From where I sit, up here in Columbia (admittedly not the best vantage point), the person who seems to be running the hardest to catch Mark Sanford in the 1st Congressional District GOP primary is state Sen. Larry Grooms.
A day doesn’t pass that Hogan Gidley — last seen in these parts acting as spokesman for Rick Santorum — doesn’t send me a release or two on his behalf. Several in recent days have boasted about Tea Party congressmen Mick Mulvaney and Jeff Duncan endorsing him.
And this is the second TV ad for Grooms I’ve seen. Here’s the first.
Of course, it doesn’t really say anything to distinguish Grooms from anyone else (typical line from the ad: “I’m a pro-life Christian conservative who knows DC spends too much”), but when’s the last time you saw originality in one of these things?
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The Grooms campaign put out another release today listing the following endorsements:
Too bad for Grooms this is a special election with a tight schedule, and Sanford has all the money, all the name recognition, and all the free media coverage. He’ll do good to make into a runoff with the Luv Gov.
Looks like Grooms could use a little help in Charleston, Georgetown and all of Horry County. Moncks Corner is hardly a bastion of strength.
Horry and Georgetown County are no longer in the 1st district , but are now in the new 7th district. The 1st is now mostly Charleston and everything south. And if you look at the new map the GOP drew, Moncks Corner and Goose Creek must be Republican bastions why else would they stretch an arm of the district way out into the middle of Clyburn’s district to grab these two areas.
My bad for looking at Wikipedia and forgetting about the new 7th. Actually that’s the first time I have seen a posting on something newsworthy be so out of date.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Carolina%27s_1st_congressional_district
I was amazed to see – looking at the new 1st District boundaries – that the GOP didn’t find a way to carve out St. Helena Island while keeping Ladys and Fripp in the district? I guess that was the token to say, “hey, we didn’t gerrymander this thing.”
We really, really need some limitations placed on this practice, though of course it will never disappear, as gerrymandering is truly the single greatest threat to our democracy and the long-term viability of our republic.
I think the major political parties, as they are now, are “the single greatest threat to our democracy and the long-term viability of our republic.”
But we’re sort of saying the same thing.
If not for districts gerrymandered so that only primaries count, the hyperpartisanship wouldn’t be nearly so bad. Representatives who know they only have to worry about the extremists in their own base at re-election time are not going to work for the greater good.
Of course, this offers no excuse to senators, on the national level. But it helps to explain why senators are generally not as extreme.
I’m honestly not sure why the DOJ voting rights office even allows states to gerrymander anymore. The voting districts should be generated by a computer to be equally populous and to be geographically compact to the greatest extent possible. Not drawn up by a bunch of state legislature political hacks.
Go tell that to the supreme court which has on multiple cases allowed partisan gerrymandering. Also it doesn’t help that some of the Founding Fathers are guilty of the crime too. Patrick Henry (anti-federalist) tried to draw Virginia’s district lines in such a way as to prevent James Madison (federalist) from being elected to Congress.
Except, however, when they have to seek re-election in that primary system hothouse. This leads many of them to act just as stupid as the rest of the pols. [That is the first time I have used that word on this blog to describe a person or people (and I try hard not to say it in general); but it is richly deserved in the sphere of electioneering.]
Lot’s of probably good people have lost sight of the larger issues of service and governance. While I am no supporter, Glenn McConnells’s decision to gracefully put our system of governance above his own personal aspirations is still a shining example of civic duty. It’s too bad that hasn’t proven to be contagious in SC.