By Mark Wineka
mwineka@salisburypost.com
Since U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole lost her re-election bid Nov. 4, Margaret Kluttz hasn’t had time to think what she’ll do when her six years as Dole’s state director are over.
Right now she’s busy closing down what amounts to a mini-industry in North Carolina ó Dole’s offices in Salisbury, Greenville, Raleigh and Hendersonville and the 19 to 20 folks who work there.
In Salisbury, the Dole staff at the F&M office building on North Main Street includes Kluttz, three other full-time staffers, two part-time employees and an intern.
The offices have to be shut down by Jan. 2 with all their government-owned equipment accounted for.
But the biggest job for Kluttz and the other Dole N.C. team members, many of whom are trying to find new jobs at the same time, is squaring away all the pending constituent work.
“There’s so much I have to get done here,” Kluttz says.
Some 42,000 people had “hard cases” with the Dole offices in the past six years, not counting the ones that could be handled through a couple of telephone calls, e-mails or other communications.
Numerous constituent concerns are still not resolved, and they will have to be handed off to other congressional offices in North Carolina.
“Everyone thinks their case is urgent, and they are,” Kluttz says. “If it’s affecting your life, it’s critical. But some (cases) are going to take years to resolve, which is frustrating.”
With most cases, the Dole staffers are trying to make sure they’ve done everything they can do before sending things on to another office.
Dole, a Republican and a Salisbury native, lost to Democrat Kay Hagan Nov. 4.
Kluttz, 65, is a former mayor of Salisbury and one-time member of the N.C. Board of Transportation. Her South Fulton Street residence is only a couple blocks from the Dole homeplace.
After Dole’s election in 2002, Kluttz worked initially to set up the four state offices and hire staff.
“It’s the hardest thing I ever did, starting this up from scratch,” she says.
Now it’s one of the tougher things to oversee its shutting down.
Kluttz says Dole’s staffers knew heading toward Election Day that their senator was in danger of losing.
“It looked like it was really going to be tough,” Kluttz says, “but you never realize when it’s actually happening how painful it is.”
Kluttz says it was especially tough to see the end of an era for Dole, whose life, she said, has always been centered on public service.
“She has been a real lesson in grace under fire and being gracious in this last week,” Kluttz says.
After an election loss, it would be easy for a retiring senator to close up shop and let many things hanging.
“The message has been,” Kluttz says, “let’s try to do this right.”
Kluttz says Dole had an outstanding group of caseworkers in the state, who tried to waive federal bureaucracy when they could and handle constituents’ problems with things such as Social Security, immigration, Medicare, disability, foreign adoptions, VA benefits, the Internal Revenue Service and the military.
The Dole staffers also served as the eyes and ears for the Republican senator and judged when local issues in the state had federal implications in which Dole might lend assistance.
“It was a uniquely qualified group of folks,” Kluttz says, describing their commitment to research and an ability to spell out the good and bad aspects of many issues.
Just to work with those great people “fires you up,” Kluttz says.
The most rewarding part of her state director’s job has been a feeling that she has stretched and grown personally, had the opportunity to learn new things and was able to meet so many different people in North Carolina during some of the more challenging times for the country.
Kluttz also will look back fondly “on many great stories” of how the Dole staff was able to help people find closure for their problems.
“That has been wonderful and very rewarding,” she says.
Partisan politics stopped for Dole and her employees when it came to helping the state’s citizens, Kluttz says.
“Serving is a totally different thing from running,” she adds.