Looking ahead a bit to the general election on this primary runoff day…
I received this video today from Joe McCulloch, who is running in a rematch against Rep. Kirkman Finlay, R-Richland.
I think this one’s going to be pretty hard-fought…
This was posted on Facebook today by Bill Connor, who was one of those running against Lindsey Graham two weeks ago.
“Rant,” by the way, is his own term, as you’ll see below. Anyway, I agree with much of what he says here:
Went in to vote just after 8 am, and the precinct was empty. Only around 4 names before mine. OK, I’m not going to hold back: That part (majority!) of the electorate in South Carolina too lazy to vote should be ashamed! Darn it, voting is a right bought and paid for by the sacrifices of so many, and the envy of so many throughout the world. This is about our future, and it is so easy to both vote (took me about 15 minutes out of my schedule, though it might take a few more minutes for others). It is also so easy to research candidates and their positions beyond a few silly TV commercials and signs. I look at the candidates on the ballot in at least one race in the GOP and KNOW that many voters did not conduct any research beyond seeing signs and watching commercials. It is obvious, and it isn’t right and some candidates with incredible backgrounds/ideas are not on the ballot (and I’m not talking about my race). I’m ticked. It’s the reason money buys elections and why so many complain about the influence of money and consultants. It’s due to darn lazy voters. It’s the reason we have the current administration, despite all the failures from 2008-2012. Laziness. I’m no longer going to apologize for that part of the electorate and do back-flips about ways we should reach them. We are all in this boat together and we all have the same civic duties of voting, serving in the military, paying taxes, serving on juries, etc. If this nation’s electorate cares about this state and nation, they will start doing their duty. OK, I’m done with my rant. Back to work!
Well, I did, and I was the only voter at the time. I was greatly outnumbered by poll workers, poll greeters, and media. It was 8:41 a.m., and I was the 46th voter to take a Republican ballot. Exactly one person had voted in the Democratic runoff.
Of course, I HAD to take a GOP ballot, having voted Republican two weeks ago. But had I not been wrongly, unfairly forced to do that (you should be able to vote in both primaries, any time), I would have anyway. I don’t think there was anything on the Democratic side other than superintendent of education, and I didn’t have an opinion on that choice. (Had I voted in that, lacking a view of my own, I likely would have accepted The State‘s recommendation and gone with Tom Thompson. As you may know, I generally, but not always, vote a straight State paper ticket.)
Whereas on the GOP side, I not only had superintendent of education and lieutenant governor, but a hotly-contested county council race.
On my way in I did something I don’t usually do, which is reveal how I was going to vote. Chalk it up to that knock on the head the other day; I cracked under questioning. And since I did it in the presence of the press, I’ll share it with you. I stopped to say hey to Tim Dominick from The State — he shot the picture below at my precinct (I hope The State won’t mind my sharing it — here’s the link to where I got it). He was chatting with a lady who urged me to vote for Bill Banning, for county council. Not feeling like being cagey, I said I would.
That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who read this story, or who otherwise has been paying attention. A key excerpt:
Anti-tax and limited-government groups are helping Tolar…
In other words, Tolar is sort of the tea party option. I mean, seriously. Anybody who thinks taxes are too high in Lexington County is not likely to get my vote.
Anyway, please share your voting experiences today. You don’t have to say how you voted. Unless you want to. And even then, you don’t have to…
Quail Hollow precinct, right before or after I was there. Photo by Tim Dominick of The State; click on it to read the story at thestate.com.
Seeing this ad today reminds me of I neglected to mention last week, what with getting knocked on the head and all.
I ran into Mike Campbell at the State House the day of all the excitement over McGill becoming Senate president pro tem, McConnell resigning, McGill becoming lieutenant governor, Massey giving his “coup d’état” speech, and Leatherman becoming president pro tem — whew, I have to take a breath after saying all that.
I asked him how he thought he was doing, and he said the same thing that campaign manager Hogan “Chuckles” Gidley said in that story in The State over the weekend — that “the scoreboard has been reset” for his lieutenant governor runoff against Henry McMaster, that even though McMaster did a lot better in the original vote, it’s all about who turns out for the runoff (which is tomorrow, in case you’ve forgotten), and you never know what will happen.
After all, as he reminds me, he got the most votes in the initial vote for this same office in 2006, only to have Andre Bauer — who was everywhere, campaigning tirelessly and visibly in his cast after his plane crash — come from behind and beat him. It was a bit of a stunner, widely attributed to Bauer’s pluck and indefatigability.
Some other random thoughts on this lieutenant governor runoff:
Not a big shock or anything — the state education association supporting the Democrat — but I pass this release on for your perusal:
The SCEA Recommends Sheheen for Governor
COLUMBIA (June 17, 2014) – The South Carolina Education Association (The SCEA), the state’s oldest professional organization for educators, today announced its official recommendation of Senator Vincent Sheheen for Governor of South Carolina.
“Senator Sheheen is the best choice for South Carolina, particularly because of his leadership and advocacy on behalf of public education,” said Jackie B. Hicks, President of The SCEA. “He is a product of public schools in the Camden area, and both of his parents were professional educators. His children now attend the same public schools he attended as a boy. In addition, as an attorney and business owner, Senator Sheheen is keenly aware of the profound connection between quality public schools and our ability to sustain and grow a viable workforce.”
During his service in the General Assembly, Senator Sheheen expanded access to 4-year-old kindergarten, because he understands the importance of investing in early learning. Moving forward, Senator Sheheen will continue to work tirelessly on increasing early childhood education opportunities, improving K-12 education, and strategies to make college more affordable for all.
“He doesn’t just talk the talk,” Hicks said. “Senator Sheheen is actively involved in our public schools. In fact, he still volunteers his time reading to elementary school students. You won’t see him turning away millions of our own federal tax dollars for education. Not on his watch.”
Senator Sheheen also supports increasing South Carolina teacher compensation to the national average and developing a more equitable state funding formula that distributes education resources based on need, not zip code and property value.
“Our citizens deserve better leadership from the Governor’s Office,” Hicks said. “Vincent Sheheen is the right man at the right time for South Carolina.”
###
There’s no one thing that’s particularly remarkable about this web video for legislative candidate Tombo Hite of Abbeville.
But it strikes me as a good example of how different it is to be a Democrat in South Carolina.
Strategist Tyler Jones brought this young attorney to my attention, saying:
Just want to forward you the new web ad for Tombo Hite, our House candidate in District 11 (Abbeville, Anderson). This guy is a rock star and has all the potential of any candidate I’ve seen in years. Keep your eye on him.
This district was held by a Democrat (Paul Agnew) until 2012 when a Democrat and a Democratic petition candidate split the votes and elected a republican, Craig Gagnon.
Yet, although according to that we should assume this is fairly safe territory for a Democrat, I’ve listened to this video twice, and if he mentioned being a Democrat, I missed it. (This is possible, because I was doing other stuff as I listened. But I know for sure he didn’t stress it.)
Then, there’s the fact that the first thing he wants you to know about him, policywise, is that he’s a fiscal conservative. Although he expresses that with a slight difference from Republicans. You have to listen carefully for it.
He says he wants to “get government out of the way and to keep our taxes low.” A Republican would want to lower taxes. Tombo is subtly telling you that our taxes are already low — which they are — and that he’s just going to keep them that way. (And indeed, I find his promise to fight a gas tax increase — an essential step to addressing our infrastructure problems — disturbing.)
After that, he sounds like a fairly typical Dem, SC-style. He wants to raise teacher salaries and revamp DSS.
And fight partisanship. So, good for him there. (Of course, if you’re a Democrat, you have extra motivation to want the General Assembly to be less partisan, so that maybe the majority will listen to you occasionally — not something that happens a lot in the House.)
Anyway, nothing dramatic here. I just thought I’d point those things out, for anyone unfamiliar with South Carolina Democrats and how they differ from the national variety.
I got rattled and did a stupid thing in the voting booth yesterday.
I had been unaware of the fact that there would be mock-referendum questions on the GOP primary ballot. So they took me by surprise. (The Democrats had their own questions; I just didn’t see those.)
One of the questions on my ballot. (Sorry about the glare.)
One asked whether unborn children should be protected by due process. The other was about doing away with the state income tax. Well, as you know, my main objection to abortion on demand is that it allows a single individual — and an extremely interested individual, the sort who would have to recuse herself were she a judge or juror in a court — to make a unilateral, irrevocable decision regarding life and death, one from which there is no appeal. So yeah, due process. And the last thing our tax system needs is to be thrown further out of whack by completely eliminating a leg of the three-legged stool.
So, since I was being asked to make a decision now, without further reflection, I said “yes” and “no.”
But I was uncomfortable with both answers, and went out feeling uneasy about them. And the reason why didn’t hit me until I was in the car: I shouldn’t have answered either of them!
I shouldn’t have answered them for two reasons:
First, I do not believe in direct democracy; it’s a terrible way to make important public decisions. Making decisions by plebiscite may not be the worst form of government, but it’s right up there. Or down there.
It’s not that the people are stupid and legislators necessarily wise. It’s the process itself. When you boil an issue down to a “yes” or “no” answer, you have usually oversimplified it, and guaranteed a bad policy decision by ruling out an in-between course. Second, the deliberative process (even though nowadays, with fixed partisan positions, precious little actual deliberation goes on) takes longer than a snap, thumbs-up or thumbs-down decision. A person who has days or weeks to think about an issue while it makes its way through a legislative body has far more time to study the issue, to talk with others about it, and think about it himself, and thereby make a more nuanced decision in the end.
Electing representatives to go through that process is part of the specialization that is a key characteristic of an advanced, modern economy. We are not independent yeoman farmers who produce all we need from our own land (and we weren’t in the late 18th century, despite what Thomas Jefferson may have fantasized). We may be smart people; we may be brain surgeons. But brain surgeons depend on other people to spend time learning to grow their food or build their smartphones or repair their air conditioners or, for that matter, operate on portions of anatomy other than their brains.
Most of us are too busy earning a living to study all the ins and outs and nuances of each issue, or engage in debate with people with differing views on the subject. So we elect people to go spend time doing all those things. They may be no smarter than we are, but that’s their job, and we rely on them to do it, or we elect someone else.
Second, those mock referenda may actually fool a lot of voters into thinking they’re deciding something — that it actually is a plebiscite — when they most emphatically are not. Which is another recipe for making people even more discontented with their government, when they see that what they voted for doesn’t happen.
Third, worse, the opposite can happen — partisans will actually use such ballot results as a guide to how they should vote, even how they must vote (because unfortunately, too few politicians understand that they are supposed to go and study and think and make decisions, rather than vote according to which way the wind is blowing). And you get calcified, immutable positions taken by lawmakers who think they don’t have the right to think for themselves and make a better decision.
That was the case with the most offensive of these mock referenda ever — the question on the 1994 Republican primary ballot asking whether voters wanted to keep the Confederate flag flying atop the State House dome.
It was a purely party-building thing. This was the year of the Angry White Male in national politics, as you will recall, and this was seen as a way to entice said males — those of the “Fergit, Hell!” subgroup — to come out and choose a GOP ballot. It worked — or something did. The AWMs turned out in droves, and of course voted to keep the flag up there.
It you’ll further recall, it was right after that election that the GOP took over the SC House. The election itself almost got them there, then some defections completed the job. This was the year when I had been stirring up unrest against the flag (that year was when I started doing that, as it was my first on the editorial board), so one of the first things the new GOP House did — citing the results of their mock referendum — was push through a bill that put flying the flag into law. Before that, a governor could have gotten up one morning and decided to tell the building maintenance not to raise the flag, and that would have been that (at least, in one optimistic, theoretical scenario). After that, the Legislature would have to act for anything to happen on the flag.
So, yeah, in case you were wondering — it’s not just a matter of violating abstract principles of good government. These things can do actual, long-lasting harm to our state…
Now that the primaries are over, you’ll be hearing more — although, I’m guessing, not a lot more — about the candidates of the new American Party started by Jim Rex and Oscar Lovelace. So, to help that along, I share this release I got this morning from the American Party candidate for Tim Scott’s U.S. Senate seat:
Hello!
We all have something in common — The American Party of SC. We all believe that it is time for a change and we have all indicated our willingness to do something to bring that change about. I have chosen to run for the United States Senate for South Carolina as a candidate under The American Party. I am not doing this alone – I know that you are with me. But we need to reach more South Carolinians. There are “centrist” groups of like-minded American citizens all over the U.S. and there are many right here in South Carolina. This is not just a state of right leaning conservatives. They, like we believe, that to end the gridlock in Washington and to put our country back on track we need to start finding ways to work together again. We need to put the partisan bickering aside and get down to the hard work of governing. After yesterday’s primary, we all can see that it is possible to change the status quo when passionate people work together to make that change happen.
The South Carolina primary is over and I am facing, Tim Scott, in the general election. Mr. Scott was appointed to his role as Senator. He is also a “Career Politician”. Tim has over $4 Million in his campaign fund. In order to compete in this campaign I need your help. T.V. is expensive, and it will be critical to get our message out to the voters of South Carolina at the right time. Print and mail is expensive, and it too will be critical to reach the voters we need to join us and help make history! Won’t you help me today by donating online at:https://secure.piryx.com/donate/pD4SkU1m/Jill-Bossi-for-U-S-Senate
If you don’t want to donate online, you can mail a check to the address listed below, made payable to: “Jill Bossi for Senate”
You can also forward this email to your friends and family and ask them to help. You can share our story with everyone you know and ask them to vote on November 4th. People talking to people will help. If you are willing to volunteer to help my campaign, please go to my website atwww.bossi4senate.com and fill in the Volunteer form. As the song says, “It’s time for us to do something!” Help me do something positive now for South Carolina, for our future and for America!
Thank you!
Jill
Jill Bossi for U.S. Senate
P.O. Box 213135
Columbia, SC 29221
Yes, it’s a bit weak. It needed an editor for the punctuation (“They, like we believe, that to end the gridlock…”), and the fact that Sen. Scott is a “career politician” is one of those lame, populist messages that leaves me cold (a fault which the new party is unfortunately prone to). But give her time. Maybe as time passes, she will offer reasons why Scott is doing a poor job, and why she would do better. Which would be helpful.
Anything strike you about this release from state Treasurer Curtis Loftis?
Dear Friends,
The citizens of South Carolina have chosen to re-hire me for another term. I am humbled, enthused and energized by their trust and approval – and I am thankful for the opportunity to provide proper stewardship of their money for another four years.
In 2010, I promised to make transparency and accountability the cornerstones of my efforts to protect your money. I am proud to say that I have done just that. Some insiders and special interests are not happy with me, but I don’t work for them – I work for you!
Our campaign was positive. We traveled extensively and listened to the voters – and we heard them loud and clear. The people want their money and assets protected, the retirement fund to be transparent and well governed, and fraud, waste and abuse in state government to be exposed.
Their mandate is simple, and we understand it. So tonight, we celebrate. Tomorrow, we go back to work with only one goal in mind – to serve the people of South Carolina by fulfilling their expectations.
I want to offer my sincere gratitude to all my supporters, volunteers, friends, and family. Your support has made all of this possible and I look forward to what we can accomplish in the coming years!
Sincerely,
Curtis Loftis
Treasurer, State of South Carolina
Anyone who chose a Democratic ballot yesterday is likely to say, “What? I didn’t vote for him — or even see him on the ballot.” And they won’t in November, either.
Curtis Loftis has, indeed, just been re-elected — by voters in the Republican primary, and no one else.
That’s fine, as long as everybody got a say. But not everyone did.
That’s why voters should have the power to vote in both primaries, and not have to choose one or the other. There is no good reason why someone who wanted to vote for Brad Hutto for US Senate yesterday should have to surrender his right to have a say in who will be state treasurer for the next four years, when those of us who preferred to help Lindsey Graham avoid a runoff did have that right. It’s just wrong.
Thus stood the lonely voting machines at 12:59 p.m. today at A.C. Moore Elementary School.
How’s the turnout where you’re voting?
At mine, shortly after polls opened this morning, there were only two or three other voters there while I was. (My Quail Hollow polling place, by the way, wasn’t where I expected it to be — but I found it OK.)
While out to get a late lunch, I ran by some polling places in the sort of midtownish area, which may or may not have been typical:
I didn’t see any problems, and if there were any, they should have been fairly simple to solve, given the light turnout. But I did hear something sort of ominous at Rosewood…
Poll watcher Jim Daly, father-in-law of Richland County Treasurer candidate David Adams (I had run into the candidate’s father over at A.C. Moore) said during the few times there had been more than one voter at a time checking in, there was a bottleneck, taking several minutes for each voter. He said that was because of the laptops where the voter information was kept. In previous elections, there had been several printed voter rolls instead of a single laptop, and several voters could be processed at once.
From talking with the poll workers, he had gathered that this was expected to be a huge problem in the fall.
I told him I’d mention it.
Of course, we don’t even know who’s going to be in charge of Richland County elections in November…
A still from a campaign video.
Where I live, I normally take a Republican primary ballot, because that’s the only way I get any choices, especially on local races.
But four years ago, I broke with that pattern because of one race: I wanted to vote for Vincent Sheheen. I was so disappointed by the whole Republican field for governor (even Henry McMaster, whom I had expected to like for the job, but hated the campaign he ran), and I wanted to have the positive experience of voting for somebody for governor, rather than trying to pick the least of evils on the GOP side. I did this even though it meant I was disenfranchised, unable to state a choice as a voter in several races in which the GOP primary was the election (and again, it is SO wrong that a voter has to make a choice like that — we should get a say on everyone who represents us).
Today, I went back to the GOP, so I didn’t have that problem. But still, as in 2010, my mind was on one race and one race only. Even if there had been compelling contests on the Democratic side that I wanted to weigh in on (there weren’t), I would have taken a GOP ballot simply to vote for Lindsey Graham. On this day, that was the best and highest use of my right and responsibility as a voter.
Totally apart from the fact that he deserves re-election and is a far better candidate than his challengers, the contest for his seat has much broader implications for our state.
The worst thing that can happen to South Carolina in today’s primaries would be for Graham to lose, and the second worst would be for him to get into a runoff.
If he loses (and a runoff makes it more likely that he might actually lose, if all the Graham haters unite behind one candidate), don’t ever expect to see a South Carolina Republican take a political risk in order to do the right thing for a long, long time. He would be the cautionary example of what happens if you think for yourself and stick your neck out.
Conversely, if he wins decisively today, it affirms the kind of thoughtful, principled representation of which we all know he, unlike his opponents, is capable.
The crowd of people running against him all smell blood in the water. Some are just dangerous extremists (Lee Bright) and others are opportunists willing to benefit from his vulnerability — and willing to cater to that same extremism in order to conquer. That must not be rewarded.
All sensible, moderate South Carolinians, regardless of party, should be asking for a GOP primary ballot today, and voting for Graham. And yet I know so many will find excuses not to.
One of my best friends, who for several years constituted the “liberal” wing of The State‘s editorial board (as he would tell you, though, more of a New Republic liberal than a Mother Jones liberal), wrote for a lot of Democrats and independents yesterday when he said:
“If those things happen, don’t EVER expect to see a South Carolina Republican take a political risk in order to do the right thing for a long, LONG time.”
When was the last time that actually happened? Has Lindsey Graham done anything in public during his current term that I actually am thankful for? I’d like to be wrong about this, but I can’t think of one thing in the last six years that I actually approve of. Anything?
It only took me a moment to come up with three good answers to that question:
1. He was the only Republican from SC to vote to reopen the government last fall — even as he was bracing himself for the current onslaught from the right.
The list of things that please me would be longer, but I was looking at it from Mike’s perspective. (The second and third points are particularly important, because they illustrate Graham living up to the principle he so often states — that elections have consequences, and unless a president’s nominees are simply unqualified, they should be confirmed. This is an incredibly important principle to the healthy functioning of our system of republican government, and all too rare today — it’s something that the ideologues of the left and right can’t even wrap their heads around. It’s the kind of thing that separates a statesman from a hack.)
It is SO easy for moderates (and the very few liberals in SC) to be turned off by Graham’s recent emphasis on messages that appeal to the hard right — opposition to Obamacare, going on and on about Benghazi, etc.
And of course, some of our friends — Bud and Doug come to mind — find that two-faced and deceptive. They’re wrong. And moderates (or liberals) who see only the things they don’t like, forgetting the things that they do like, are wrong as well.
There is absolutely nothing wrong, or deceptive, or duplicitous about stressing positions that you honestly hold that appeal to people who might vote for your opponents. An honest politician has not only a right, but an obligation to let voters who might be heavily critical of him know that he actually agrees with them on issues that are important to them. Graham has been a vocal opponent of Obamacare from the start; he and John McCain have been the main critics of the administration on Benghazi. And he is, just as he claims, a social conservative.
And moderates and those few liberals who may be turned off by this kind of campaign need to stop and think — this is the only way a guy like Lindsey Graham gets re-elected in this state. Your alternative is not Elizabeth Warren (God help us), or whoever you like out there. Your alternative is Lee Bright, or someone who in office would act like Lee Bright.
The kind of courage and thoughtfulness and sense of responsibility that Graham exhibits, at great political risk, on issues such as judicial confirmation, foreign aid, fiscal issues, immigration and energy are rare qualities. And no one else running for this office exhibits them.
For someone as high-profile as Graham to be brought low by the extreme Lilliputians of the Tea Party would be a tragedy for South Carolina, because nothing could be more guaranteed to make sure we don’t see his kind of courage in the future.
We can’t afford to lose this one guy who puts his country before party doctrine. We can’t afford to lose Lindsey Graham.
Another still from the same campaign video.
Tom Ervin, the third-wheel candidate for governor, had a presser this morning over at the state election commission. I did not make it, but this apparently is what he said:
Ervin Campaign Assures Spot on November BallotTom Ervin, the Independent Republican candidate for Governor, assured himself a spot on the November general election ballot when he and his campaign submitted 20,137 petition signatures of registered voters today to the South Carolina State Election Commission.The legal requirement of 10,000 valid signatures was easily swamped by Ervin, reporting signatures from every county in South Carolina.“Today we are simply grateful that by the hard work of so many, we have given voice to the thousands of South Carolinians who say enough is enough, it is time to put South Carolina first,” Ervin, of Greenville, said in a press conference outside the State Election Commission in Columbia.Ervin promised a series of education, economic and political reforms to shake up the race for governor.“We intend to shape this campaign — and to win it — by offering a different vision for our great state,” Ervin said. “We must improve our education system — from Pre-K through college — so that we are competitive for the jobs of the future and that all of our citizens — all of our citizens — have access to the same quality education.“We must have a bold economic plan — one that includes all South Carolinians, not just those lucky few who receive support from crony capitalism practiced here in Columbia. And we must restore trust in the state government by our citizens.“For too long, Columbia has been controlled by professional politicians and their patron lobbyists, looking after one another, surviving — no thriving — after yet another embarrassing scandal. The self serving and political back scratching will come to an end when I am governor.”Ervin will deliver a series of major policy speeches in the coming days, outlining in detail his three major areas of reform.###
Now what in the world this means for November, I have no idea. Can he be a factor in the election? Can he actually pull enough GOP votes to put Vincent Sheheen within striking distance (something he’s not likely to achieve on his own the way things are going)? Or, conversely, will he split the anti-Haley vote with Sheheen, thereby giving the incumbent a bigger margin of victory than she could have achieved on her own.
If so, then this is significant. Otherwise, not.
Not that you would likely make that mistake, but just as a reminder, I pass on his release from this morning:
Establishment Republican Trying to Seduce Obama Voters
On the eve of Lindsey Graham having to face his top challenger, Lee Bright, at the polls, Team Graham is running a quiet campaign to woo Democrats. Publicly, Graham’s Campaign is saturating South Carolina TV stations touting his supposed “conservative credentials” – yet he is simultaneously using web ads and social media to target Democrats and to remind them they can vote for him in the Republican Primary.
“Well, he’s the liberals’ favorite Republican in Washington, so he is simply following form by trying to sneak past 50 per cent with some Democrat voters,” said Bright, who added, “This is really so predictable. In fact, we predicted it. This is the guy who voted for ObamaCare before he voted against it, and who is very close to John Kerry. He’s obviously reaching out to his true base.”Edmund Wright, Bright’s Communications Director, said, “This is quintessential political cross dressing. It’s quite a little paradox too, targeting Democrats with web ads while using his lobbying money to spread the fabricated rumor that he’s a conservative on television.”
###
And did you like the oh-so-subtle cross-dressing reference? That Lee Bright, he’s such a smoothie…
The first thing you’ll notice is the length of this: At 1:44, it’s too long for a TV ad; this was made to distribute on the Web.
Perhaps because it’s as long as it is, it’s more effective than other things I’ve seen from this campaign — the slow march of headlines appearing as you hear Nikki Haley say how proud she is of Lillian Koller has a cumulative effect.
Of course, I still can’t honestly know how many of these horrific tragedies can in any way be laid at the feet of Ms. Koller or anyone else in the agency. Deciding whether children should remain with questionable parents has always been a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t proposition. There were deaths before Ms. Koller joined DSS, and there will be deaths after. If I’m wrong about the latter, I’ll be overjoyed, but I’m speaking from the base of what I’ve seen.
The larger point is about leadership and judgment. Was the governor right to so adamantly defend her director?
It’s perhaps instructive, to Democrats, Republicans and the rest of us, to compare this to the V.A. scandal on the federal level. President Obama stuck by Gen. Shinseki, up until the time he didn’t. And when Shinseki bowed out, the president used almost identical language to what the governor did — he praised the retired general, and said he was merely accepting the resignation so that Shinseki would no longer be a “distraction” from the task of solving the problem.
If there’s a difference, it may lie in tone. No-drama Obama was cool and dispassionate in standing by the general as long as he did. There was none of the this-is-personal touchiness that we get from Nikki Haley, particularly when she takes to her Facebook page.
Somebody pointed something out to me that I hadn’t picked up on — that during the session just ending, the governor’s staff kept her out of the State House for two of the three days a week the Legislature is in town. The purpose being to keep her from interacting with lawmakers in ways that would reflect badly on her in this election year.
I don’t even know if that’s correct or not — I haven’t studied the governor’s schedule. But if it is, it points to the thing as I said above is the key element to consider as voters. The last thing you want is a governor who stays away from the State House when the laws are being made, who doesn’t trust herself enough to stay cool and stay out of trouble. When I said that to the Republican who was making the observation, he smiled slightly and said what we know, that this governor isn’t all that interested in governing.
Which is another problem. But it’s tough to make punchy campaign videos, much less bumper stickers, that point these things out.
This just in today from Vincent Sheheen:
Sheheen Releases Plan of Action for SC Veterans
Gubernatorial candidate lays out plan to address delays and obstacles for veterans in-state given severe problems with national VA
Camden, SC. – Today, Sen. Vincent Sheheen released his plan of action for veterans in South Carolina to address the crisis at the Department of Veterans Affairs at the state level while Washington works out its problems. The plan lays out a course of action to be taken at the state level to get veterans the care and benefits that they need and have earned.
Sen. Sheheen’s plan for veterans includes immediate steps that he will begin work on in the legislature, and actions he would take as Governor of South Carolina.
This week, he will work with veteran and State Rep. James Smith to introduce budget provisos in the House to open DHEC clinics to veterans after-hours and on the weekend, provide no-interest loans to wounded warriors who are delayed their pensions due to DC’s backlog, and make specific requests of state agencies to take action at the state level and do right by South Carolina’s veterans.
View Sen. Sheheen’s plan of action for veterans as well as his other ideas for how to improve leadership and accountability in South Carolina at www.vincentsheheen.com. His book, “The Right Way: Getting the Palmetto State Back on Track” is free and also available online, here.
Honest Leadership for South Carolina’s Veterans
Our nation’s veterans put their lives on the line to protect and serve our country. The very least that the government should do is provide the care and the service those veterans were promised and have more than earned.
The major problems and delays that have been ongoing with the VA for decades, problems that are now amplified with the increase in veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, have brought us to a crisis point. The extreme dysfunction in the Department of Veterans Affairs that’s putting veterans at a terrible risk is unacceptable and requires urgent and appropriate action.
Washington has created this crisis, yet the leaders in Washington seem more interested in pointing fingers than taking the urgent action needed to properly address the crisis. Therefore, South Carolina leaders have no choice but to take immediate and aggressive steps to protect the health and lives of our veterans here in the Palmetto State.
To that end, Senator Vincent Sheheen has proposed an urgent plan of action for South Carolina’s 420,968 veterans, and is working with veteran and State Rep James Smith to get it done.
PROVIDE IN-STATE ALTERANTIVES FOR VETERANS TO ACCESS CARE
There have been six veterans’ deaths at Columbia’s Dorn VA Hospital that may have been caused by on-going delays in appointments.[1]Reports show 10,500 veterans have waited longer than 125 days for an appointment at Dorn.[2] And memos show that the VA knew of the delays here in South Carolina as far back as December 2011.[3] Clearly the problem is systematic, and we must take action to provide veterans with alternate ways to access care at the state level.
Open SC Public Health Facilities to Serve our Veterans
- Direct all DHEC Public Health Clinics to open after hours during the week and on Saturdays to provide appointments for veterans waiting for care through the VA.
- Create a Veterans Care Triage System within DHEC, in coordination with Dept. Mental Health, SCHHS and the SC National Guard, to work with VA-qualified veterans in need of healthcare.
- Expand outreach and resources to SC Department of Mental Health for veterans suffering from PTSD.
- Appoint a point-person to work with all state agencies, to:
o Help veterans wade through Federal red-tape and identify possible state solutions or alternatives for care;
o Hear from veterans being negatively affected by the VA’s national backlog to ensure no more veterans die while on a wait-list;
o Connect veterans with non-profit and other in-state organizations to ensure they get the medical care they need.
- Coordinate with rural hospitals, federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) in rural areas and free medical clinics – as well as any other501 c#3 funded by Medicaid – to find alternate ways of providing access to care for veterans
Accept Our Federal Tax Dollars to Expand Medicaid for Veterans in SC
- Expand Medicaid to provide health care to more than 13,000 veterans in the Palmetto State that earn at or below 138% of the poverty level, according to The Pew Institute.[4]
- Direct the Inspector General to conduct an audit of existing state programs and identify additional Federal or state-based funding sources currently not being used, that could help provide local veterans with access to care.
ENSURE DISABLED VETERANS GET THE PENSIONS THEY ARE DUE
There is currently a backlog of more than 340,000 veterans waiting for the VA to process their disability claims, and South Carolina should provide some level of financial security for these wounded warriors.[5]
Provide No-Interest Loans to Bridge the Gap
- Immediately provide no interest loans, through the S.C. Office of Veterans’ Affairs, for up to 80% of the claim filed, to disabled veterans waiting for their claims to be processed.
- Allow South Carolina’s veterans to repay those no-interest loans when the Federal government finally approves their claims.
- If a claim was denied, allow that veteran repay the loan with no penalty, so long as there was no finding of fraud.
Improve Public-Private Partnerships to Assist SC Veterans
- Increase funding for existing non-profits and faith-based organizations within South Carolina already helping veterans get access to the care they need.
[1] WIS-TV: Thousands of veterans wait months for appointments at Dorn VA, 5/28/14
[2] Center for Investigative Reporting: Where is the veterans’ backlog the worst?, 8/29/12
[3] WIS-TV: Thousands of veterans wait months for appointments at Dorn VA, 5/28/14
[4] Pew Charitable Trusts State & Consumer Initiatives: A Quarter-Million Vets will miss out on Medicaid Expansion, 5/27/13
[5] VA Press Release: Disability Claims Backlog reduced by 44 Percent Since Peaking One Year Ago, 4/1/14
Interesting choice of an issue for a gubernatorial candidate…
His eyes are focused on the future — the far, far future…
The campaigns just keep getting started earlier and earlier. But I think this is a first for me:
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Republican state Rep. Tommy Pope said Tuesday he plans to run for governor in 2018, calling the job an opportunity to advocate for statewide needs such as improving roads and bridges.
The 51-year-old York representative and former prosecutor said he made the decision after praying about it with his wife, adding that a formal announcement is likely two years away.
State leaders “need to focus on something larger than ourselves. The governor’s office gives the opportunity to lead in that direction on issues that are important to everybody, like state infrastructure,” he said. “We need to come up with a way to fund it, and we need to come up with a means of fairly distributing it.”
Pope’s comments come five months before voters decide who will be governor for the next four years. He is running for a third term in the House in November….
I really don’t remember when I’ve heard a prospective candidate state his intentions so definitely before the election before the one he intends to run in. It may not be the first time it’s happened, it’s just a first in my memory.
I mean, the guy just lapped the electoral cycle.
That said, I like that he’s talking about leading on infrastructure. Although I’m a little disappointed when he says, further down in the story, that “he stopped short of advocating for a gas tax increase statewide.”
If you’re getting such a long running start like this, it seems it would be because you were bursting to share some great new idea that no one else has had the brains and/or guts to put forth. Perhaps he’ll get back to us when he has one. No rush; there’s plenty of time…
Here’s the TV ad Democratic SC Sen. Brad Hutto just released. Two quick thoughts:
First, I have to say something to head off the confusion: That’s not me in this Sheheen campaign ad. That’s my twin, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott.
Just so we have that straight.
Anyway, I’m sure that I’m breaking this story, because the campaign sent this to me only minutes ago with the message…
Brad,
I wanted to send you a quick note to give you an exciting update! You’ve been one of our biggest supporters so far, and this campaign wouldn’t have achieved such success without you on the team. Because you’ve been such a great supporter, I wanted to make sure you’re the first to see our first television ad.Click here to watch our first ad…
Your unwavering support of Vincent has helped us get to where we are today.
But now we’re down to the wire. We have to close our budget gap and keep this ad on the air. Nikki Haley and her extremist friends have already flooded our airwaves with misleading ads. It’s time for us to fight back….
… and so forth.
So, I’m special. But the Sheheen campaign must be in big trouble, because it sees me as one of it’s “biggest supporters,” and I’ve never given them a penny…
Knowing the editorial board as I do, I had to do a double-take this morning when I saw Sen. Brad Hutto’s picture on an endorsement editorial in The State.
Not that Sen. Hutto is a bad sort of fellow or associated with other bad sorts — his mother, a longtime devoted reader of the paper with whom I corresponded regularly when I was the EPE, is a lovely lady, and she is the first association that comes to mind when I see his name — but my general impression is that he is at odds with positions taken by the board more often than he is in agreement. Or at least when he is at odds, he’s very visibly so. Also, he’s very much a Democratic Party happy warrior, gleefully engaging in the sort of partisan behavior that tended to set our teeth on edge.
Cindi (I assume) dutifully sets out arguments as to why he should carry the Democratic standard against Lindsey Graham, including one of our default reasons for slightly preferring incumbents, as long as they haven’t misbehaved:
AS POPULAR as it is these days to praise the virtues of outsiders, of political novices, the fact is that there is always a huge danger in electing someone who has never been active in their communities or engaged in public life, much less held public office.
S.C. Democrats, of all people, should understand this, after their disastrous encounter with Alvin Greene, the unemployed Army veteran who defeated a respected retired judge in the 2010 primary to win the U.S. Senate nomination and went on to become a serious embarrassment to the party and a distant loser to Republican Jim DeMint….
But the next sentence spoke more directly to the reason Sen. Hutto got The State‘s nod:
The danger is even greater when the unknown outsider has a criminal record.
State Sen. Brad Hutto has neither of these problems. The Orangeburg attorney is not a felon, and he has served respectably as an outspoken (which is to say high-profile) member of the Legislature for nearly two decades….
“He’s not a felon” may seem to be faint praise, one likely to lead us to lament that the standard should fall so low. But as a bottom-line standard, it’s hard to argue with…
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…
