Remember a few weeks ago, when Phil Noble predicted on our pages that Barack Obama would win in South Carolina in November?
There’s been some Republican scoffing since then. So today, I received a copy of this message:
July 24, 2008
Mr. Katon Dawson
SC Republican Party
P.O. Box 12373
Columbia, SC 29211Dear Katon,
Recently, I wrote an op-ed that appeared in a number of newspapers in South Carolina entitled "Why Obama Will Win South Carolina."
It seems to have caused quite a stir among some of your Republican friends who confidently dismissed an Obama victory as an impossibility. You have been quoted in newspapers as saying "We’ve got South Carolina taken care of." and the idea of Obama winning was ‘a pipe dream’.
A ‘pipe dream’?
To quote Robert Kennedy, "Some men see things as they are, and say ‘Why?’ — I dream of things that never were, and say, ‘Why not?’"
Along with millions of people around the country, we in South Carolina are working to make our dream come true…and it will happen.
I’m so confident of victory that I would propose a friendly wager — as representatives of our respective candidates — the loser buys the winner a dinner of the finest South Carolina barbeque, with all the trimmings, at any restaurant of the winner’s choice in the state — except Maurice’s.
I look forward to hearing from you…and having a great dinner on you.Sincerely,
Phil Noble
President
SC New Democrats
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Obama has zero chance of winning South Carolina.
It will not even be close, he (Obama) will lose by 17%
Heck, it’s only a barbecue bet, Dawson ought to take it just for fun even though it means having to eat with a New Democrat. He could add one condition: that Maurice’s not be excluded, just to rattle a cage.
Sure, Obama’s trip to the Holy Land has received the acclamation of the world as evidenced by fawning news coverage:
I’m impressed, but I still know what I’m gonna do!
I still think that there are enough of us, willing to chance Obama’s brains and his ethics to think Obama has a chance (a good one if he mobilizes here) to win in SC.
Libertarian Bob Barr will make the difference. If a significant number of conservative voters choose to follow Barr, who makes McCain look decidedly centrist, he (Barr) could siphon off a significant number of votes that would otherwise go to McCain. Many polls don’t include Barr or Nader when conducting their surveys. Zogby does, and they have SC as too close to call.
http://www.zogby.com/50state/
Speaking as an active veteran and participant of several local, county, state and national campaigns beginning with Nixon/McGovern 72 I can assure one and all that there are no “sure bets” when it comes to predicting the outcome of political races especially this early on in the process. What seems like conventional wisdom today can be foolishness tomorrow. Given that everything remains the same as it is now the greatest determining factor would be voter turn out of committed base elements in both campaigns and possible apathy displayed by either or both of these groups. Propaganda if believed which has it’s roots and support in either the media or the popular myth can contribute to low voter turn out for alleged foregone conclusions. A huge rally at Williams Brice if played over and over again as if it were a constant norm could lead potential voters from the oposite camp to a learned hopelessness regardless of it’s relavance to current realities. One example might be the Berlin rally which was actually more about free beer and opening rock bands which never made it off the cutting room floor. There are too many future variables yet to be played out to make an intelligent prediction for either candidate at this date. Senator Clinton has “suspended” her campaign not ended it for this very reason. There are candidates known and unknown who are still waiting for the 4th quarter results in a game which has not yet seen it’s final play.
I’m slow these days. If Noble were that confident, he’d not have excluded Maurice’s. Katon ought to take advantage of that by making the bet with no conditions. Sure, Noble might chastise Dawson a bit, but Dawson could simply ask if Noble’s so sure, why is he worried.
It depends how many illegal votes Obama gets away with.
My idea of a little bar b que bet on the Obama/McCain race with Katon Dawson seems to have really taken off. I have recieved more email on this than most anything we SC New Democrats have done in a long time.
I had lots of suggestions from I should raise the wager to $1,000 to I should be thrown in jail for ‘public betting’.
I’d love to hear other folks’ ideas of how we could expand the ‘Pamettto Bar b que Bet’ and get others involved.
What do ya’ll think?
SC could go for O’Bama if we could just get out the vote. I am still amazed that O’Bama trounced Hillary the way he did (and I have nothing but the greatest respect for her, but this is just not her time) in the SC primary. It took a coalition of people across ethnic lines to make that happen. If more young people and African Americans were to vote instead of throwing their hands up in despair, then we might see a new day in SC with a new coalition that could ultimately wrest power from the good ole boys and perhaps someday lead to real constitutional change right here in SC. As the State newspaper has repeatedly observed, our constitutional arrangements were designed for another day–a day when entrenched power structures were going to rule the way they wanted regardless of who our elected constitutional officers were. Just look at the DOT! But I digress.
We should not have to wait for the older generation to pass or to be raptured before we can have real change at all levels of government in this country.
30% of black voters are ineligible, due to felony convictions.
Voting is a right that should never be taken away, even if a person has felony convictions–white, black, Hispanic, whatever! The 15th Amendment says everyone has a right to vote–period!!
It appears that felons can vote in SC if they have served their sentence. I’m surprised to learn this. I would have thought Lee was right on this one. Or am I wrong in my reading of the bolded clause below?
From the SC Code of Laws:
SECTION 7-5-120. Qualifications for registration; persons disqualified from registering or voting. [SC ST SEC 7-5-120]
(A) Every citizen of this State and the United States who applies for registration must be registered if he meets the following qualifications:
(1) meets the age qualification as provided in Section 4, Article II of the Constitution of this State;
(2) is not laboring under disabilities named in the Constitution of 1895 of this State; and
(3) is a resident in the county and in the polling precinct in which the elector offers to vote.
(B) A person is disqualified from being registered or voting if he:
(1) is mentally incompetent as adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction; or
(2) is serving a term of imprisonment resulting from a conviction of a crime; or
(3) is convicted of a felony or offenses against the election laws, unless the disqualification has been removed by service of the sentence, including probation and parole time unless sooner pardoned.
I’d like to know where Lee got his information and the percentage of white people who would fit his classification.
It does not sound to me as though he has much respect for his fellow citizens of color. Fortunately for us when it comes to civil rights, this is 2008, not 1958!
In some areas, as many as 50% of black men are ineligible to vote. In other areas, much less. The nationwide average is about 15%.
Democrats like Hillary Clinton have been trying to not only restore the voting rights to convicted felons, in order to increase votes for Democrats, but to even let current felons in prison vote.
An advocacy web site for felon voters
http://www.hrw.org/reports98/vote/usvot98o.htm
In the state of California, nearly four in ten African American men in their twenties are under some form of criminal justice control. While African Americans make up 7% of California’s population, and constitute 20% of felony arrests, 31% of the prison population and 43% of third “strike” defendants sent to state prison.5
From 1992 to 1994, the Florida Department of Corrections received a $450 million increase in funding. That is more than the state’s university system received in the previous ten years.6
Florida prosecutors are sending as many children into the adult prison and jail system as judges do in the entire rest of the United States.7
In New York State more than 90% of people doing time for a drug offense are African American or Latino. There are more blacks and Hispanics locked up in prisons than there are attending the state university system.8
The District of Columbia literally has more prison and jail inmates than D.C. residents enrolled in its one public university.
D.C.’s correction system experienced a 312% increase in funding from 1977 to 1993, compared to an 82% increase in university funding during that 16 year period.9
*While African Americans represent one out of every four (25%) Maryland residents, they represent over three out of four (77%) of the state’s prisoners. Since 1990, 9 out of every 10 new inmates imprisoned in Maryland have been black.10
There are 800,000 illegal aliens in the US prisons, not counting those in county jails awaiting trials. 1,000,000 are being sought on felony warrants. Many of them were detected voting in California in the 2000 election. Obama is promising amnesty for 30,000,000 illegal aliens, and amnesty for many convicted aliens.
Lee,
Are you sure you would not have preferred living in Mississippi before the civil rights movement–a time when everyone knew their place because the Klan would enforce it!
Mr. Lussier,
Your crude attempt to intimidate me and others in order to stifle informed discussion simply doesn’t work here.
You didn’t state any opinion of your own, much less any evidence to challenge my facts.
Do you favor letting felons vote?
Do you favor letting prisoners vote?
Do you favor letting people vote illegally?
Do you favor granting amnesty to illegal aliens in order to let them vote?
If you don’t know the facts, your opinions are uniformed.
If you don’t care about the facts, your opinions are mere bigotry.
Lee,
I don’t think you understand the meaning of the word “bigotry.” The oppression (denial of rights and civil liberties) of a minority by the majority on the basis of some racial, religious, or social characteristic is bigotry. One can hardly argue on this basis that white people are oppressed. Blacks, Hispanics, Mormons, Jews, and the Irish would be examples of groups that have historically experienced oppression at the hands of the white majority in this country over the centuries.
As for letting people vote, yes, I am very much in favor of letting prisoners and felons vote, again on the basis of the 15th Amendment. I would not be in favor of letting illegals vote because voting is a right that attaches specifically to citizenship, and they are not (yet) citizens.
What I would really be in favor of is a system such as exists in many other Western-style democracies around the world: an official, federal citizenship card that would automatically register a person with the Social Security Administration, the Selective Service, the IRS, and with a national database that would automatically register a person to vote regardless of where he/she lives. The voter would have to present this national identity card in order to vote, and it would obviate the tremendous expense and effort states spend to maintain state voter rolls on a county-by-county basis. Just swipe the card and vote.
Of course, there is a danger that more people would vote than currently do, and this would probably do irreparable harm to the party of big business, the rich, and the religious right zealots who would like to see the US become a Christian version of an Iranian-style theocracy. It would either force the Republicans out of business or force them to return to their roots as the party of Lincoln–the party of radical reconstruction, amendments 13-15, national sovereignty, and civil rights for African Americans.
Black Americans have received $7 TRILLION in handouts since 1964, and most have squandered the money and opportunity. Back when I was a Democrat, I worked to register black voters. It makes me sick to see how their white-appointed “black leaders” have led them to self-destruction.
You say you don’t favor letting illegal aliens vote, but you forgot to say if you favor amnesty and quick citizenship for them. That would spell the end of America, with the illiterates and those with no acceptance of Western civilization controlling the majority of votes and the US Treasury.
Why don’t you move to one of those backward, socialist, semi-totalitarian countries where they can issue you an ID card and maybe a tatoo to control you? That way, you won’t have to wait for Obama to ruin America and have it join the Third World.
This discussion has taken an unfortunate turn for the worst…which illustrates one of the points I was trying to make with my little bet.
I proposed a friendly bar b que bet and it has turned into name calling and folks throwing around terms like ‘racism”handouts to blacks’ and such.
LIGHTEN UP, FOLKS.
The only way we are going to be able to come together and find common ground and solve some of our big problems in this state is if we can talk about things in a civil, respectful tone.
If you really want to make a point, find someone on the other side and bet them a bar-b-que dinner and then when it’s all over, have a fun dinner and talk with them about how we are all going to work together to improve education and some of the other big and important problems we ALL need to deal with.
Who will take me up on this?
If you do, send us a post and tell us who you bet with.
Phil
The problem is that liberals and socialists don’t know when they have been proven wrong. They think the USSR is owed a barbeque plate from Maurice’s for defeating Reagan.
I favor a Voter ID card, so the Democrats can’t win with felons, illegal immigrants and hired people voting twice and under the names of non-voters.
Since I see no need for an income tax, the IRS should be abolished, so we don’t need any card for them. We don’t now.
Social Security is a bankrupt welfare system. It too, should be phased out ASAP, so we can get rid of the SSN.
Liberals don’t want a military draft registration; they want huge federal works programs like the fascist programs of FDR. We don’t need that. We need young people working real jobs, where they learn to work hard and get along with coworkers and customers.
Lee,
I really don’t understand your hostility towards Blacks? What facts do you have to prove that they have received 7 TRILLION dollars in handouts since 1964? And how have they squandered the money and opportunity? I must have missed the news reports when the government was handing out these trillions?
I will agree that some people waste opportunities but the only people I remember getting government handouts because they squandered someone’s money are savings and loans investors, oil companies, airlines and now the banks! And as far as I can tell THOSE folks weren’t Blacks when they took the handouts? So please enlighten the rest of us with YOUR FACTS around this issue?
Secondly, how can you even conceive that an Obama Administration can ruin America worse than George Bush has runined America. I was no fan of Clinton but I am clear we were in a lot better shape as a country at the end of his presidency than we will be at the end of the Bush debacle. If you ask me, I would tell Obama to drop out now anyway. Don’t taint yourself by trying to clean up this disaster left by Bush. It will take the next 20 years to clean up the crap he has left. We will go through Obama and 2 other presidents to fix this mess.
I can’t beleive that you idiots even voted for him in the first place. Everyone knew he was the least qualified person in the Bush family, but you still voted for him. You also probably voted for Sanford too. He sure has gotten a lot accomplished as well.
When will you so-called conservatives see there is nothing conservative about the Republican party. They keep leading us down a dark alley and each time they beat us up in that alley. Then when we finally get a chance to get out of the alley, people find some lame excuse as to why we should keep walking down the dark alley to get another beating.
I really don’t understand. Maybe Republican voters suffer from Battered-Wives Syndrome. You keep saying “He loves me, eventhough he beats me every chance he gets”. You keep wanting to leave the batterer but you find a stupid reason to go right back into the house.
So I guess America got what it deserved in George Bush. Economic, Social and Political punishment for being stupid.
Let’s just pray that those of us with some independence and common sense are the majority this election.
Lee,
I really don’t understand your hostility towards Blacks? What facts do you have to prove that they have received 7 TRILLION dollars in handouts since 1964? And how have they squandered the money and opportunity? I must have missed the news reports when the government was handing out these trillions?
I will agree that some people waste opportunities but the only people I remember getting government handouts because they squandered someone’s money are savings and loans investors, oil companies, airlines and now the banks! And as far as I can tell THOSE folks weren’t Blacks when they took the handouts? So please enlighten the rest of us with YOUR FACTS around this issue?
Secondly, how can you even conceive that an Obama Administration can ruin America worse than George Bush has runined America. I was no fan of Clinton but I am clear we were in a lot better shape as a country at the end of his presidency than we will be at the end of the Bush debacle. If you ask me, I would tell Obama to drop out now anyway. Don’t taint yourself by trying to clean up this disaster left by Bush. It will take the next 20 years to clean up the crap he has left. We will go through Obama and 2 other presidents to fix this mess.
I can’t beleive that you idiots even voted for him in the first place. Everyone knew he was the least qualified person in the Bush family, but you still voted for him. You also probably voted for Sanford too. He sure has gotten a lot accomplished as well.
When will you so-called conservatives see there is nothing conservative about the Republican party. They keep leading us down a dark alley and each time they beat us up in that alley. Then when we finally get a chance to get out of the alley, people find some lame excuse as to why we should keep walking down the dark alley to get another beating.
I really don’t understand. Maybe Republican voters suffer from Battered-Wives Syndrome. You keep saying “He loves me, eventhough he beats me every chance he gets”. You keep wanting to leave the batterer but you find a stupid reason to go right back into the house.
So I guess America got what it deserved in George Bush. Economic, Social and Political punishment for being stupid.
Let’s just pray that those of us with some independence and common sense are the majority this election.
Criticizing the trashy behavior doesn’t mean I hate the trashy people. Just because some of them happen to be of a different race doesn’t make their critics to be “racists”. In fact, the white liberals who don’t expect blacks to behave well and prosper are the real racists.
The FACTS of Obama’s socialism – how he will ruin America.
* Obama wrote a book detailing his contempt for America, and how he developed his attitudes from his family and their friends being Muslims and communists.
* Obama’s father was a Muslim and a supporter of communist dictators and radical like Jomo Kenyatta.
* Obama’s uncle and brother are also communists and radical Muslims
* Obama’s longtime friends include terrorist Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dorn, Angela Davis, socialist Saul Alinsky, communist Ron Dellums, etc.
* Obama’s platform includes a bunch of old socialist ideas from the 1930s:
– national service as a civiliam military (Hitler and FDR)
– socialist seizure of more medical care
– mandating purchase of health insurance at $2,800 a year per household, to start
– more taxes on entrepreneurs and investors, which will cause job losses.
– subordination of US sovereignty to world organizations under various pretexts, such as “global warming”
– letting up military pressure on our Muslim enemies just as we are finishing them off and have them totally contained in their own lands
– His promises to double the deficits with over $1 TRILLION of new social programs