I dropped by Rep. Beth Bernstein‘s re-election campaign kickoff on the way home this evening at the Tin Roof.
She had a pretty decent crowd — almost as many as I saw at the statewide stump meeting at Galivants Ferry last week. Which is a tiny group for statewide candidates, but a decent one for a House member.
And it was a diverse group, in the political sense. I saw longtime GOP operative Trey Walker (there as a USC governmental relations guy), Christian conservative Hal Stevenson (representing outdoor advertisers, not really himself), Michael Rentiers of Push Advocacy, and Rep. Rick Quinn, as well as a healthy number of Democrats and independents.
So, broad support, it seemed.
I don’t know anything about her general election opponent, Jeff Mobley, yet. If he’s having an event like this, I want to go to that, too. I haven’t heard from him, but he’s following me on Twitter, so…
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That’s weird. I started following Jeff Mobley, and then tried to DM him to ask about any upcoming events… and it wouldn’t go through.
I’ll try again in the morning…
Got him.
Dude, this feels like a plant…
How do you mean?
Well, how many of us are likely to care, as we do not live in her district, but perhaps your benevolent overlords want the publicity?
I don’t know, it’s always good to call out those in the outdoor advertising business. Nobody plays a greater role in visually blighting our urban and rural environments. Too bad they seem to be so widely welcomed by SC pols.
Maine was so nice, without billboards….
Interesting. You see meaning in the fact that I finally managed to swing by a local political event. When what happened was that I finally managed to swing by a local political event. I hope to do so more in this season.
Reminds me of my reporting days, when I had a beat covering several rural counties in Tennessee. For months, I felt bad that I’d never made it to a Humboldt school board meeting. Always had a conflict with some other governmental body.
Finally, I made it to one. I was feeling good about having made it, and going around introducing myself to board members, conscientiously doing the source development thing, when one of them came up to me with venom in his eye and accused me of being there because there was something potentially controversial on the agenda that they wouldn’t want to see covered. He HATED me for it. I had no idea what was on their agenda; I was just trying to do my job and show up for once.
His hostility was unsettling. Disturbed my equilibrium…
It was days before I learned that the previous year, my predecessor on the beat had covered a hugely controversial discussion, at a meeting just like this one, about firing a teacher. You see, in Tennessee, where they have REAL open-meeting laws, personnel matters are not discussed in secret. This guy thought they should be.
Anyway, the night I showed up, annual contract renewals were on the agenda once again. There was no controversy. I found the process mightily boring. But when it was over, this guy comes up and says with spiteful satisfaction, “Well, I guess you didn’t get the big story you were HOPING for, huh?”
I was like, “What’s WITH this guy?” I had no idea what he was on about…
This was in 1978, when I was a mere pup…