in Washington,” he said.

Neal said he is bothered that the organization has yet to endorse him, but added that the only endorsement he really needs is from the people of North Carolina.

Victory Fund spokesperson Denis Dison said his organization’s policy is “not to discuss candidates unless and until they have been endorsed by our board.”

Spaulding speculated that the Victory Fund has yet to endorse Neal because, as she said for DSCC, she suspects the organization does not believe a gay candidate can win in North Carolina and the lack of endorsement further hurts a hopeful’s chances.

“My issue is ... it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy — if you never support anyone that is running, they aren’t going to win,” she said, adding that it amounts to “discrimination against the South generally and North Carolina in particular.”

Neal said the chances of an openly gay candidate winning the Senate seat in North Carolina are as good as they would be for “an openly female woman, an openly black African-American, an openly Mormon Mormon or an openly Baptist Baptist.”

Neal called himself “the only candidate who can beat Elizabeth Dole.”

He criticized Hagan for being an established politician and for serving as co-chair of the state Senate Appropriations Committee. Hagan’s role “gives her a very important lever to utilize with special interest during the course of the campaign,” Neal said.

“Putting a senator in Raleigh up against an incumbent senator in Washington, whose positions are not that dramatically different, is a losing proposition,” Neal said, referring to Hagen and Dole respectively. “I present a completely different alternative.”

Neal said he has the “experience and the gravitas and the appeal to reach out to groups” with whom Hagan would “not resonate.”

Neal has worked as an investment banker since the 1980s and in 2006 founded the Agema Group, a financial advisory firm based in Chapel Hill, N.C. He worked as fundraiser for Democratic nominee Erskine Bowles’ failed 2004 Senate campaign in North Carolina and as a fundraiser for the 2004 presidential campaigns of retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark and Sen. John Kerry. He is divorced and has two sons.

Neal said he needs to raise about $1 million for his primary campaign efforts and would need to raise an additional $8 million to $10 million to run in the general election. He speculated that if 10 percent of Americans are gay, or about 30 million people, and if 5 percent of those people donated $10 to his campaign, he would have $15 million, more than enough funds for his campaign.

Neal said he has a responsibility to the gay community and will represent that community “with dignity and in fashion that ... could make everybody feel very, very good about this campaign.”

If elected to the Senate, Neal said he would support the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act and the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. He also said he would support a bill prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment practices and a hate crimes bill.

Illegal immigration will be a major issue during the North Carolina Senate race, he said.

“The undocumented aliens living in North Carolina is the most emotionally volatile issue ... in this campaign,” he said. “I think that’s distinctive from some other parts of the country where it’s not going to be quite as widely debated.”

With regard

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