Just now saw this e-mail from Rob Godfrey with the McMaster campaign:

Brad,

I realize you may not be in the loop, on top of the news or very well informed about the gubernatorial race these days, and that’s why I always hesitate to respond to anything that shows up on your blog. But I did want to point out that the Boiling Springs Tea Party endorsement of Henry was released both by the organization itself and our campaign before anyone knew anything about Sarah Palin’s trip to South Carolina. Thanks.

Rob Godfrey

McMaster for Governor

I immediately suppressed the irritation one would naturally feel at a complaint worded that way. I decided not to take his opening words as being deliberately insulting or anything like that.

Instead, I immediately acknowledged his point and promised to pass it on to my readers here on the blog. (Golly, I’m grown up — don’t you think?) Since I was seeing it all on Friday, I had failed to notice that the item on the campaign Web site and the Tweet that drew me to it were both dated the 13th — the same day as Nikki Haley’s announcement that Sarah Palin was coming to endorse her. I was certain, there for a moment, that he was wrong, because I was sure that when I saw that Tweet it was only one or two down on his Twitter account — but I guess they don’t post that often, because sure enough, it was the 13th.

So, sorry about that. Of course, it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve known for some time that Nikki has been pulling out all the stops to be THE Tea Party candidate.  Nor does it change my long-standing disappointment with Henry for refusing to distance himself from his party’s recent drift to the fringes — for, instead, pursuing them with his outrageous rhetoric about those “radicals” in Washington destroying our American way of life. And I realize that this would be most irritating to one in the trenches trying to get Henry elected. If I were on his campaign, I would be really ticked at someone like me. I would see that person as “out of the loop” to the extent that he was unrealistic about what it takes to get nominated in a Republican primary. I mean, doesn’t that washed-up, clueless Brad Warthen understand that Henry is the best of the Republicans, that he’s really a Graham Republican instead of a DeMint Republican, even if he dare not come out and say so right now?

Thinking about it, imagining that point of view, I almost get mad at myself.

In fact, I AM mad at myself for getting the sequence of events  wrong, and attaching importance to it. And I’m truly sorry.