Dave asks, in the comments on this earlier post, whether Oscar Lovelace "will endorse Sanford if he doesn’t beat him."
Well, it just so happens that Doc Ock called me this afternoon shortly after my conversation with his campaign coordinator, and that’s one of the very things we discussed.
It also happens that he brought up the question Dave raises. Actually, he brought up the fact that reporters kept bringing it up to him.
It sort of ticks him off that everybody wants to talk about him losing. Especially Dan Hoover of The Greenville News, who he said keeps asking it.
"It’s a ridiculous question to ask someone who’s worked his rear off off for the past 14 months," he said. (And yes, he really said "rear," so that ought to shut up all of you who think he’s such a Boy Scout that he doesn’t know any salty language.)
Rather than express sympathy (even though I was feeling sort of bad for him knowing we weren’t going to endorse him when he didn’t yet know that), I said, Well, how about it? So he answered the question.
"I will plow my energies back into the practice of medicine," he said. "My first thing will be to say thanks to my partners and tell them I’m ready to pick up some of the load" at his practice.
He also blames Mr. Hoover for starting people talking about the "pigs" thing, but Mr. Hoover did set the record straight in this story, which places the blame in a much more likely place: Dr. Lovelace’s campaign adviser, Rod Shealy.
PIGS, as the Doc explained, is just a symbolic acronym for the virtues that he says he never travels without: Passion, Integrity, Goodwill and Servant leadership.
So, yeah, he is a Boy Scout. But he’s a ticked-off one. It peeves him that everyone talks about him losing a contest "between a governor who brings real pigs" into the State House "and an acronym."
When I spoke to him, Dr. Lovelace was on his way to a South Carolina School Boards Association meeting in Charleston. I asked (jokingly, since that didn’t sound like Mr. Sanford’s sort of crowd) whether he expected to run into the governor there.
The doctor isn’t a joking man, at least not about that. The governor’s refusal to debate him is still a very sore point.
"He’s not even willing to stand shoulder-to-shoulder," Dr. Lovelace said grimly. "He won’t even acknowledge me."
Well, that’s one point on which I share his disgust. There are others, in spite of our endorsement. (Note: I started writing this post Saturday after talking with the doc. I finished it Sunday. Hence the references to something that was not yet published on Saturday.)
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“So he answered the question.”
I am assuming that you just haven’t published the answer yet. We usually refer to an answer by the fact that it addresses the question. And in this case, Dr. Lovelace appears to have ignored the question. I don’t see a yes or no, which is all we really need to know.
I wish Dr. Lovelace the best, but his campaign seems to be completely based on his dislike for Mark Sanford. He appears to me to feel that he was slighted when the governor didn’t give him a ton of respect after serving on some commission and he then began to personally dislike the man. So, he ran against him. And since the local media shares his dislike, he made it this far. I can only assume at this point that he will not endorse Sanford because he ran to get him out of office, and that is going to be his primary goal, even if it means helping Willis or Moore coast into office.
“He’s not even willing to stand shoulder-to-shoulder,” Dr. Lovelace said grimly. “He won’t even acknowledge me.”
Wow, that is a wimpish wussy statement if I ever heard one. A psychologist could expound on it I am sure, but it comes across, as: I am hurt, Mark doesn’t like me anymore. Please Dr. Lovelace, go back to doctoring where everyone likes you and you are a great guy performing useful service.