Just in case you missed this little interaction between our own governor and the one out in Collie-forn-nee-ah, I bring it to your attention:
Schwarzenegger and Crist are at odds with South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association. Sanford called the package a huge mistake and warned that the nation will hit a tipping point by stacking up trillions and trillions in debt.
In an appearance Sunday on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Schwarzenegger took a shot at Sanford.
"Well, Governor Sanford says that he does not want to take the money, the federal stimulus package money. And I want to say to him: I'll take it," Schwarzenegger said. "I'm more than happy to take his money or any other governor in this country that doesn't want to take this money, I take it, because we in California can need it."
After leaving the meeting at the White House Monday, Sanford shot back.
"It's a difference of opinion that makes the world go round," Sanford told reporters.
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What’s really, REALLY ironic about this, of course, is that the bigger-than-life, cartoonish, easy-to-lampoon bodybuilder-turned-movie-star-turned-politician is the guy who is actually engaged in, and cares about, the practical matter of GOVERNING his state.
Whereas our guy is utterly uninterested in any of that mundane, real-world stuff. For him, it’s all about the national ideological argument. South Carolina might as well not even exist. In fact, that would make his words and actions a little easier to countenance…
You know, Brad, that’s exactly what’s missing in Sanford’s character. I have never known a South Carolina politician who did not love this state and feel a very deep obligation to improve it. I don’t think Sanford feels that at all. He loves ideas, he loves ideological purity. He’ll pursue that even if we rot while he does it.
Their governor can whup our governor.
The governor of California understands the nature of bipartisanship and what it means to compromise on one’s ideological commitments for the benefit of the people of his state. This doesn’t mean that he stops being Republican, it merely means that he is aware that his values are human, subject to revision as the evidence of his senses makes necessary, and relative.
This is very unlike our Governor SanFudd who, I do believe, would step over the body of a starving citizen in the street in order to maintain ideological purity.
But how can this be surprising coming from the state that gave us secession, treason, Jim Crow, lynching, oppression of minorities, a dysfunctional constitution, an endemically weak economy, and a poorly educated population waiting on the mountaintop for the Rapture!
Time to get real, South Carolina! There is a lot that makes me love my adopted state of 26 years, and a lot that makes me despair.
Brad can’t handle the fact that, unlike him, Governor Sanford has principles. Sanford refuses to roll in the mud with the rest of the pigs in Columbia. Brad supports people like Jake Knotts, someone who fights for the rights of his buddies to dump asbestos illegally all over Lexington. Brad relishes his popularity with the morally vanquished crooks in the legislature. Nobody wants Sanford to seek higher office more than Brad. He’s setting himself up to be a foil on the nat’l talk shows. We’ll see him on Chris Matthews yucking it up one of these days.
Sanford is incompetent. He ‘didn’t know’ that unemployment was up and the unemployment fund was $0? Why not? It’s a key economic indicator. It should be a line item on the state budget.
Sanford may be true to his principles, but what good is that if he can’t SUCCESSFULLY govern the state? SC is where it is in part because he simply doesn’t know what is important to keep the state economically healthy.
He doesn’t have principles, just a deep desire to remain on a government payroll.
“…..But how can this be surprising coming from the state that gave us secession, treason, Jim Crow, lynching, oppression of minorities, a dysfunctional constitution, an endemically weak economy, and a poorly educated population waiting on the mountaintop for the Rapture!
…………….There is a lot that makes me love my adopted state of 26 years, and a lot that makes me despair.”
Rich,
I am very interested in knowing what are, if any, the things you “love” about South Carolina. After reading the list of things you don’t like plus all of the other problems well documented by you in every comment you make, I cannot imagine anything that you could “love” about this state. Which gives cause to wonder why are you still here? Why are you not in Connecticut with your friend?
Are you an emotional masochist?
Brad,
Can you explain how California has a tax rate of 9.3% on income above $47,000 and yet is experiencing deficits that dwarf those of South Carolina?
Would you support Governor Sanford pushing to raise our income tax rate to 9.3%? How much would that take out of your pocket? Do you think that would solve all our problems?
Sanford should hold the line on accepting magic money from the stimulus bill. Spending other people’s money is easy. Making tough decisions takes character.
Bart,
The sad history of this state is an undeniable fact. I shudder to think of what we would have become had secession succeeded.
California will take every dime they can get their hands on, they’re the posterboy for economic welfare reform on the state level. Schwarzenegger continues to support programs that are bankrupting his state, Sanford says these types of programs have to go. California residents are paying near 10% sales tax, property taxes and income taxes a lot higher than we are in SC. So SC residents, do we want this type of leadership in SC? If your answer is yes, you better be willing to open up your checkbooks and watching your neighbor’s reap the benefits that you’re paying for.
Brad,
Bill hits on the key question – do you think California has been governed well over during Arnold’s term? If so, by what standards do you judge his performance?
I mean besides being “bipartisan”?
I work in California, LA and San Francisco areas. The state is a mess. Democrats operate on an ideological agenda that is detached from reality, spending money they don’t have on problems they created (like the real estate bust), problems that don’t exist (like environmental hocus pocus), and problems they refuse to face (like the illegal aliens).
Schwarzenegger and a handful of Republicans have forced the spending spree to be cut back by about $40 billion, to at least a manageable figure. They could balance the budget and cut taxes just by getting rid of the illegal aliens, which cost the state $30 billion in law enforcement and services, and another $50 billion in lost taxes.
The state has lost 40% of its income taxes due to wealthy entrepreneurs moving out of the state. California is the model of what Democrats in Washington DC hope to do to America. It is no coincidence that Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Henry Waxman and Maxine Waters are from from California. They began their political careers by wrecking that state.
But how can this be surprising coming from the state that gave us secession, treason, Jim Crow, lynching, oppression of minorities, a dysfunctional constitution, an endemically weak economy, and a poorly educated population waiting on the mountaintop for the Rapture!
How little you know about this state, Rich. There is no mountaintop where a poorly educated population might be waiting. You’re the first person I’ve heard mention the Rapture for the last 20 years.
And yet, you ingrate of an immigrant, you belated carpetbagger extraordinaire, you say there’s a lot that makes you love your adopted state of 26 years, the land that I was born in, early on one frosty mornin’.
I imagine what you like about it here is that it has actually put up with you and paid you a decent wage.
Well, let me join Bart in telling you that you don’t have to put up with that anymore. You can secede from our trifling South Carolina union, Rich, and join your ideological comrades up where the winters are long and the Democrats grow like weeds.
You know, up in New England, where the folks are so know-it-all and nice they’d just as soon spit as you as look at you.
Sounds like your kind of crowd, Rich. Time for you to look away from Dixieland and prove home is where your heart is, wouldn’t you say?
Pardon me, Rich, that should have been, “New England, where the folks are so know-it-all and nice they’d just as soon spit at you as look at you.”
Asking someone to leave S.C. is not a very good way to support your arguments. I am still amazed that you are on a school board. I hope your black colleagues outvote you every time. Lord knows, I certainly would vote against you!
The Jim Crow laws started in the North, with restrictions on firearms ownership by black citizens.
The North is still more segregated and more racist than the South. They still have race riots up North.
According to factcheck.org, when adjusted for regional cost differences, California spends $1000 less per student on education than South Carolina does. ($6775 vs. $7775)
Brad – will you support us cutting education spending to match California in order to match their success?
Wait a minute Rich!! Foul!!! Foul!!!
You invoked the name of the Lord. How can you say… “Lord knows, I certainly would vote against you!”… when you don’t believe in God, therefore the Lord.
We’re not asking you to leave, just wondering why you’re still here considering how much you dislike everything about South Carolina.
Doug, regarding your questions: First, I can’t assess Ah-nold’s performance in California, not having the time or opportunity to watch it all that closely. California’s a mess, and has been for a long time, which is why the Governator came to power to start with. It hasn’t stopped being dysfunctional since he’s been governor; nor did it start under him. From what I hear from time to time he seems to make some decent decisions considering the circumstances, but I wouldn’t be comfortable making an overall assessment.
No, I don’t want to raise South Carolina’s income tax — unless, of course, that is decided on as part of a good comprehensive tax reform solution. As you know, we oppose all tax increases or cuts outside of such comprehensive reform, with the exception of the cigarette tax (because for us, it’s not about the revenue, but about pricing cigarettes out of the reach of kids).
Note that no one has proposed raising South Carolina’s income tax. Mark Sanford, however, is CONSTANTLY trying to lower it, in an unrelenting campaign that is weird on a number of levels. For one thing, if you want to cut taxes, that would be about the last one you’d get to, because it’s just not high compared to others, and compared to other states. It’s yet another example of how his priorities have little to do with reality.
Doug, whatever California spends per student, I don’t think I’d use that as an argument for what we should do. We need to spend what we need to spend, depending upon the situation. California doesn’t have our profound multigenerational black rural poverty dating from slavery times, and we don’t have California’s huge ESL challenge and weird cultural experimentation. So even if there were a prototypical South Carolina school, I’m pretty sure its needs — spending and otherwise — would be different from those of a prototypical California school. And there IS no prototypical South Carolina school. Needs vary from school to school, district to district, student to student. The state’s challenge is to see that all of those needs are effectively met, which of course is daunting to say the least. No one could sum up the best course by saying “spend more than California” or “spend less than California.” That’s absurd.
So then what was your point?
Your words: “the guy who is actually engaged in, and cares about, the practical matter of GOVERNING his state.”
That would imply you think Arnold’s doing a better job of governing. Except you don’t want South Carolina to do anything California is doing and you admit that California is screwed up.
So if Sanford just starts acting like you’d like him to and the results are still dismal, you’re okay. It’s about perception, not reality.
“We need to spend what we need to spend, depending upon the situation.”
Note: not necessarily on what actual dollars are available to spend.
Bart,
A figure of speech. Besides the barbecue, it’s the people of S.C. I like the most, particularly the people of color.
I used to teach in majority white schools, but as a person of purely Latin heritage (French, Spanish, and nominally Catholic), I feel much safer around people of color.
I don’t feel in them the same outrage and resentment that I see in so much of White S.C. and in Republicans nationally. The white position in this country is conservative, ungenerous, aggrieved, and feeling as though it has lost rightful privileges as “true Americans.”
What they’ve actually lost is the privilege that has historically accrued to skin color. And not all white people feel this way. Throughout the North and in large parts of the South, white people voted for Obama and said, “enough. It’s time for a government that will live up to its ideals and serve all Americans regardless of their ethnicity.”
It’s not a White world anymore! Allahu akhbar!
So what you’re saying, Rich, is that you’re racially biased. You like people of color better than white people.
And you wonder how I could be a school-board member, when you’re supposedly a teacher?
Pack it in Weldon! You are a man of the past. The world belongs to those who embrace our diversity and reject religious exclusivism while accepting the rights of all people, including GLBT people.
By 2046, this country will be a majority minority country. America will finally realize her promise as a nation of nations living in the same democratic house by leaving behind decisively the racism, sexism, homophobia, and cultural supremacy of the former WASP majority.
So if Sanford just starts acting like you’d like him to and the results are still dismal, you’re okay. It’s about perception, not reality.
-Doug
I’m glad someone else besides me has noticed this about Brad. For some inexplicable reason Brad is hopelessly caught up in process and perception and utterly and I do mean utterly, uninterested in results. How else to explain the utter failure of DPS between 1993-2003 while it functioned very nearly along the lines The State proposed yet Brad continues to push this restructuring nonsense.
Nice observation Doug.
Rich, your kind don’t embrace diversity.
You are intolerant of those who challenge your bigotry.
The only diversity you embrace is degradation. You revel in seeing quality culture polluted. You envy the achievements of those who are smarter, work harder, and risk more, and enjoy playing jackal to drag down them down, since you can’t pull yourselves up.
I have no idea what bud and Doug are referring to. I tried to give a thoughtful answer to some questions from Doug, and now I’m getting this “Brad only cares about form-not-substance” stuff from bud, which as usual does not seem to be based in anything of, well, substance.
You guys get more substance, more thought, more elaboration, more background, more everything from me than you have probably ever gotten from any journalist you’ve ever run into (I’m not saying it’s all valuable; but I don’t hold anything back; you get the works). Certainly you’ve never seen any opinion writer slice, dice, and explain his positions more than I do. But bud’s never happy; I should always do something more, although I don’t know what it would be.
It gets more than tiresome, I have to tell you…
We appreciate the opportunity to write a letter to the editor every day, but we see you dismiss all the suggestions and criticisms of your customers.
Brad,
It’s called feedback. The blogging world is different from the editorial world. In the editorial world, a person who disagrees with you has to write a letter, you decide if you want to print it, you decide how to edit the letter to fit the newspaper, etc.
Bud, Lee, myself and all the rest have read this blog long enough to have formed an opinion of your approach to things. You try to tell us we’re wrong. Maybe we’re not.
I’m telling you, your “fascination” with Sanford has evolved a long way from what one might call an objective opinion. But your observations don’t seem to hold up under scrutiny (at least from my view).
This post started with what appeared to be an “Arnold is a better governor than Sanford” observation. That appeared to have been based only on your impression that he works differently with his legislature than Sanford does. But the question remains – is he doing a better job of governing when you look at the results? If not, then as Bud has said, it’s more about the process of governing.
You took a similar approach with Inez. You made a case for her to be Secretary of Education based on implementing PACT, not on whether the education system in South Carolina is better off now because of it.
You seem to value how things are done versus what they accomplish.
3 examples to support the position that State Editorial Board favors process over results:
1. The recent stimulus bill. It passed with a 20 vote margin in the senate yet because it only had 3 Republicans Brad suggested it was likely to fail. In this instance the process needed to include more bipartisan support. Whether the bill is good or not apparently is irrelevant, only whether it was bipartisan.
2. California is in deep financial trouble, perhaps even more so than SC. Yet because Arnold is working with the Democratic legislators he must be a better governor than Sanford who has a different approach that is not to Brad’s liking. Results in this case seem completely irrelevant.
3. DPS was created as a quasi cabinet agency whereby the governor could appoint the head of the agency. He could not fire the agency head for any reason but rather only for cause. But Governor Beasley did, in fact, fire the agency head for cause. But at the end of the day Hodges re-hired him as a political payback. Seems like this was pretty much the way a cabinet agency works only it did restrict the governor somewhat in his ability to replace the DPS agency head. At the end of the day DPS failed in it’s mission to keep SC roads safe. In spite of irrefutable evidence that that was the case Brad continues to push for cabinet agency status for most of SC government.
Certain situation money is important to us so we nee money
Christena
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