A call from Grady Patterson

You get so wrapped up in these primaries that sometimes you forget for a moment that there’s somebody else out there in the fall, and sometimes that somebody’s the incumbent.

We’ve been all atwitter awaiting the electrifying face-off tonight between Jeff Willis and … let’s see … Thomas Ravenel that it’s easy to forget the winner has to beat a very, very, very experienced Democrat in the fall.

I was reminded of that this morning when I got a call from Grady Patterson, who just wanted to congratulate me on "that editorial you did about the budget." I realized after a second that he meant my Sunday column (in this business, a lot of stuff flows under the bridge between a Sunday and Thursday). I thanked him and said something vague like, That’s a real mess, isn’t it?

It’s little surprise that Mr. Patterson, who regularly sides with the two lawmakers to outvote the governor on the Budget and Control Board, would agree with our take on that. Not that he has much hope it’ll do any good.

"I don’t think he’ll listen, but…" Mr. Patterson trailed off.

Well, we’ll see.