Yearly Archives: 2009

Well, Nikki did it (dang it)

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I wish she hadn’t — she’s a good House member, but isn’t ready for this (and the last thing the campaign needs is someone dubbed the “Mark Sanford candidate,” since this election needs to be about moving beyond Mark Sanford) — but she did it:

Nikki Haley Announces Bid for Governor

May 14, 2009

LEXINGTON, SC – May 14, 2009 – Representative Nikki Haley (R-Lexington) today announced her intention to seek the Republican nomination for Governor of South Carolina.

“After months of encouragement from supporters all across the state and countless discussions with friends and family, I have decided to run for Governor of South Carolina,” Representative Haley said. “For more than five years I’ve sat in the statehouse and watched – sometimes in disbelief – as our state government has spent with abandon and in the process wasted taxpayer dollar after taxpayer dollar. I know what good government can look like. I’m running for Governor so the people of this state will know what it feels like.”

Haley, one of the strongest fiscal conservatives in state government, was first elected to represent the 87th District in Lexington County in 2004, when, as a virtual unknown she beat the longest serving state legislator in a Republican primary. In 2008 Representative Haley was sent back to the statehouse with 83 percent of the vote – the highest percentage earned by any lawmaker facing a contested South Carolina election that year.

Her time in Columbia has been marked by conservative leadership on behalf of her constituents and an unwavering commitment to the taxpayers’ bottom line. She has fought wasteful spending at every turn, pushed for smaller, more efficient government, and led the fight for the accountability and transparency that before her arrival was sorely lacking in the Legislature.

For her efforts to cut taxes and slow the growth of government spending, Nikki was named “Friend of the Taxpayer” (2009) by the S.C. Association of Taxpayers and a “Taxpayer Hero” (2005) by Gov. Mark Sanford. She has also received the Palmetto Leadership Award from the S.C. Policy Council for her expertise on policy matters and the Strom Thurmond Excellence in Public Service and Government Award from the S.C. Federation of Republican Women for the outstanding constituent service she provides to her district.

Born in Bamberg, S.C., the daughter of Indian immigrants, Nikki’s first job was keeping the books for her family’s clothing store – at the age of 13. She went on to graduate from Clemson University with a B.S. degree in accounting and following her graduation worked as Accounting Supervisor for the Charlotte, N.C. based corporation FCR, Inc. and five of its subsidiaries. Nikki then went back to the family business where she helped oversee its growth into a multi-million dollar operation. Since 2008 she has served as the Assistant Executive Director of the Lexington Medical Foundation.

“We’ve got great challenges facing us in South Carolina, but also a world of opportunity,” Haley said. “I have every confidence that with conservative leadership and a renewed commitment to the principles that have made America great – hard work, traditional values, promoting an atmosphere of opportunity over an environment of bailouts – South Carolina can be transformed into a state that’s not always at the bottom but sits proudly at the top.”

Nikki and her husband Michael, a full time federal technician with the South Carolina National Guard and an officer in the Army National Guard in Darlington, South Carolina, attend Mt. Horeb United Methodist Church in Lexington. She was previously a board member of both the Orangeburg and Lexington County Chambers of Commerce and a member of the National Association of Women Business Owners. Currently, Nikki sits on the board for Mt. Horeb United Methodist Church, Medmission, and is a proud member of the West Metro Republican Women, Lexington County Republican Party and the NRA.

Dang it.

Should I make my move now?

Did you see the news? Ted Pitts is going to run for Gov Lite.

Ted Pitts is my representative (and a pretty good one). I live in his district. Legal resident and everything.

So what do you think? Should I take advantage of this pending vacancy to make my move? Is it put up or shut up time for the Unparty?

I could never run for office before, as it’s strictly against the rules for newspapermen. But now? Who knows? When election year rolls around, I could be working at something else that would present a conflict — either in my mind, or that of my future employer.

But it is an intriguing thought, nonetheless. As much as I’ve written over the years about what legislators should do…

More change we can believe in

I see that Barack Obama is going to try to stop the ACLU from publicizing more photos from Abu Ghraib.

Good for him. No useful purpose would be served by the propagation of new images of a terrible problem that has been fully explored and addressed and is a problem no longer. But such images, which would add nothing to our useful knowledge, could easily lead to more American deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. We know how inflammatory images, from cartoons to such photos as these, can be in those parts of the world where our country is trying so hard to foster peace and stability, with American lives on the line.

Abu Ghraib was awful, and a tremendous setback to U.S. interests. We know that; and we’ve addressed it. No one in this country could possibly doubt that such treatment of prisoners is inconsistent with our values.  Why do the whole thing over again, with the fresh repercussions that would invevitably engender?

This is one of those cases where the public’s “right to know” — which folks in my longtime profession can get really, really self-righteous about (usually, but not always, justifiably) — ring awful hollow against the near-certainty that it would lead to more bloodshed.

It’s things like this that tend to lower my opinion of the ACLU (even as my respect for the president grows). I know they can do some good — and I was really pleased by the very smart, sensible op-ed piece we had from the ACLU’s local honcho Victoria Middleton several months ago; she nailed it on our pound-foolish approach to crime in South Carolina.

But the kind of legalistic pedantry-over-real-life (and death) that I see in this matter of the prisoner photos is really disturbing.

I don’t like ever to speak against openness and disclosure — I prefer to PUSH for those values, and almost always do so. But asserting those laudable values over American lives, in a case where nothing new would be gained, is one of those cases that illustrate the fact that extremism even in the service of a virtue CAN be a vice.

Does Sanford really want us to be counted?

Had a number of thoughts when I read this story this morning, which among other things said:

Gov. Mark Sanford urged state residents opposed to using federal aid in the state budget to call lawmakers as they work out a final budget compromise this week.

The $5.7 billion draft budget, Sanford said, puts off needed cuts and reforms by tapping $350 million in federal stimulus money. Sanford has said he will not accept the stimulus money unless lawmakers pay off an equal amount of state debt.

“This is the time to stand and be counted with regard to the stimulus money,” Sanford said. “We’re going to paper over all of those changes that might be made and simply spend the money.”

Here are my questions:

  1. Does the governor actually think that if the people of South Carolina stood up and were counted on this issue, more of them would agree with him on the stimulus? (From everything I’ve heard, that seems extremely doubtful.)
  2. Is he making a cynical calculation that — in keeping with the human-nature phenomenon that only people who are against something bother to call (something I have experienced in the news biz, my favorite extreme example being all those letters we got against the U.S. taking military action in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, a view which you knew wasn’t representative of South Carolina, yet which dominated among the letters we received for a time)?
  3. Does he or his allies at SCRG or ReformSC have an organized calling campaign ready, designed to look like a “spontaneous” response to his call to the public?
  4. Will the far greater number of South Carolinians who oppose the governor on the stimulus make an effort to be heard by lawmakers, or since they’re satisfied the General Assembly is on their side, will they decide not to bother them?
  5. Whether they hear more from the governor’s side or the other, would lawmakers be swayed by lots of calls and e-mails?
  6. Should they be swayed by such input, given that they’ve had months to think about this and should have made up their minds by now?
  7. What do you think about “call your legislator” campaigns in general?
  8. Which is tackier? The governor asking citizens to drive lawmakers nuts at the State House while they’re trying to finish the budget, or pro-stimulus lawmakers urging folks last month to call the governor at the mansion?
  9. And finally, are these examples of excessive spending he cites the best he can do? $500,000 for State House security (which is really a spitting match over who will control security, Sanford or McConnell)? $750,000 for hydrogen research (note that S.C. investment in such research resulted in a $12.5 million grant just two weeks ago)? A million for football traffic control? Where’s the $350 million he says we don’t need?

Here are my answers, to which I invite you to add your own:

  1. Possibly. One gets the impression that his personal feedback loop is fairly limited. He’s not the most social guy, and he seems to have a selective memory for those who tell him “attaboy.”
  2. I don’t think so. I think he actually believes there’s a “silent majority” that agrees with him. At least, he seems to believe, most of the people who matter agree with him. (If a “silent majority” does call lawmakers, does that mean it should be called something else? Of course, the convenient thing for Sanford is that when it doesn’t call, he can explain it away by saying, “That’s because it’s silent.”)
  3. Maybe, but frankly (and yeah I know that this is inconsistent with my answer on “2,” but who cares?), I don’t think he’s thought that far. The more I think about it, the more I suspect he’s thinking that he’s won the day merely by asserting that if the people of S.C. “stand up to be counted,” they will agree with him. He’s struck this pose so many times that he mistakes the rhetoric for reality. Let me explain: By saying the people of SC agree with him, he believes that makes it so, and is satisfied. (And who’s to say him nay, in the absence of evidence to the contrary? Even if nobody calls legislators, nothing is proved either way.) And then, when lawmakers ignore him, he claims they were ignoring the people of SC, when in reality they were only ignoring him. You know, because those lawmakers are so wicked and all. And thus the world according to Mark Sanford stays intact, with none of his assumptions challenged. Actually, the more I think about this theory, the more I think it is, in the immortal words of Marisa Tomei, “dead-on balls accurate.” And if I’m wrong, nobody can prove I’m wrong — hey! So this is what it’s like to be Mark Sanford! Yeah — I’m right because I’m right, and no actual facts in the world can persuade me otherwise. This could get to be a habit.
  4. Almost certainly not. Why call and bug your lawmaker if he’s doing what you want?
  5. Yes. Particularly if they’re hearing from people they know, back in their districts. Otherwise, probably not.
  6. No, and you can tell which way I was leaning by the way I worded that one. This will offend “small-d” democrats, but I’m a “small-r” republican. I believe in representative democracy. We elect people to go study issues and take time arriving at conclusions through a deliberative process. And however messy or slapdash that process is in reality, a representative should NOT throw away his conclusions based on a few phone calls (which are, 99 percent of the time, orchestrated), either way.
  7. On this point, I’m ambivalent. Yeah, when I was with the newspaper we used to do empowering things like tell people how to contact their lawmakers and even, occasionally, urging them to do so. And I think getting public input should be part of the decision-making process. But only part. Once again, it is the duty of an elected representative to study and issue and become more knowledgeable about it than he would be if he were back in his district busy earning a living doing something else. Elected representatives, in a republic, are delegated to spend more time on an issue than the average voter can devote to it, and thereby make a better decision than they would have from the gut. Yep, the system’s far, extremely far, from perfect. But I believe more bad decisions result from lawmakers voting from the gut than from deliberation.
  8. Asking people to call the gov at the mansion is tackier, no question — even though the house does belong to us.
  9. Apparently, that is the best he can do, which is pathetic. But then, he never really has had a case on this.

On that last point — the governor does this all the time. The thing is, he is very often right about the things he criticizes the General Assembly for. The “Competitive Grants” program is a wasteful boondoggle. The thing is, it’s such a tiny fraction of the state budget. And he uses such minor figures as his entire argument that government spending is billions out of control, which is ridiculous. Of course, you know that what he really wants is to stop the state from spending on public education and other substantial things. But that doesn’t sound so good, unless your audience is Howard Rich. So he cites a penny’s worth of pork and extrapolates a fortune wasted, which fools some of the people, but my no means all.

But you know what I’m noticing now? Government has been cut SO much that the governor even has trouble coming up with convincing anecdotal evidence. Instead of something clearly wasteful (or at least, that sounds clearly wasteful) for the state to be spending on, like a Green Bean Museum, he’s reduced to citing things that can easily be characterized as petty and self-concerned. Rather than arguing that the state shouldn’t have airplanes, he complains about control of those planes shifting from his Commerce Department to Budget and Control. Or McConnell taking State House security from the agency that Sanford semi-controls.

You know me — I think the governor should control all of the executive branch. But I also know that this would not in and of itself save large amounts of money. I favor it because I want government to be more effective and accountable. To argue that, because a minor function is being taken away from him, it proves that SC doesn’t need the $700 million in stimulus, just doesn’t follow any kind of logic.

Making change happen in Columbia

If you’ve tried to make change happen in Columbia, or anywhere else in our beloved state, you’ve likely been frustrated. And by “change” I mean any kind of change. Whether you’re Gov. Mark Sanford pushing restructuring of state government (the cause he and I share) or Michael Rodgers trying to get the Confederate flag down (ditto), you can feel like you’re butting your head against a wall.

Blame a system that was set up to resist change. The landed gentry who ran this state from the start set up institutions and fostered a political culture that was probably more resistant to change than any in the U.S. You can blame John Locke, in part. He helped Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper draft the original rules under which the colony would be run, and we have vestiges of that hyper-conservative (in the original sense of resisting change) system he helped devise to this day.

But that’s probably deeper than you want to get into it. The point is, change comes hard in these parts.

So I read with interest Adam Beam’s story today about how one group has managed to get a number of things done recently in the city of Columbia. You’ll note that our own Kathryn Fenner — regular contributor to this blog — and the Rev. Wiley Cooper were mentioned prominently.

Kathryn tells me that there’s one person who was NOT mentioned, though, and should have been. She said she credits “top city staffer Marc Mylott’s excellent quarterbacking for much of our success, as well as the support he received from his boss, Steve Gantt.” She described Mr. Mylott as “the Zoning Administrator, and the head of the development services department. He’s the city staff person designated to lead the task force –Wiley was the civilian head, and Marc did and does all the admin work and heavy lifting–coordinated with all the city departments — pulled together all their issues with the Code, etc.”

So, credit where it’s due. I thought that, as long as I was giving out plaudits for good work in Cayce, some folks who’ve been doing a good job at Columbia City Hall should get get some praise, too. People who deserve an attaboy don’t get one often enough.

Transparency in Cayce

Remember that last year, my colleagues and I endorsed Elise Partin in her successful bid to become mayor of Cayce? Endorsing in that particular election was unusual for us — we seldom got involved in municipal races outside of Columbia proper — but interest was high on both sides of the river after Cayce suddenly annexed the old Green Diamond property.

Also, Ms. Partin simply impressed us as someone who would be a breath of fresh air in local government. And one of the reasons we citied for picking her was what we perceived as a dedication to transparency on her part:

Cayce needs a steady leader who will keep the public informed and pay attention to detail. Mrs. Partin is sharp, does her homework and would expose attempts to put something over on the public….

Well, as it turns out, now that she’s at the helm, Cayce is garnering praise for taking steps to make its spending far more open and available to the public. I learned that via this news item over at Mike Fitts’ new outfit:

CAYCE — The city of Cayce has begun disclosing its spending details on the Internet for its purchases — tools, equipment, office supplies, utilities and more — by posting its monthly check register to its municipal Web site. The city joins a growing list of local governments to open their books to the public, allowing people to see what they are spending.

One small flaw in that report, however, is that the only source quoted was Richard Eckstrom, who was hailing the Cayce move as a pioneering response to his own call to local governments to be transparent. Sounds like our state comptroller was the main source on the item. I mean good for him and all that, but that left open the natural question: Whom do we have to thank in Cayce for taking this step?

A city press release quotes Mayor Partin as giving credit to Councilman Steve Isom:

“There’s no downside to providing citizens information about what their government is doing,” says Mayor Elise Partin. “There are certainly many ways to do that. Councilman Steve Isom felt strongly about having the monthly check registers on-line and we’re excited about it. Monthly financial reports have been on-line already on the city’s website and now this offers an additional outlet.”

So good job there, Mr. Isom. And it looks like we can thank the mayor, too, for being supportive of the effort. At least, she certainly sounds supportive.

It’s nice when someone lives up to your faith in her.

Perspectives on hydrogen

Here’s something that struck me as interesting this morning. Did you read the op-ed piece by my friend Kevin Dietrich, arguing — as you would expect someone at the S.C. Policy Council to argue — against our state’s investment in hydrogen research? An excerpt:

In the past few years, taxpayers have poured tens of millions of state and local tax dollars into hydrogen research even though multiple experts question how viable the technology will be in offsetting U.S. reliance on foreign oil or reducing carbon emissions.

“A hydrogen car is one of the least efficient, most expensive ways to reduce greenhouse gases,” said Joseph Romm, a physicist in charge of renewable energy research during the Carter administration. Asked when hydrogen cars will be broadly available, Romm replied: “Not in our lifetime, and very possibly never.”

The Los Angeles Times was blunter in assessing the future of hydrogen-powered vehicles: “Hydrogen fuel-cell technology won’t work in cars…. Any way you look at it, hydrogen is a lousy way to move cars.”

What struck me about it was that, without naming the author, Kevin was quoting the very same L.A. Times column by Dan Neil that I was praising yesterday. (Now I know why Cindi Scoppe happened to run across the Neil piece and bring it to my attention yesterday — she was doing her due diligence as an editor in checking Kevin’s source material, and recognized the piece as something I’d be interested in.)

The difference, of course, lies in the degrees to which Kevin and I considered the full text of the piece to which we referred. I was up-front with y’all about Neil’s arguments against hydrogen as a fuel source for cars. I didn’t blink at that at all. But I also emphasized the very positive things he said about Honda’s hydrogen car project, on my way to making some positive points about why hydrogen research is worthwhile.

Kevin, in standard S.C. Policy Council “if it involves the government spending money, it’s bad” style, cited ONLY the negative. Kevin’s a good guy, and he’s completely sincere about the things he says. But I ask you — given what I got out of the Neil piece and what Kevin got out of it — who has his eyes completely open? Who explored the full implications of the piece (which I again invite you to go read for yourself)?

I raise this point not to criticize Kevin, but to praise our state and community’s commitment to this research. From what I’ve seen and heard, the hydrogen researchers are very realistic about the limitations of H as a fuel source for cars from where we stand at this moment. But their eyes are open to what this research DOES offer South Carolina, Columbia and the nation.

Ariail in color!

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You saw it here second — Robert Ariail has posted a full-color cartoon on his blog. You may notice that the colors are somewhat richer than what you’ll see from most cartoonists who have climbed on the color bandwagon in recent years. They usually look about as good as Ted Turner’s first efforts at ruining great old movies by “colorizing” them.

Robert, being a purist — he’s always been a strict pen, brush and ink guy, without any digital manipulation, which is one reason why his cartoons are so good — had resisted the trend. But when a client made a special request, Robert of course met the need with his usual meticulous craftsmanship. Here’s his explanation:

Folks, this is a color version of a recent cartoon. It was commissioned by The Washington Post Weekly Edition for their next cover. Since I don’t have the hardware to color my stuff on-line, I did this the old-fashioned way with watercolor.

Robert

Robert sets himself a tough standard, as always — and meets it.

A “garnet-red teardrop falling from the cheek of the future…”

Dan Neil won the Pulitzer in 2004 for his automotive column in the L.A. Times, and you can see why in his piece earlier this year about Honda’s hydrogen car, the FCX Clarity. A colleague shared it with me today, and I just had to share it with y’all — both in the interests of promoting talk about hydrogen and alternative fuels, and just to celebrate the words. A sample:

Perhaps obscured by questions of practicality and cost is the fact — and it is a fact — that the FCX Clarity is the most beautiful car to ever wear the big H on the nose. It’s just gorgeous, a big garnet-red teardrop falling from the cheek of the future, a sweet stanza of robot-written poetry.

You might be able to infer from that passage that Mr. Neil was essentially trashing the practicality of hydrogen elsewhere in his piece. His objections ranged from the general — the energy cost of producing hydrogen to start with — to the specific, which in this case involves pointing out that each one of these little beauties costs Honda $2 million to make. He reckons that a large part of Honda’s motivation is simply to reach California’s quota for emission-free cars sold by 2014.

But not entirely. As he acknowledges, Honda is learning some practical lessons from this exercise. Mr. Neil argues that the future is more likely to involve plug-in electrics (and I find that persuasive, which is why I’m anxious for Detroit to start mass-producing the affordable electrics it already knows how to make, and for clean nuclear plants to start popping up to power them). But Honda is learning a lot about how to better make those from making these:

The second reason Honda might have had for building the FCX Clarity: Nothing invested in this project goes to waste. The car’s state-of-the-art fuel cell can be amortized in Honda’s portable power generation division (the company makes awesome generators). And since a fuel-cell vehicle is essentially an electric vehicle with a hydrogen heart, all the technology — the glossy aerodynamics; the powerful, quiet and compact 100 kW (134 hp) electric motor; the new space-saving coaxial gearbox — can be rolled into future electric and plug-in electric projects.

And it has loads of interior space and a huge trunk.

Me, I’m all for efforts such as Honda’s, and if it takes a little utopian prodding from California to make it happen, then great. The Left Coast has gotta be good for something, right? What I generally hear from hydrogen experts is that automobiles are unlikely to be the most practical application, but they do dramatize the possibilities. And you learn from trying to build them.

Beyond that, I’m reminded of something I learned at Rotary Monday. Our speaker was the manager of the new Starbucks roasting plant in Sandy Run. He explained why Starbucks uses only arabica beans grown above 4,000 feet — such conditions make the plant work harder to grow and produce “cherries,” and that makes the coffee better.

The harder we push on hydrogen and every other promising source of power other than oil from countries run by tyrants, the better the result is going to be. So we need to keep pushing. In California, that means making “unreasonable, impractical” demands on automakers. (And maybe it will soon mean the same thing in Washington, with the gummint taking a big role in running Detroit.) And in South Carolina, it means continuing to push to be at the fore of hydrogen and alternative fuel research.

Just for fun, while we’re on the subject, here’s a link to one of my most popular videos ever, the one I shot in Five Points on St. Patrick’s Day 2007, the critically acclaimed “Who Resurrected the Electric Car?”

Down with early voting

Walt McLeod’s nephew the gubernatorial candidate took aim at populist sentiment among Democrats with this release a few moments ago:

McLeod Pushes Election Reform:

Vows to Fight for Early Voting in SC

Today, Democratic candidate for Governor Mullins McLeod pushed to reform our election laws by making it easier for South Carolinians to exercise their fundamental right to vote.  McLeod vowed to fight for early voting in South Carolina and pledged to veto any legislation that would reduce a voter’s access to early or absentee voting.

McLeod’s statement came after published reports revealed that the legislature’s attempts to pass early voting are not only failing, but that Republicans have passed legislation in the House that would prevent most in-person absentee voting.

“The current crop of career politicians in Columbia aren’t getting the job done,” McLeod said. “When I’m Governor we will have early voting in South Carolina just like so many states do now. And if the legislative Republicans keep trying to make it difficult for our citizens to vote, they’ll feel the full power of the Governor’s office come down on them. Just like people who live in North Carolina and Georgia, South Carolinians deserve the ability to vote and make their voice heard in an efficient and convenient way that fits in with their busy schedules,” McLeod added.

McLeod said that the entire debate on this issue demonstrates the culture of misplaced priorities that keep South Carolina near the bottom. “We should have early voting, that’s a no brainer. There shouldn’t even be a debate. Instead of fighting over this, we need to be working to create jobs and improve our schools. That’s what people expect from their elected officials. Once again career politicians in Columbia have failed us.”

###

Sorry, Mullins, but I still don’t hold with it. To avoid retyping what I said before, here’s an excerpt from one of my last columns at The State (the one in which I dismissed both sides on the photo ID debate):

While I’m at it, I might as well abuse a related idea: early voting.

We’ve had a number of debates about that here on the editorial board, and I’ve been told that my reasons for opposing early voting are vague and sentimental. Perhaps they are, but I cling to them nonetheless.

While Democrats and Republicans have their ideological reasons to fight over this idea, too, it’s a communitarian thing for me. I actually get all warm and fuzzy, a la Frank Capra, about the fact that on Election Day, my neighbors and I — sometimes folks I haven’t seen in years — take time out from our daily routine and get together and stand in line (actually allowing ourselves to be, gasp, inconvenienced) and act as citizens in a community to make important decisions.

I’ve written columns celebrating that very experience, such as one in 1998 that quoted a recent naturalized citizen proudly standing in line at my polling place, who said, “On my way here this morning, I felt the solemnity of the occasion.”

I believe in relating to my country, my state, my community as a citizen, not as a consumer. That calls for an entirely different sort of interaction. If you relate to public life as a consumer, well then by all means do it at your precious convenience. Mail or phone or text it in — what’s the difference? It’s all about you and your prerogatives, right? You as a consumer.

Something different is required of a citizen, and that requirement is best satisfied by everyone getting out and voting on Election Day.

With or without photo IDs.

Now I’m sure young Mr. McLeod is perfectly serious and sincere in advocating early voting. Set aside the canned, trite, generic populist language that seems to plague his releases (“The current crop of career politicians in Columbia;” yadda-yadda — all that’s missing is a reference to “good ol’ boys”). He means it, as do most Democrats.

I had a conversation about this with Capt. James Smith at a fund-raiser that Doug Jennings and Joel Lourie had for him at the erstwhile Townhouse last week, the same day that his op-ed on the subject ran in The State.

I explained my communitarian opposition to the idea, and he said what about older folks who have trouble waiting in line? I said they can vote early now; my parents always do. He said they won’t be able to do so in the future, with the Republicans now limiting the absentee voting that already occurs. And I said “Aw, the Republicans just did that because you provoked ’em.” And he laughed. Then he acknowledged I was probably right that what the GOP members had done probably would not stand — where would Republicans be with all the old white people mad at them? But in the meantime, he seemed resolved to take what advantage he could from their tactical error. (Finally, I told James that at least the remaining editors on the editorial board of The State saw things his way — I was the holdout on early voting.)

Anyway, I hear what James and Mullins and the rest are saying, but I am unpersuaded. They point to the long lines back in November, and I say so what? I celebrate the long lines as signs of a vigorous representative democracy. I ran across this chart the other day (let me know if you have better ones) that show that in the ’08 election, S.C. went from 50th to 41st in voter turnout, with a 9.8 percent increase over 2004. This is the Obama effect that Democrats celebrate, and they want to present it as a symptom of something that needs fixing? Sorry, that doesn’t add up for me. If participation were on a downward slide, they might have an argument. As things stand, they don’t.

Congrats to Inez!

Well, I think the president made a good choice in picking Inez Tenenbaum to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission. So do a lot of other people.

I got a release from the S.C. Democratic Party saying Carol Fowler and Jim Hodges and John Land were pleased, but you sort of expected that, right? More to the point, Lindsey Graham, and, even more than that to the point, ex-rival Jim DeMint both issued supportive statements.

So with no one to say her nay, I’m guessing Inez is in. And that’s good news for America’s consumers. I think she would have been a fine Education Secretary, but I know Inez will do a great job at this as well. She’s that smart, and that hard-working.

Apt words from the prophet Nathan

Speaking of Nikki reminds me of her fellow Lexington County rebel Nathan Ballentine, and the nice thing he sent to me when I got laid off.

I should mention, of course, that Nikki was quite kind and thoughtful to me as well — in fact, both Nikkis were. Rep. Haley and Sen. Setzler both called me and said the nicest things (along with a lot of other politicos I’ve written about over the years, ranging from Lindsey Graham on the federal level to former Columbia city councilwoman Ann Sinclair, and lots of nice folks in between — including the gov).

Anyway, my point is to share what Nathan sent me. He e-mailed me to say I should consult Jeremiah 29:11. Which I did:

For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare, not for woe! plans to give you a future full of hope.

Just the right words, the ones I needed to hear. In this context I also love to read Matthew 7:7-11. (Look it up.) But I already knew that one. Nathan pointed me to a source of inspiration I had missed, and for that I am very grateful. I bookmarked it on my Blackberry, and take heart from it each day.

Don’t do it, Nikki!

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Someone just brought this to my attention:

In the latest bombshell to drop in the 2010 race for the GOP nomination for governor, Rep. Nikki Haley is running, according to multiple sources close to WR.

Haley, who would be the “Sanford candidate” that S.C. political observers have been waiting for, has allegedly been telling friends that she is running and is starting to build a campaign staff. Earlier, it was rumored that she might have been a possible candidate for state treasurer.

As of right now, it is unknown who she is going to, to run her campaign. She is also in a bit of a hole, with U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett and Atty. Gen. Henry McMaster both sporting about $1 million in their respective war chests. As of her last disclosure report, Haley has only a little over $36,000 in the bank.

Candidates are already lining up to run for her House seat, including 2008 Senate candidate Katrina Shealy.

… and something just fell into place for me. I ran into Nikki at Starbucks a couple of weeks ago, and she introduced me to “Caroline” from her campaign. (At least, I think it was “Caroline.” Very young, even standing next to Nikki. That MIGHT be her in the background of the photo at this link.)

To which I responded, “Campaign? Already?” To which Nikki laughed a sort of “you know how it is” laugh. And I went away accepting that even for S.C. House members, the race has become this perpetual.

But maybe that wasn’t it at all, huh? Maybe Nikki was planning a big move.

I hope not. I like her as a House member, even if she does vote with the governor. I like that she actually tried to reform payday lending, for instance.

But if she ran as the “Sanford candidate,” that would just be too awful. I don’t want a nice person like Nikki to run as the “Sanford candidate.” I don’t want ANYBODY to run as the “Sanford candidate.” The very idea of there being even the slightest possibility of a continuation of these eight wasted years is appalling.

The whole point of the 2010 election is that we finally have the opportunity to get a governor who believes in governing. It’s the whole point, people. It’s why I started writing columns about the candidates as soon as they started emerging, much earlier than I normally would. We’ve got to get this one right.

Just keep repeating, folks: “We won’t get fooled again.”

Replacing Souter

Sorry not to have posted; I haven’t been well the last couple of days. Had a horrible cold over the weekend, but it’s better now. I haven’t had to take anything for it since I got up this morning (knock on wood). Kind of wrung out, though.

In keeping with my usual policy of keeping some plates spinning on the blog at all times, though, I should at least have thrown out a “talk amongst yourselves” topic on the pending departure of Justice David Souter.

So here goes, belatedly.

As I may have pointed out before, last year was for me a real departure — a presidential election in which I liked BOTH candidates. I had always liked McCain, and then the more I saw of Barack Obama, the more I liked him, too. While neither of them would fully qualify as Energy Party material, each of them was the closest thing to an Unparty champion that his respective party was ever likely to produce.

So it was that I said a number of times last year that for once, we had a win-win proposition.

It was only at the very end that I started to get alarmed about Obama. The third debate between him and McCain was a watershed moment for me, and caused my mind to be undivided in advocating that we endorse McCain. There were two issues that were deciding factors, two positions taken by Obama that actually alarmed me. Those were his positions on free trade and judicial selection.

The thing that his position on these two points had in common was that they were so doctrinaire. On these issues he was not the paradigm-busting Unpartisan, but a cliche-spouting defender of liberal orthodoxy. I could digress about the Colombian free trade agreement here, but that’s not our topic today.

Roe v. Wade has so successfully (and tragically) polarized our politics that people who disagree with me about it can’t hear me when I say this, but I’ll say it again anyway: My problem with Obama on this point was not that he disagreed with me on abortion. Lots of people I’ve supported over the years, some quite enthusiastically, have disagreed with me on abortion. Joe Lieberman, for instance (you know, the guy who should have been on McCain’s ticket).

My problem was that on this subject, Obama seems to make no allowance for people who disagree with him — unlike McCain. Sen. Obama was, quite pointedly, NOT one of the Gang of 14. Nor had he demonstrated any willingness to support judicial nominees who failed his litmus test. To recap, here’s the difference I saw between him and McCain on this point:

Much harder to overlook is the hard fact that despite his opposition to Roe, John McCain voted to confirm two Clinton nominees, Justices  Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Why? “Not because I agreed with their ideology, but because I thought they were qualified and that elections have consequences.” Senators should respect the president’s prerogative to the point that they should refuse to confirm only those nominees who are obviously unqualified. “This is a very important issue we’re talking about,” he added. Sen. Obama has had two opportunities in his brief Senate career to confirm highly qualified nominees — Samuel Alito and John Roberts — and voted against both. Yes, confirmation is different from nomination, but I would rather have someone who has demonstrated McCain’s relative freedom from ideology doing the nominating.

Then there was his odd way of talking past the very good federalist argument that McCain offered against Roe:

Perhaps worst of all, Sen. Obama was dismissive and misleading regarding the proper roles of the states with regard to the federal government, and the political branches with regard to the judiciary. Regarding Roe, Sen. McCain said, “I thought it was a bad decision…. I think that… should rest in the hands of the states. I’m a federalist.” He was saying abortion law should be returned to state legislatures, where we make most of our laws, rather than having it in a special, hands-off category.
In answering, Mr. Obama shocked me in two ways, saying “I think that the Constitution has a right to privacy in it that shouldn’t be subject to state referendum, any more than our First Amendment rights are subject to state referendum, any more than many of the other rights that we have should be subject to popular vote.”
If a right to privacy exists, it is at best inferred from the Constitution. The author of the “right,” Justice William O. Douglas, found it in “penumbras” and “emanations.” And yet Sen. Obama equated it to the very first rights that the Framers chose to set out in black and white, and subject to ratification. That a Harvard-trained attorney would do that may not boggle your mind, but it surely does mine.
Then there’s that bit about not subjecting such a hallowed “right” to “state referendum,” or “popular vote.” Sen. McCain had suggested nothing of the kind. In a representative democracy, such questions are properly decided neither by plebiscite nor by judicial fiat, but by the representatives elected by the people to make the laws under which we will live.

This was the first time I had noticed Obama doing anything that smacked of intellectual dishonesty.  But I don’t think he was being dishonest; I think he has actually talked himself into believing what he said, which in a way is worse.

After the election, my good feelings about Obama returned. He confirmed many of the best impressions I had formed of him during the campaign. I began to hope, audaciously. And I was very pleased by his pragmatism on national security matters — something that I had hoped for, even though many who voted for him had hoped for something else. In particular, I have appreciated his cool self-assurance as the nation goes through the economic wringer — it helps.

But now David Souter is retiring, and my qualms from the last weeks of the campaign have returned somewhat.

I take heart from this: Souter himself is the George H.W. Bush appointee whom the right grew to hate, crying “No more Souters!” Wouldn’t it be great if Obama appointed someone who is just as serious and studious a jurist, but one whom the left will later castigate as a disappointment?

I think it would be great, anyway. Although I disagree with Souter about Roe, I love the fact that he defied the expectations of the partisans on both sides. I’d love to see another nominee do that. Maybe if that happened often enough, the warring interest groups would go away and leave presidents free to appoint the best justices, regardless of litmus tests. That would be great.

My caricature (an Ariail original, I’ll have you know)

caricature72

My colleagues from the editorial department (both past and present) had a going-away party for Robert and me Sunday night, which was really, really nice. (Why so long after we left? It was the first time that Cindi, who hosted the shindig at her place, could round up enough of us.) Aside from the present crowd, the blasts from the past included Kent Krell, Nina Brook, Mike Fitts, Claudia Brinson and John Monk — plus former publisher Ann Caulkins, who came all the way down from Charlotte just for the party, which really touched me. And a special appearance by Lee Bandy.

Actually, I’m deeply touched by everyone who played a role in the event (some would say, of course, that I am just “touched,” period). It was really great. You know, an awful lot of people just keep doing things to prevent me from feeling bad about getting laid off, so I don’t know when the shock sets in.

Anyway, a highlight of such events is always the reading of the mock page, which I won’t go into, except to say that it was full of relatively inside jokes. Some of it was a little more mainstream, such as this excerpt from a column in which I am announcing my plan to run for governor on the Unparty ticket:

Thus validated, I concluded that
there’s no way South Carolina can
get anywhere without the leadership
of my Un-Party, which we’ll
begin to demonstrate just as soon
as we can settle on what
we believe in.
We’re for a strong,
energy-independent
America, respected
worldwide. As is everybody.
We’re for a South Carolina
that pays workers
the same wages that people
expect in the rest of
America. As is everybody.
We’re for a South
Carolina that takes care
of its citizens, and makes
sure that all its children
have a good education.
As is everybody, except
Gov. Sanford.
I talked about my idea with the
governor, who listened to indulge
his self-image as political scholar.
“At the end of the day, Brad,
you’ve got to decide if South Carolina
now has the right soil conditions
for you to grow your political
endeavor,” he said.
“Well, you’ve certainly added
fertilizer to our soil,” I replied.
“You’ll have a problem convincing
voters that your Un-Party
will be as good at un-governing the
state as I have been. After all, I’ve
given the state a new definition of
un-leadership,” he said.
I then took the opportunity to
take a few quick photos and a
video for the Web. Quality wasn’t
so good, as it turned out, since this
was a phone conversation.
“The question, to me, at the end
of the day, is whether you hate
government enough to want to run
it. I don’t think you do, Brad, but
so it goes. To be continued.”
As I disconnected my telephone
headset, I looked up to see Robert
Ariail waiting for me, sketches in
hand. He might well have been
standing there for 15 minutes, just
waiting. Cartooning is not a profession
for the sane.

I should stop there, because I know most of the stuff my colleagues never intended to see published. Oh, all right, one more sample, and then I’m going away. Here, the wiseguys were making fun of my weakness for pop culture allusions (particularly The Godfather) and my propensity to digress, parenthetically, to an absurd degree:

But just as useful for the purpose of creating thinly connected
film-derivative metaphors about politics, government, society or
whatever we might be struggling to make a coherent point about
is the warning that “When they come, they come at what you
love,” with its implicit imperative to preserve and protect the
family. It is an imperative that is made unmistakably explicit in
the words of Don Vito Corleone in the initial 1972 film, The Godfather,
by far the finest movie ever produced (South Carolina, of
course, does not have a don. The governor should be the don,
and others in the organization should tremble at his approach.
But because he does not have the power to rub out discordant
rivals on a whim, instead we must endure the endless gang warfare
we see at the State House.), when he asks apostle Luca
Brasi, who was very handy with a garrote: “Do you spend time
with your family? Good. Because a man that doesn’t spend time
with his family can never be a real man.” (Of course, if Luca
Brasi had spent all the time that he should have with his family,
the core unit and strength of our society, then maybe he wouldn’t
have ended up sleeping with the fishes.)

OK, so you had to be there (like, in the office for the last 22 years). I thought it was a hoot.

And of course, the don didn’t say that to Luca; he said it to Johnny Fontane. But you knew that.

Finally, there was the cartoon — the original of which Robert gave me, framed. Which is very cool (no one on my block has an original Ariail caricature of them, ha-ha). Yet another thing that makes getting laid off worthwhile.

Otis, tell him what YOU think

A few moments ago, I got this release from the state Chamber:

As the unified voice of business, the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce serves as your advocate at the State House and with regulatory agencies in the state. Currently, one of the biggest issues is if, and how, the state will use the $8 billion allocated to South Carolina in the federal stimulus bill. Governor Mark Sanford is opposed to accepting a more than $700 million portion of the money unless it is used to pay down state debt.

This week, South Carolina Chamber President and CEO Otis Rawl sat down with Governor Sanford for a one-on-one interview. During that interview, the governor shared his thoughts on why he believes the stimulus money is bad for business. The governor also discussed his position on government restructuring, why he’d veto the cigarette tax in its current form and what he thinks it will take for South Carolina to recover from the recession. Click here to watch the interview.

And I went and watched the part of the interview dealing with the stimulus (above). But you know what I was thinking? I was thinking, I know what the governor thinks about this. I’ve been told ad nauseam and beyond what the governor thinks about this, and it didn’t make any more sense this time than the other times I’ve heard it. What I would like to know is what the head of the state Chamber thinks about it, and I’d like to hear him tell it to the governor. That’s what I want my “advocate at the State House” to do.

Unless, of course, he thinks what the governor thinks, in which case never mind; I’ve heard it. (But from what I’ve heard, Otis does NOT agree with the gov.)

Anyway, that’s what I was thinking. But that’s me.

Who’s going to tell Al Gore?

I see in the Spartanburg paper that the “Father of the Internet” spoke to some students in the Upstate yesterday, and then I found to my surprise that his name is Leonard Kleinrock:

Speaking to the 18 students in Adriana Ahner’s Web page construction class — appropriately, via a 90-minute Webcast from his home in southern California, UCLA computer science professor Leonard Kleinrock spoke of how he overcame humble beginnings to eventually develop the mathematical theory of packet networks that became the foundation of Internet technology.

“I had a background of curiosity, independence and trying to make new things happen,” said Kleinrock, the son of Polish immigrants who was born and raised in New York City. “When I got to (Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a graduate student in the early 1960s), I decided not to follow the pack. I noticed that we were surrounded by computers that were full of information and interesting applications and capabilities and services, but they couldn’t talk to each other, and I figured that sooner or later that’s going to happen.”

Which makes me wonder — if this Kleinrock guy is the father of the Internet, then the Mother of the Internet needs to have a long talk with Al Gore.

Seriously, though, apparently the headline meant A father rather than THE father, because there were a number of guys involved in siring the ARPANet. Apparently, Mr. Kleinrock is actually the father (or a father) of packet switching, which I don’t really understand any more than I do the rest of how the Internet works; I just know it does.

But all this reminds me of the irony of the Internet — the most open, vulnerable (in a security sense) invention in the history of the world — starting as a defense thing. As we learned from the recent intel breach story regarding the Joint Strike Fighter, the LAST thing you want to put on the Internet is defense secrets. And yet, that’s now the whole thing started.

Did you ever see what Kevin Fisher wrote about me? It was good.

Way back last month when I left The State, I had so much going on that I forgot to share with you this interesting piece Kevin Fisher wrote about me in the Free Times. A sample:

Brad Warthen could cut through the nonsense. He could also add to it. He was an enormous asset to the community. And sometimes just an enormous ass. In sum, Brad Warthen was exactly what the editorial page editor should be.

His combination of independent thought and establishment demeanor (“let’s meet at the Capital City Club”), his firebreathing rhetoric coupled with faux-folksiness (the repetitive and irritating use of “y’all” on his blog) and a determination to make The State’s editorial page matter (his foremost achievement) produced a professional legacy he can take pride in.

Perhaps the circumstances under which I read it caused me to forget. I read it at Goatfeathers on the night of my last day at The State. Robert Ariail and I had driven over to Five Points after we finished loading up my truck and his Jeep with the last stuff from our offices. We went to my usual hangout, Yesterday’s, first. There we ran into the proprietor of Goatfeathers, an old friend of Robert’s, who insisted we visit his establishment also on this auspicious occasion, so we did. Once there, he refused to let us drink cheap beer, but had his employees bring bottle after bottle of the most expensive, esoteric stuff he had. (And no, we didn’t drink it all — we had these little glasses with which we tasted each one.) Anyway, it was in the midst of all that that I read Kevin’s piece.

And I liked it. It was no-nonsense commentary with the bark on. He said nice things about me, but clearly wasn’t trying to butter me up. He kicked me where he thought I needed kicking. He wrote about me the way I wrote about him and others, which from me is a compliment. He said I was “willing to be difficult,” which is almost as good as being, like N.G. Gonzales in Mencken’s estimation, “worth shooting.” So I liked the piece, and I’m sorry I forgot to pass it on earlier.

WSJ slaps DeMint

This morning, The Wall Street Journal set out to say disparaging things about Arlen Specter in this editorial, but at the end turned and gave a slap to Jim DeMint (and, by implication, other impractical ideologues such as the Journal‘s own darling, Mark Sanford):

On the other hand, Republicans shouldn’t follow South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint and welcome Mr. Specter’s defection as an ideological cleansing. “I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs,” Mr. DeMint said yesterday.

We believe in all of those things, but 30 Senate votes merely gets you the same fate as the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, without the glory. A minority party that wants to become a majority needs convictions, but it also needs coalition builders.

It’s the old debate I’ve written about a number of times before, regarding Sanford and in other contexts: Should one strive to be right, or to be effective? For my part, I’ve always tried to dodge the question and insist one can be both. But Mark Sanford unhesitatingly chooses being “right,” by his lights, and doesn’t give a fig for being effective.

One big difference between the Journal and me, of course — aside from their admiring Sanford for all the wrong reasons — is that they actually CARE whether the Republicans hold power or not. For me, the only thing wrong with the GOP drying up and blowing away is that the Democratic Party shows no signs of doing the same.

But they are right about Sen. DeMint — he has become the zampolit of the Senate — it’s all about ideological purity for him. Maybe because that’s all he’s got left; I don’t know.

Sanford wept

Not for the people of South Carolina in general, just for those who agree with him — or one who agreed with him, according to Newsweek:

But even true believers have bad days, and at this particularly stressful hour, it doesn’t take much to set Sanford off. In the halls of the State House, legislators accuse the governor of selling out the poorest South Carolinians to feed his own ambition; outside, his approval ratings have fallen to 40 percent. Asked how this makes him feel, Sanford pauses, then admits to experiencing the “occasional lonely moment.” But he still believes, he quickly adds, that there’s a “silent majority” of voters who support his stimulus stance; it’s just that they’re “too busy to make their voices heard.” Take the Democratic trial lawyer he “completely convinced” in Mt. Pleasant yesterday, or the “70 or so” people who “showed up last week to be counterprotesters to the protesters.” What about them? And what about the “black gentleman” this morning? “I was walking out of a local TV studio, and there he was,” says Sanford. “He’s a security guy for the building, one of these rent-a-cop kind of guys, older guy. And he walks over, and he grabs my arm, and he says, ‘You do what you think is right’.” Suddenly, Sanford stops. His eyes are red and wet. He lets out a quick, pained laugh, then looks up at the ceiling. “I’m gonna lose it here,” he says finally, turning toward his press secretary. “Got to get my head back in the game.” A single tear is running down his right cheek.

So now we know who Sanford’s “silent majority” is. It’s a “black gentleman” who works as “a security guy.” Who knew? Apparently, not even the governor, since the revelation seemed to make him all verklempt.

Speaking of Mike Myers sketches, remember the tagline for “Wayne’s World?” It went, “You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll hurl.”

I’m gonna lose it here… quick, a wastebasket!