Hagan, a member of First Presbyterian Church of Greensboro and a former Sunday school teacher, condemned the ad as "fabricated and pathetic," and filed a lawsuit in Wake County Superior Court accusing Dole of defamation and libel. Following Hagan's victory, the lawsuit was dropped. The ad was roundly criticized in local and several national media outlets, including by CNN's Campbell Brown, who said about the ad: "mid all the attack ads on the airwaves competing to out-ugly one another, we think we've found a winner."