The kind of Republican Karen Floyd is

15 Replies
Karen Floyd: 2006 file photos by Brad Warthen

Karen Floyd: 2006 file photos by Brad Warthen

Remember awhile back when I applauded a question asked of GOP gubernatorial candidates, and said it should be asked of all Republicans seeking office in our state, because the answer would communicate volumes. The question in question was:

Are you a Lindsey Graham Republican, or a Jim DeMint Republican?

Well, whether you remember it or not, I did, and I still think it’s a great question. Now if we could just come up with one like that for the Democrats…

Anyway, I got to thinking of that a few minutes ago, when I saw this Tweet from Karen Floyd:

Great to see 2 strong conservatives in DeMint and Rubio earlier today, now off to see a 3rd in Gov. Barbour. about 2 minutes ago via mobile web

That got me to thinking, so I dug back into Ms. Floyd’s Twitter history a ways — several pages back, all the way to Oct. 5 (I guess I could have gone further, but I got tired of clicking on the “more” link). And guess what I found?

Yup. There are 11 mentions of Jim DeMint, and one of Lindsey Graham. And the Graham mention does him no credit, no credit at all. In fact — and this is whipped cream atop this treat — it happened to be the very same Tweet from Karen that caused me to get on Lindsey’s case for poking his nose where it doesn’t belong:

From Sen. Lindsey Graham: “Please make telephone calls from your house to support Scott Brown http://is.gd/6xk29 2:50 PM Jan 18th via web

That’s it. She could only bring herself to mention the guy when he did a bad thing.

Whatever you think of that, I think we’ve established one thing: Of the two kinds of S.C. Republican one can be, we know which kind Karen Floyd is.

Now, maybe you’ll say, But Brad, of course she mentions Jim all the time! He’s the one up for re-election this year! That’s why she’s got to laud him in Tweets such as these generic masterpieces:

So proud to call @JimDeMint my Senator! http://www.thestate.com/politics/story/1164772.html 9:41 AM Feb 19th via web


We are very lucky to have Sen. @JimDeMint represent us well in the US Senate: http://tiny.cc/B7oBf #sctweets 9:22 AM Dec 1st, 2009 via web

To which I would reply, Yeah, but don’t you think the chairwoman of the party would withhold her enthusiasm until his is actually, technically, her party’s nominee?

And, with Lindsey once again courageously trying to exhibit leadership through the political minefield of immigration reform, don’t you think maybe she ought to lend him a hand? Jim DeMint doesn’t need her help at the moment; Lindsey does. And yeah, I know the answer to that. I’m just saying, you know, in a perfect world…

Floyd 016

15 thoughts on “The kind of Republican Karen Floyd is”

  1. Burl Burlingame

    After seeing Graham give lip service to bipartisanship — but only on Republican terms — and spew every cheap neocon soundbite and talking point on a Sunday talk show yesterday, I don’t see that much practical difference between him and DeMint.

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  2. Jamie Sanderson

    That’s an absurd question. She’s bought and paid for. To sell out the state. Ask Howard Rich. He’ll be happy to inform you on what kind of Republican Karen Floyd is.

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  3. martin

    Linsey was truly disgusting Sunday, down to his baring of the teeth sneer. I saw him do that on the Senate floor once and it made me about as sick as watching Joe Wilson’s display.
    That’s the kind of nasty, low life behavior that appeals to the DeMint bunch.

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  4. Karen McLeod

    Compared to Sen. DeMint, Sen. Lindsay is a paragon of reason, and cooperation. At times, that’s like comparing Hitler to Dahmer, at others he seems a bit better than that. But Ms. Floyd just lost any hope of my vote unless she actively works to build a saner platform and response.

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  5. Kathryn Fenner

    Reading such Tweets will rot your brain, you know. Do ordinary people (not crack Twitter journalists like yourself and Roland Hedley) even follow that stuff?

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  7. Kathryn Fenner

    You’re not an ordinary person. Aren’t you concerned that there are non-news people who read that stuff with approval?

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  11. Brad Warthen

    Well, now, there you go — maybe he DID have gas.

    I don’t think my digestive system would hold up well under the habits that politics imposes. I’ve had enough trouble with what a particularly stupid TV commercial once referred to as “the active life of a reporter.”

    Joe Lieberman once joked — I think it was during his presidential run in 04, or maybe in 00 — that he was going to donate his body to science so they could study the long-term effects of living off of Clif bars. And he and Lindsey are good buddies. Maybe Joe turned him onto Clif bars, and he’s suffering the effects of too much concentrated soy.

    Come to think of it, I’m not sure what sort of lifestyle would suit my finicky stomach. Probably one with no work, moderate exercise, and all my meals are brought to me with monotonous regularity. I’m thinking of the lifestyle that Phileas Fogg had at the start of “Around the World in 80 Days.”

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  12. Brad Warthen

    To be more specific, here’s how Jules Verne described Mr. Fogg:

    He lived alone in his house in Saville Row, whither none penetrated. A single domestic sufficed to serve him. He breakfasted and dined at the club, at hours mathematically fixed, in the same room, at the same table, never taking his meals with other members, much less bringing a guest with him; and went home at exactly midnight, only to retire at once to bed. He never used the cosy chambers which the Reform provides for its favoured members. He passed ten hours out of the twenty-four in Saville Row, either in sleeping or making his toilet. When he chose to take a walk it was with a regular step in the entrance hall with its mosaic flooring, or in the circular gallery with its dome supported by twenty red porphyry Ionic columns, and illumined by blue painted windows. When he breakfasted or dined all the resources of the club–its kitchens and pantries, its buttery and dairy–aided to crowd his table with their most succulent stores; he was served by the gravest waiters, in dress coats, and shoes with swan-skin soles, who proffered the viands in special porcelain, and on the finest linen; club decanters, of a lost mould, contained his sherry, his port, and his cinnamon-spiced claret; while his beverages were refreshingly cooled with ice, brought at great cost from the American lakes.

    If to live in this style is to be eccentric, it must be confessed that there is something good in eccentricity.

    Yeah, I could do that. Although I think I’d pass on the cinnamon-spice claret. My digestion, you know. Do you think the Reform Club could manage a beer?

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  14. Steve Gordy

    BTW, Sen. D’s latest effort to cut down on earmarks (not of much use in actually controlling spending, but a start) got slapped down by the Senate yesterday. 15 Republicans (including his buddy Jim Inhofe) broke ranks with him. Ya think they’re getting tired of his endless publicity campaign?

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