This ran a couple of days ago, but was only brought to my attention today:
Tea Party favorite Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina has departed, too, even though his term was only half over, to answer the siren call of a seven-figure job at the helm of the Heritage Foundation.
Thanks to the blog Smart Politics, I am able to report that this is normal behavior in South Carolina: one-third of all U.S. senators from South Carolina have resigned over the course of our history. (South Carolina is also the state that gave us the guy with the cane back in 1856.) DeMint was replaced by Representative Tim Scott, whose seat will be filled in a special election this spring. Right now one of the possible candidates is Mark Sanford, the governor who we all remember for flying to Argentina for an assignation with his lover while his staff claimed he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail.
Another much-discussed potential contender is Jenny Sanford, former wife of the above. People, while you are praying for a safe, sane and peaceful new year, I want you to make a small exception and pray that Jenny and Mark Sanford run against each other…
The “guy with the cane” thing was a reference to Preston Brooks, who practically beat Charles Sumner to death on the Senate floor — which made him wonderfully popular back home (northerners, not understanding the ways of Southern gentlemen, were outraged). Which is kind of SC politics in a nutshell.
I found the piece over at Smart Politics interesting — the one about how a third of SC senators have resigned (The last was Strom Thurmond, who promptly ran again and was elected back to his seat). Even though, of course, we’ve only known four senators in the past 46 years. No wait, five counting Tim Scott now.
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Jim DeMint quit because he met his Waterloo with the reelection of Obama.; Obamacare lives on and DeMint could not face defeat.
I listened to Keven Cohen’s show on WVOC-AM when he was on the air and when he hosted Joe Wilson, Joe saId that they would vote on repealing Obamacare; according to Gail’s count, that was 31 times. Of course, we know that Joe hates Obama’s guts when he embarrassed South Carolina with his outburst during a State of the Union address. Joe’s time is past; which is why I didn’t vote for him in November 2011 even though he was running unopposed.
Regarding voting for Joe, my wife and I had entered separate booths somewhat apart at the polls, and we both let out a whooaaa about the same time. As we were leaving I told her my whooaaaayyy came when I discovered the Democrats had failed to run someone against him, So, I told her I wrote in Elmer Fudd, then asked my loving liberal bride what had she done following her involuntary explosion of learning that the Dems were so fexless as to not oppose Joe YOU LIE Wilson. Oh, she said, I wrote in YOUR name.
It was fun to see that running unopposed Little Joe managed only 94% of the vote. About what Curtis Loftis pulled when he ran unopposed.