My headline should seem familiar.
It seems to me that there’s a line like that in most stories about the 1st Congressional District special election. For instance, this is the only mention of her in first 16 paragraphs of the Island Packet story I referred to in my last post:
Meanwhile, his Democratic opponent in the May 7 special election, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, campaigned across Beaufort and Charleston counties where most of the district’s voters live. She attended fundraisers and forums, declaring herself the victor in Monday night’s debate.
That, of course, was the story about Mark Sanford’s endorsements by Rand Paul, Larry Flynt and a website that promotes extramarital affairs.
The pattern for both national and state stories about this race is as follows:
- The lede about the latest development or nondevelopment involving Sanford (his asking his ex-wife to manage his campaign, his goofy plywood signs, Jenny accusing him of trespassing, his soulmate popping up at his primary victory party, changing versions of the Super Bowl story, “debating” a picture of Nancy Pelosi, etc.).
- A quick mention that his opponent, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, spent the day campaigning elsewhere in the district. Somewhere out of sight and hearing of the press, apparently.
- An extensive elaboration on the latest Sanford development or nondevelopment, including a recitation of previous revelations.
You get the impression that if the Democrat weren’t the sister of a national celebrity, she’d hardly ever get a headline of her own.
This underlines, yet again, the point I made in the previous post — that the only way the three-ring circus goes away is if Sanford loses next week. If he wins, this is what we have to get used to.
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I think it is Colbert-Busch’s strategy to just lay low for now. Don’t make any statements that will cost her any crossover votes. Delete any pro-choice / pro-gay marriage tweets from her history. Hope that enough people will be willing to go to the polls to vote against Mark Sanford for doing essentially the same thing Bill Clinton did (but never really admitted).
It isn’t about Sanford’s sordid personal life, Doug. The issue is his failure in office to be the representative – on every level – that he promised to be.
You mean after being re-elected multiple times as a Congressman, winning as Governor and getting re-elected? You mean after all those failures?
He was re-elected because he did pretty much exactly what he said he would do. There are plenty of us out here who appreciate sticking to some principles over compromises that are sold as “win-win” but are really “lose-lose”.
He has a fundamental belief about the role of government that is shared by many people. That’s not failure – especially in a limited power role like Governor.
If he loses, it will because he cheated on his wife and didn’t resign.
Getting elected, and getting re-elected, is not the same thing as accomplishing anything in office. Mark Sanford would be the poster child for that principle, if he didn’t have so much competition from Strom Thurmond, Floyd Spence, Joe Wilson, etc.
And this statement is definitely untrue: “He was re-elected because he did pretty much exactly what he said he would do.”
He did NOT promise to do nothing, which is what he did.
He was re-elected because too many people a) don’t pay attention or b) don’t care. Which is why there’s sad truth in your last statement: “If he loses, it will because he cheated on his wife and didn’t resign.”
You’re right on that. Because the number of swing voters who vote against him for the right reasons is probably not great enough to overcome the number of people who will vote for him like automatons because this was drawn as such a Republican district.
Without the scandal, without other relative irrelevancies such as the fact that his opponent is a woman and has a famous name, he would probably win easily. Because democracy is far, far from perfect.
How many times did The State endorse Strom Thurmond, Floyd Spence, and Joe Wilson?
How often did The State editorial board write opinions stating how ineffective they were/are?
In answer to your questions:
— As usual with regard to endorsements, you ask the wrong question. The relevant question here is, “When did they have viable opponents who would have been worth endorsing?”
— I don’t know. It’s certainly a point I’ve made a lot. I don’t know how many times we would have done so in print.
Bottom line, I never attached much importance to congressional endorsements because I felt there was little we could say or do to affect outcomes. The contests were never competitive, which meant that good candidates never arose to take on the incumbents.
A larger issue for me was that I felt about congressional elections the way I did about Culture War issues — they tended to generate a great deal of heat and no light, and they had little or no bearing on what mattered to our editorial board, which was South Carolina.
Everything we ever did when I was editorial page editor was about trying to advance sound policies for our state (and our metro area as well). Anything we wrote about anything was assessed in terms of whether it contributed to those conversations.
Nothing that could be said about, say, the 6th District was in any way helpful. That district was drawn to elect Jim Clyburn. Ditto with the 2nd — the guy with the biggest name recognition who did the best job of spouting GOP talking points would have the job for life.
I took a little more interest in the 5th District while John Spratt held it. He was a very good representative, and generally faced pretty stiff opposition. So I thought it was worth putting in a good word for him each election (never more than a handful of paragraphs, though). That was an issue that was in doubt, so it was worth saying something.
If I had been on the editorial board in 1988, I probably would have advocated that we endorse Jim Leventis, the Democratic nominee, over Floyd Spence. Of course, Floyd still would have won, but I think Jim was worth endorsing.
A lot of Democrats were disappointed that we didn’t back Jane Frederick when she ran in that district years later, but while I liked Jane, I just couldn’t support anyone for Congress whose main issue was public schools.
“Getting elected, and getting re-elected, is not the same thing as accomplishing anything in office.”
I think this is on Jim Clyburn’s personal stationary…
To elaborate a bit…
South Carolina was what mattered. That was our one mission — to foster conversations on issues of critical importance to this state. When I joined the editorial board, The State’s editorial page had for many years failed to do justice to the issues that mattered here at home. IMHO, of course.
That had begun to change with Tom McLean, who had moved from news to become editorial page editor a couple of years before I made my move. He was turning things more toward local issues. I accelerated that process. Before Tom became EPE, it seemed that the editorials in the paper were about 80-90 percent national and international.
By the time I was a year or so into my time as EPE, we had more than flipped that. What we wrote was at LEAST 90 percent South Carolina.
I believed firmly that South Carolina desperately needed a newspaper that shone a light on problems and challenges here at home. The last thing we needed was more yammering about the inside-the-Beltway talking points that people were overexposed to on TV (and later, via the Web).
We took stands on important national policy issues. What we did NOT do is jump in on the daily partisan back-and-forth about issues that had no significance beyond giving talking heads something to shout at each other about.
“He was re-elected because too many people a) don’t pay attention or b) don’t care.”
Wow. That is a very assuming comment. You should recall that you yourself endorsed Mark Sanford’s re-election bid over his primary opponent. Perhaps you should reflect on that before accusing your contemptible fellow citizens of ignorance or apathy.
I had NOT paid enough attention.
Specifically, what I had not paid attention to was his wasted six years in Congress. I was vaguely aware that his tenure in that office had been… eccentric… and other than that unremarkable. I knew he had pushed an entitlements “reform” approach that had gone nowhere, and I was aware that I probably would have had problems with that approach if I had paid it much attention, which I didn’t have to do because it was never going to go anywhere. But I gave him props in my mind, vaguely, for having been willing to address entitlements.
What I did in that race was something I seldom do — I listened to what he said he wanted to do as governor, and went by that, basically ignoring what he had done in elective office previously.
That in spite of the store that I set by previous experience in public office. I was so focused on the fact that Sanford had adopted our government restructuring position, word for word, that I looked entirely forward rather than backward.
Of course, if I HAD paid more attention to his time in Congress, I don’t know if I would have recognized the signs. The thing about Mark Sanford, a lesson I’ve learned repeatedly about him starting during his first term as governor, is that he is unlike anyone else I’ve ever seen in public office. He is SO dysfunctional as a public official that I don’t know whether I’d have recognized all the signs, even if I’d based the whole decision on his previous time in office.
Mark Sanford has caused me to re-examine a lot of assumptions. For instance, I used to be pleased at his demonstrations of contempt for his own party, because I hold the parties in such contempt myself.
Over time, though, I realized it was just his utter lack of concern for anyone other than himself. I didn’t realize what a narcissist Sanford was until June 2009; that came as a shock. And suddenly his contempt for his party seemed itself contemptible, and I actually had some sympathy for the party loyalists to whom he had repeatedly given the back of his hand.
Usually, people who go into politics are to some extent people people. With Sanford, that’s just not the case. He basically has no use for people…
There are plenty of us out here who appreciate sticking to some principles
-Doug
Now this is a first, someone suggesting Mark Sanford is principled. That’s a good one. This should tell you something about the principles he sticks to. If this bizarre excuse for a human being supports this tea party rubbish then that doesn’t speak to highly of that principle.
@bud
When it comes to his view of the way government works, I believe Sanford has a set of principles he follows. Do you disagree with that statement?
I’m not talking about his personal failings.
I disagree with that statement.
I once thought Sanford was for good, sound, limited government. I discovered over time that he had a negative attitude toward government that precluded the “good” and “sound” parts. If it had to do with government, he was against it.
The guy vetoed the entire state budget. I mean, come on. That’s not principle. That’s anarchy.
It took me years to realize this… I started out thinking that Sanford was like others who just wanted to keep the tax burden on the people as light as possible. It finally dawned on me that he didn’t care WHERE the money came from — he hated government so much that if money fell from a clear blue sky, he’d rather bury it in a hole than have it spent on any sort of government services.
That is such a negation, so nihilistic even, that I find it hard to dignify with the word “principle.” It’s just a deeply negative impulse.
Sanford’s attitude went way beyond that of a fiscal conservative.
I was deeply impressed back in the 90s when Bob Inglis voted against federal funds that would have built roads here at home. THAT was a case of being principled. He didn’t want that money spent, period.
But Sanford fighting against money that was going to be spent anyway coming to South Carolina — that was just crazy.
Mark,
For each of these governors, can you please name a few of the major accomplishments each made while in office:
Jim Hodges
David Beasley
Carroll Campbell
I’d like to hear of specific successful initiatives they championed and got passed by the legislature.
Don’t know. When I moved to SC, Carroll Cambell was already in the Alzheimer’s care facility down the road from where we lived.
But the question is a red herring anyway.
Were they successful Governors? Give me the standard that you are applying to rate Mark Sanford. Hodges and Beasley weren’t re-elected, right? So they failed.
Hodges – State Lottery
Campbell – Government Restructuring
I’ll have to get back to you on Beasley
Mind you I disagreed with both Hodges and Campbell but they did succeed in getting their initiatives passed.
So one thing each in 4 and 8 years. And Hodges was so effective he was voted out.
I’m very pleased that Bud counts restructuring as an accomplishment. 🙂
Campbell was a successful governor. He was the last one.
And I’ll admit I didn’t think all that much of him at the time. He just looks great in retrospect.
Hodges could have been a good governor. He had been a very good legislator. And he DID accomplish the main things he set out to do. One of them was good — First Steps (which, however one assesses its efficacy, at least addressed a real problem in the state), and the other we opposed with every ounce of energy we had (the lottery).
Hodges was hobbled by having put himself into the hands of Kevin Geddings. I think Jim believed he couldn’t have been elected without Geddings, and therefore set WAY too much store by his advice. I continue to believe he could have beaten Beasley without Geddings, and without the lottery as an issue. If things had gone that way, I think he would have been a better governor.
Let’s follow the First Steps issue a little further. If he was successful in implementing a program that has not proven to be successful, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Or do you just give credit for trying versus actual success?
I honestly don’t know enough to say whether it’s been successful or not. I do know that it addressed a real need — early childhood education — and that he got it passed.
Well, wouldn’t we have seen some change in the outcomes for students in South Carolina if First Steps was successful? Isn’t that a fairly simple way to determine whether it was worth doing?
You had a similar appreciation for Inez Tennenbaum’s implementation of PACT testing which did not have any real impact on student performance — and was replaced once the data couldn’t be cherry picked for minor improvements any more.
A quick Google search on First Steps revealed a number of issues with the program that have been revealed in audits. Seems like a huge waste of tax dollars. The head of the program makes $60K more per year than the Secretary of Education.
So I’m still trying to determine how we measure the success of a governor… I don’t think its possible.
Well, other than getting re-elected. That would indicate voters were reasonably satisfied.
With all due respect, Doug, it would take some real research to evaluate the efficacy of first steps. You say, “Well, wouldn’t we have seen some change in the outcomes for students in South Carolina if First Steps was successful? Isn’t that a fairly simple way to determine whether it was worth doing?” Yes, I can agree with that statement. What outcomes have you looked at and compared to see if they have improved. I did not see you cite any. If you are thinking that whether we meet AYP as a state or as districts is any kind of reliable measure, think again. That is a moving yardstick, since the law ups the criteria every year for achieving AYP. We could have well been improving outcomes and still not be meeting AYP. You’d have to look to the raw data to know that. It’s a complicated thing to measure since we’ve changed standards also and common core standards are more challenging, so you can’t just look at how many 1st graders are succeeding in the curriculum across time, for example, to see if there is an improvement, since the change in standards could also be having an effect. There probably is something out there that would be a good reliable measure but finding and aggregating the data would be a bit of work. Things like readiness scores upon entering kindergarten or percent of kids vaccinated upon registering for kindergarten or other measures of health that might be out there or DIAL scores of the kids living in poverty accepted into the 4k child development program might be good measures. But I don’t think these data are uniformly collected across districts across time. The DIAL scores would be the most obtainable consistently documented thing that I can think of, but that would really be a pre-measure rather than outcome probably, since 4k child development is one of the things first steps funds for at risk kids. Perhaps you could tease out if any of those kids entering 4k had received any first steps funded services prior to that time and see if there is a measureable difference between those two groups. But that data is buried on forms in files somewhere and not uniformly aggregated to my knowledge.
But anyway, what measures were you thinking of since you apparently believe we do not have any improved outcomes.
@scout
The only measure that matters is high school graduation rate. How is South Carolina doing on that? Noticeable improvement? Not that I am aware of after years and years of PACT testing, First Steps, etc. Last year’s state graduation rate was 74.9% compared to 78% in 2003. This is after two decades of high stakes testing. All the extra stuff they have tried has no impact on the core issues: engaged parents, students willing to make the effort, and effective teachers.
First Steps should be called what it is: babysitting.
“The only measure that matters is high school graduation rate. How is South Carolina doing on that? Noticeable improvement? Not that I am aware of after years and years of PACT testing, First Steps, etc. Last year’s state graduation rate was 74.9% compared to 78% in 2003. This is after two decades of high stakes testing. All the extra stuff they have tried has no impact on the core issues: engaged parents, students willing to make the effort, and effective teachers.”
-Doug
Ok, a few points 1) First Steps was implemented in 1999. This means the first children able to benefit fully from the program are now 14 years old. They will not be impacting graduation rate yet.
2) South Carolina is not using the same method to calculate graduation rate now that it was using in 2003, so that’s not an apples to apples comparison. The new nationally standardized method has been used since 2010 but data collection methods and procedures have been continually refined, hopefully making the reading more accurate, but again making progress across time harder to measure.
You can call First Steps babysitting if you want. Babysitting is a necessity in today’s world. We are actually talking about the care and development of babys here, right? I’d rather have high quality babysitting that provides stimulation and interaction and promotes cognitive development over daycare with uneducated workers that provide none of the above. Wouldn’t you?
A few more thoughts on “babysitting” : I suspect you meant that with a negative connotation, as if the parents are not interested in spending time with their kids themselves and are just sitting at home eating bon bons not working while their kids are in state subsidized child care. There may be some cases of that. But I don’t think it is the majority. A great many parents living in poverty are working. Working parents need childcare.
You would have them work. What would you have them do for the “babysitting” they will then require?
First Steps endeavors to make childcare experiences meaningful developmentally appropriate interactions that will facilitate the child’s language, social emotional, cognitive, and motor development.
I can assure you that is not something that will just happen automatically among the childcare options typically available to people living in poverty.
Research is showing that in some cases there may be a developmental window during which if the child’s brain doesn’t get certain types and amounts of stimulation and interaction, certain pathways and abilities don’t develop, or never develop as well or as fully as they otherwise would have.
It’s kind of like you have a window of time to calibrate the brain for learning – and the quality of the experiences that the child has during this critical time is what does the calibrating.
What I’m saying is this is not something you can just catch up from. Children that don’t get the stimulation they need for development will never be the people they otherwise could have been. This does not mean they are hopeless cases. Teachers work like dogs to help kids who come in behind and they do improve and make progress. Is it enough progress to keep pace with what’s expected in the curriculum standards? Often not.
If spending money on more worthwhile developmentally stimulating ‘babysitting’ will help calibrate children’s brains for learning and subsequently improve children’s chances of being able to respond appropriately and succeed in school when presented with challenging curriculum standards, then I am all for it.
How can it not be in the best interest of the taxpayer and society to make sure that the children we will eventually have to educate and want to become productive members of society have access to the developmental experiences that will prime their brain for the lifelong learning necessary to succeed in today’s world?
Or to get back on topic: I think First Steps was a worthwhile accomplishment to Mr. Hodges credit.
Doug, that’s a sad view of government. You want to elect do-nothing’s because you don’t actually want government? That is not a principle.
Anyway, principles are just slogans until they are put into action.
Sanford’s proclaimed primary principle is to protect the taxpayer from government abuse. How did he put that principle into action? He misused taxpayer funds to facilitate his South American affair. That is standing on principle for sure. I would think you would be condemning his hipocracy and abuse of his position of Governor. I do not understand the ability of some to buy into the myth and reject the reality.
Life is a series of win-win, win-lose and lose-lose events. Do you expect different results in politics? Principles are important. But actions matter.
“He misused taxpayer funds to facilitate his South American affair. ”
And that was wrong. But compared to all the waste, fraud, and abuse that continues to go on, it was trivial.
I believe government is inefficient and should be as small as possible. I don’t want “no government”, I want a government that does the basic things a government should do and nothing else. I don’t believe that many of the social programs instituted by the government have helped and instead have created a class of people who are totally dependent on government. I think too many politicians get rich using their influence.
I will continue to vote for politicians who will work to limit the role of government in our lives and who will stick to a basic set of principles. I have no respect for people who compromise their principles — which is completely different from compromising on other areas. If you are against increasing debt to fund government, you don’t do anything that rejects that principle. You offer cuts in other areas to offset any new spending until the debt is under control.
Well that sounds like a wormy hole. What is a principle? I wouldn’t ever say a principle is no “increasing debt to fund government”. I wouldn’t even say that a principle is government should be as small as possible. Those are just concepts – ideas. They have no rigidity to me.
Principles are things like the golden rule. And you know what, even then they get violated on occasion. I guess along with principles goes intentions…
the only way the three-ring circus goes away is if Sanford loses next week. If he wins, this is what we have to get used to.
-Brad
Then let’s hope he wins. This is just about the most fun I’ve ever had watching a political race. It is simply astonishing that this bizarre excuse for a human being has won so many elections. Too bad he isn’t running against Alvin Greene.
Bud, there was a time when I would have said what you just said, and meant it — early in my journalism career. It didn’t matter who won; what mattered was the story. (People who would accuse me or other journalists of favoring one candidate or another just had no idea how little I cared who won — it was about the story).
But then, somewhere along the line, I started to care. And in this case, I care deeply that South Carolina is a national laughing-stock.
Just to be clear I was being sarcastic. But we may as well enjoy it while it lasts.
I’m glad.
craziness sells papers…. or gets eyeballs online.
Does anyone else feel like we’re beating a dead horse when it comes to the Sanford/Colbert-Busch campaign?
So can we instead talk about another nihilistic, ideologue from South Carolina? No local news source seem to be reporting about Rep. Jeff Duncan and his House bill that would eliminate the nation’s low GDP numbers and high unemployment rate. Now your asking, “How will he solve these two major problems with just one bill?” Easy his bill would just ban the government from collecting the data needed to calculate GDP and the unemployment rate. His so-called “Census Reform Bill” would ban the Current Population Survey, the National Crime Victimization Survey, and all other surveys except a decennial census of the population. This would not only hurt both the federal and state governments’ ability to implement and monitor the effects of public policy, but it would also deprive social scientists of data used in research, and it would deprive major businesses and Wall Street firms of key economic indicators.
And when asked why he is proposing the bill Rep. Duncan couldn’t provide an answer. However, another of the co-sponsors did described the surveys as intrusive and showed just how ignorant he is when he was quoted saying,”In the end [the American Community Survey] is not a scientific survey. It’s a random survey.” His statement is wrong given that a scientific survey is a random survey. The whole article is at the Washington Post.
Hadn’t heard about Mr. Duncan’s bill. Maybe Sanford’s candidacy is just a distraction so bills like this can sneak through without anyone noticing.
I know Jeff Duncan (he used to be my congressman). I’ve talked with Jeff Duncan. Jeff Duncan is no congressman, rather a good ole boy from the Upstate doing whatever will keep him in office, no matter how lamebrained.
@Brad
Now that Lindsey Graham has endorsed Sanford, would you question his judgment or chalk it up to his desire to be a partisan Republican?
I’m learning all kinds of stuff here. Hadn’t heard that Lindsey endorsed Sanford. Pretty much shoots our senior senator’s credibility to hell. But then again that ship sailed a long time ago.
Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott (lukewarm at best) endorsed Sanford yesterday.
Lindsey Graham has completely lost it. He didn’t need to say a thing, had no dog in the hunt. It does seem like he has missed every call since he caught the Benghazi flu.
Nothing new. Lindsey always does that. It’s a party loyalty thing. Which on the one hand is a bad thing in my book. On the other…
Several years ago, Sanford was backing some challengers in primaries against GOP incumbent, trying to remake the Legislature in his ideological image. (As Jim DeMint tried to do on the national level.) At the time, Lindsey pointedly endorsed the incumbents.
It was one of those rare cases when party loyalty was actually wiser and more broad-minded than the alternative. Sanford was trying to make his party narrower, more extreme. Between party loyalty and Sanford loyalty, I’ll take party loyalty.
So it’s ironic that this time, Sanford is benefiting from Graham’s notion of doing the right thing.
So he doesn’t really mean any of the words he says regarding Sanford… that’s admirable. I suppose that’s the only time he lies.
Suprised that we haven’t heard much about how Mrs. Colbert-Busch’s private sector experience is pretty much all with a Chinese corporation…
Silence,
Take a look at the origin of manufacture of about 70% of the non-food items you purchased last year. Combine that with the fact that the United States hasn’t been a major player in the international shipping industry since the 1860’s. She was in sales, so she found a company that was looking to grow it’s business in Charleston. SC actually exports stuff to China, too.
Ever worked with, through or for a country or organization you would not be proud to acknowledge in every forum? Doesn’t mean you or she (or me) is doing or has done anything wrong. That’s just business and life.
Mark, your point about the Chinese origin of most consumer products is duly noted. I wasn’t able to figure out from my cursory research how closely linked with the Chinese government OOIL (the parent co. of OOCL) is. It’s listed on the HK exchange, but that doesn’t really mean much. I just think it’s funny that we have two candidates who’s private sector experience is very limited, one of whom’s private sector experience appears to be solely for a chinese shipping company.
I’ve made money from (though not had as clients) Russian oligarchs, the Shaw of Iran’s family, most of the oil nations of the middle east, crooked European banks, and probably a number of criminal organizations – and possibly even a Ponzi scheme. They are all buyers and operators of commercial real estate in the U.S. Does that mean I have any connection to them? I think you are stretching guilt by association a bit too far.
She sought out a paying job in Charleston, SC to support her family, and seems to have been pretty good at it. Working to generate additional business, import and export, for the Port of Charleston just hardly seems like a black mark against her. Winning container traffic market share from the Danes, Greeks, and Koreans isn’t an issue to me, even if the company she worked for is Chinese.
It certainly isn’t like Governor Haley selling out SC to benefit GA and the Port of Savannah. That was an epic political trade that showed Haley would put her personal future over the future of the state she was elected to govern.
Mark, you are turning out to be one shady cat!
If I were running Sanford’s campaign, I’d be playing up the Chinese angle as much as possible.
If I were running Sanford’s campaign, I’d start looking for another job.
LOL – you might, but I’d be in it to win it.
Fitsnews said yesterday that a couple polls are showing a 1% margin for Colbert-Busch. I’m thinking Sanford will pull out all stops over the next week and squeak out a victory. Sanford can get the heavy hitters in the Republican Party while Colbert-Busch has to avoid associating with any Democrats.
Parties have a purpose, but when a rotten egg pops up, the thing to do is not to support that candidate. While I may not agree, I accept that politicians will line up behind their “own” in most every contested race. This isn’t about marginal degrees of competence, however.
Integrity is easily lost and most difficult to recover.
A party should also have a responsibility to enforce some standards – even loose and somewhat hypocritical ones. But support Sanford now? A bridge too far. It is not like the guy entered a Charleston County council race saying he wanted to start small and show he had turned over a new leaf. He clearly feels entitled to be returned to his Washington, DC paycheck. Parties and politicians have a responsibility to set examples and demonstrate leadership. That is what they are supposed to do – even in partisanship tussles.
Anyway, I think the entire state deserves having someone in Congress who isn’t in a safe seat setting a better example of legislative leadership than what we have now from our six Congressional clowns. A conservative Democrat elected from a safely Republican district has the opportunity to do both good and right by SC. That would be a rare thing these days. Or the district can elect someone who will do nothing but further diminish the tarnished image of SC. That is self-defeating for everyone in South Carolina, Republicans most especially.
Scott had to say something about Sanford, and he seemed to do the bare minimum to fulfill that; but Lindsey Graham had no reason to endorse Sanford. Was he that worried he won’t be endorsed by others next election? Even then, this was a safe time to stay silent.
I concur.
Wonder what Sanford’s pension payout from his two terms in Congress and two as governor amount to?
Fits didn’t exactly have hard numbers but as is typical for Fits they did a lot of speculating. I’m wondering where the public polling is on this race? Not a whole lot else going on so it’s a bit surprising that the major polling firms are so low key.
But Doug is probably right. I do think Sanford pulls out a win. South Carolina is such a rigidly GOP state that most voters just automatically vote for the Republican in the race. Little else matters.
I’ve said before that the fact that it’s an out of cycle election will hurt Colbert-Busch. I still think that’s true, and I think that Sanford will win by more than people here or at FITS think. I’ll say Sanford gets 55%.