I haven’t had time for blogging lately, but I thought I’d better share this before tomorrow…
Y’all know my friend Clare Folio Morris, right? She’s contributed some op-ed stuff here before.
Well, she wrote a piece for the Post and Courier promoting Nikki Haley in tomorrow’s primary, but from a different perspective from Paul DeMarco. An excerpt from her piece:
Are Republican women of South Carolina willing to be pushed around by a man who desperately seeks a political comeback to keep himself out of jail? As the S.C. GOP presidential primary quickly approaches on Saturday, I urge Republican and independent women to give serious thought to voting for his very capable and viable opponent, former U.N. Ambassador and S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley.
It seems a bit of poetic justice that the last one standing in a crowded field of pushy, pugnacious Republican men is a strong, accomplished woman from South Carolina. Sadly, we women in the Southeast are used to being under-represented: Our state ranks 49th in the country in female representation in state government.
Haley, the one lone Republican primary candidate standing in the way of Trump’s coronation, is everything Donald Trump is not. And it’s driving him crazier than he already is.
So many things are bothersome about Trump, I hardly know which tops the list. Is it that he has no policies, only the politics of grievance? Is it his bromance with Vladimir Putin? Or that the big lie irreparably divided and damaged our nation and cost taxpayers more than $500 million in legal fees from dozens of unsuccessful lawsuits, costly repair work at the Capitol and enhanced security around the 2022 inauguration and later due to death threats against poll workers? Or that he enables and empowers Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House?
There are too many more problems to count, but one character flaw about the twice-impeached ex-president that I can’t get past (and you shouldn’t either) is how he treats women….
I should probably stop there (because copyright), but if you can, I urge you to go read the whole column.
Clare is more of less of the same demographic she’s reaching out to: Republican women. Although Clare’s not dogmatic about it. She has, however, worked off and on for Mark Sanford — himself something of a marginal Republican — ever since they were in college together.
Anyway, obviously, you don’t have to be a member of the groups Paul reached out to — Democrats and independents — to want to save the country Donald Trump. In fact, if I were a Republican, I’d be more determined to do it, to save my party from him as well as the country, and the larger world.
And of course, Clare makes good points. But in my case, I’m happy to say I’ve already voted. And they don’t let you vote in both primaries. Although they should. Every American has an equal and vital stake in who ends up on the ballot in November….
Clare, the last time she worked with Sanford.
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I was listening to Julie Mason’s show today on Sirius radio at 3pm. She had Gov. Chris Sununu on to talk about politics, Washington, his tenure as governor ending in 10 months (he’s looking forward to it ending) etc.. – and some about Haley some but that wasn’t the point of him being on.
Instead of him just fielding a few of Julie’s questions and leaving, he was sitting in with her fielding caller questions, and talking to Julie himself.
I don’t agree with Sununu on a lot of things but it was refreshing hearing a politician talk deeply about the issues, present the topics fairly, and not insulting the callers or Democrats with different views on the issues. He talked specifics and it was clear he’s got a deep knowledge about many different topics- no surface level stuff from him like Trump vomits out all the time.
But again, what I liked about him was his ease and respectful tone to callers- even the callers that disagreed with him. As a result, the callers that disagreed with him were respectful to him too. It’s nice to hear a politician speak that isn’t trying to win the social media war or culture war and can talk nuance- and admit to nuance. It’s clear he is a policy guy and has a deep knowledge of it.
They mainly talked immigration. He said he thought Republicans made a mistake in not passing it in the House. He didn’t like everything in the bill but thought it was, by far, the best thing out of Congress regarding immigration in 35+ years.
He also admitted what most people know – if the Speaker had brought the bill to the floor, it would have easily passed.
He did talk about Haley some- things you’d expect him to say.
But, he also said Haley’s father is quite sick right now and that every weekend Haley finds time to go see him. He said this had been very hard on her given that her husband is serving overseas and can’t help her at all.
“I don’t agree with Sununu on a lot of things but it was refreshing hearing a politician talk deeply about the issues…”
Which used to be common. All politicians did it, and they did it in a rational manner, or they simply didn’t rise to prominence.
Sununu isn’t a member of that generation, but his Dad was. And I didn’t like his Dad because he was Reagan’s chief of staff, and I couldn’t stand Reagan.
Now, it would be the biggest political blessing I can imagine to have Reagan, or Nixon, as the GOP nominee. I wouldn’t be a bit worried about the country.
But this problem — that politicians USED TO BE sane — is why there’s nobody on the Democratic side to step in and let Joe Biden retire. They’ve all grown up in a time when folks on both left and right are pretty much nuts, mostly in very different ways.
Come up with a Democrat not tainted by that environment, and immediately, folks will say that candidate is too old, too…
And to my left-of-center readers — there’s no need to cry out “the left isn’t nuts!”
I can explain it at book length, but I don’t have time. Just stipulate that Brad sees that they are, and that’s why he says there’s no one available. Or one reason why.
To make you feel better, as I always do, I will say once more (to beat you to it), that no, it’s not as bad as it is with the GOP electorate. And when it’s bad on the left, it’s bad in different ways.
Except on one point: Intolerance toward people who disagree. You see that manifest in similar ways on both left and right. We used to have something called “liberals,” who believed in the famous dictum widely attributed to Voltaire. Biden is a liberal. There aren’t many left…