Category Archives: Elections

Not that Vincent didn’t have a point…

Vincent Sheheen’s history may be a little shaky, but he has a point when it comes to crying out against his less favorite faction.

Not long before his release today about Independence Day, I received this from the SC Senate GOP:

Fighting Back!

The only way we are going to get rid of Obamacare is to defeat Barack Obama
Likewise, it’s looking increasingly like the only way we’re going to get Voter ID is to get a new U.S. Attorney General and a new President.

The Justice Department has once again blocked the implementation of the our Voter ID Law – the number one way we have to fight back against voter fraud.
You can read more about it here.

It’s implementation was blocked – once again – by Eric Holder, the man ironically just held in contempt of Congress

We need YOUR help to fight back. We have to make sure solid conservatives are elected to ALL levels of government so we can push back against this unwarranted federal intrusion.

LIKE this post if you want to send a message to Obama and Holder that we are not going to stand for them ignoring the rule of law any more!

Gentlemen, if that’s how you justify yourselves, then you’re not good for much. In fact, you are less than useful — you’re harmful.

Voter ID — whether Republicans or Democrats are trying to stir us up about it — is a big waste of time, something that is deeply important to the parties themselves, less so to our state and country.

And Obamacare, imperfect as it is, is the ONLY vehicle anywhere for addressing the dire need to reform our dysfunctional system for paying for healthcare in this country. Anyone who strives to repeal it without a credible alternative ready to instantly take its place (one that not only addresses the real problems, but is politically viable) is acting in direct opposition to the interests of this nation and its people.

And that is unforgivable.

Or, as I said, worse than useless.

I mean, really, that’s it? Voter ID, and repealing the only health care reform going? That’s the case you make as to why people should vote for you? That’s pathetic.

He don’t know me very well, do he?

Tom Davis on Lindsey Graham on mandates

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File photo of Tom, taken at the governor's mansion back when he worked for Mark Sanford.

Most of the time, people say that Tom Davis is gearing up to run against Lindsey Graham in the 2014 Republican primary. Sometimes, they shift and say he’s one of those preparing to run against Nikki Haley that year. But usually, it’s Lindsey Graham.

Tom encourages that way of looking at things by posting stuff like this on Facebook:

Lindsey Graham is now in front of every TV camera he can find, condemning health insurance mandates, but making no mention of the bill he cosponsored in 2009 (S. 391; the Wyden-Bennett Act) to impose mandates and corresponding noncompliance penalties.

I had forgotten about the Wyden-Bennett Act, if I ever knew about it. Well, good for Lindsey.

Tom forgets that conservatives used to be for mandates, before Barack Obama started agreeing with them. But Tom is not alone in that. Republicans in general have wiped that from their memories, because it would be inconvenient to their goal of demonizing the president over it.

Remember how in 1984, Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia? Until things changed, and all those records and memories were expunged, because now Oceania had always been allied with Eastasia, and at war with Eurasia?

It works like that.

And those grapes were probably sour anyway…

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Dick Harpootlian is making the best of the fact that his preferred candidate lost the primary that he had fought and clawed to get him into, issuing the following statement last night:

I would like to congratulate Dr. Gloria Tinubu on winning the Democratic run-off election and becoming our nominee for the 7th Congressional District. She ran a great campaign. If Republican’s worked half as hard as Dr. Tinubu, state government wouldn’t be on the verge of a shutdown this week. The Republican runoff was a race between Nikki Haley and Andre Bauer and either way South Carolina loses. They spent the last week in the 7th demonstrating the petty, selfish politics voters have come to expect from Republicans. Dr. Tinubu demonstrated the alternative Democrats are offering: determined and hardworking. The Democratic Party looks forward to working with Dr. Tinubu to elect her as our first Congresswoman from the 7th Congressional District this November.

Aw, he didn’t want those grapes he couldn’t reach anyway…

Yeah, but you’re not what I had in mind, Gary

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WARNING! THE ABOVE VIDEO IS EXTREMELY LOUD! So if you want to see it, turn your volume way down first…

Just before routinely deleting another release from Libertarian Gary Johnson, I glanced at the content:

June 25, 2012, Santa Fe, N.M. – In a new video, “The Vote for Freedom is Never Wasted,” Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson has words for Democrats and Republicans who are worried his candidacy will take votes away from Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

“I say, ‘Good,'” states Johnson in the video. The former two-term governor of New Mexico continues, “They deserve to lose your vote. Take as many votes as possible away from the people in both parties keeping us in a state of perpetual war, increasing unsustainable debt, record joblessness, and a bipartisan economic death wish ruining America for 330,000,000 of us.

“You have stated you want a third choice, and now you have one in me.”

Yeah. OK. Here’s the thing, Gary…

When I complain about the choices I have, it’s really not much help to offer me a much, much worse third option. I mean, by your logic, I should be happy for the chance to vote Nazi, or Communist, because it would be a third way.

The only thing worse than the two parties we have is pretty much every party that has emerged to challenge them in this country. Look at the biggest of the pygmy parties — the Libertarian. It takes the worst thing about the main two parties and takes it to a greater extreme. OK, the second-worst thing.

The second-worst thing about the Democratic and Republican parties is their drive toward ideological purity, as opposed to sensible, pragmatic approaches to policy. (What’s the worst thing? The worst thing is party solidarity — or whatever you want to call the phenomenon whereby a member of Party A greets the stupidest thing a fellow member of Party A says as wisdom, while dismissing as foolishness the wisest thing that a member of Party B says.)

Just because something is an alternative doesn’t mean it’s a good one. Not by a long shot. And in this country, the “alternatives” are generally just plain awful.

ONE Democratic leader backs Tinubu

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Harry Ott broke with the establishment pack today:

Columbia, SC – House Minority Leader Harry Ott (D-Calhoun) endorsed Congressional candidate Gloria Bromell Tinubu in the race for South Carolina’s Seventh District on Monday. Tinubu faces Myrtle Beach lawyer Preston Brittain in a runoff on Tuesday. Ott released the following statement:

“I am proud to announce my support for Gloria Bromell Tinubu in Tuesday’s Democratic runoff. Mrs. Tinubu won the initial primary with over 52% of the vote and I believe it would be wrong to reverse her victory. The people of the seventh district have spoken, and they have chosen Gloria.”

“It is time for Democrats to come together and rally behind Gloria Tinubu as our nominee. It is critical to be unified as a party through November and to elect a Democrat who will fight for full employment, improve our public education system, protect medicare and social security, and advocate for investments in highway infrastructure.”

###

So that’s Harry Ott and the AFL-CIO on one side, and John Spratt, Jim Hodges, Vincent Sheheen and John Land… and I suppose we should include Dick Harpootlian… on the other.

And tomorrow, we’ll see just how much pezzonovante endorsements are worth in the Democratic Party these days.

The four-day runoff campaign in the 7th

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Just got around to this news from yesterday:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A Tuesday runoff election has been set to determine the Democratic nominee in South Carolina’s new 7th congressional district after a judge ruled all ballots cast in the race should be counted.

The Election Commission said it will not appeal the ruling and is preparing voting machines for the new race, while the candidate that was originally declared the winner said Friday evening she hasn’t decided whether she will appeal.

The ruling on Friday means an unprecedented four-day campaign for the district, which stretches from Florence to Myrtle Beach, in the northeast part of the state. With all the votes counted in the five-way contest, Gloria Bromell Tinubu, a Coastal Carolina University economics professor, received 49 percent of all the votes cast in the June 12 primary, while Myrtle Beach attorney Preston Brittain received 37 percent.

In his ruling, Judge Larry B. Hyman Jr. said the state Election Commission was wrong when it refused to count votes for state Rep. Ted Vick, D-Chesterfield, who dropped out of the race after a drunken-driving arrest in late May.

I don’t know what to think of it, other than this… I’d like to go through a period of time in which people file for office, and run, and don’t get kicked off the ballot, and either win or lose based on the number of votes on that day, without all of these courtroom dramas changing or putting forth new interpretations on rules, and changing results, to the point that we can’t keep track of who’s running for what when.

That would be nice, just for a change.

Do you really think Obama’s that much ahead?

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I don’t. And even if he is, it’s a long way until the election. But I’m curious what y’all think of the Bloomberg survey everybody’s talking about:

Barack Obama has opened a significant lead over Mitt Romney in a Bloomberg National Poll that reflects the presumed Republican nominee’s weaknesses more than the president’s strengths.

Obama leads Romney 53 percent to 40 percent among likely voters, even as the public gives him low marks on handling the economy and the deficit, and six in 10 say the nation is headed down the wrong track, according to the poll conducted June 15- 18.

The survey shows Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, has yet to repair the damage done to his image during the Republican primary. Thirty-nine percent of Americans view him favorably, about the same as when he announced his presidential candidacy last June, while 48 percent see him unfavorably — a 17-percentage point jump during a nomination fight dominated by attacks ads. A majority of likely voters, 55 percent, view him as more out of touch with average Americans compared with 36 percent who say the president is more out of touch.

I haven’t seen anything happen out there that suggests we’ve moved away from our dead-heat impasse in American politics. But maybe it looks different from outside SC…

Back to the days of unlimited, unregulated spending on political campaigns in SC

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Free Times reporter Corey Hutchins really needs to get himself a job at a daily newspaper (before they’re all gone). A weekly publication just doesn’t provide enough outlet for his energy.

Corey calls my attention to another of his freelance pieces, this one for the Center for Public Integrity. It’s about how the rules changed to essentially free up third-party committees to spend whatever they want in SC elections, with no accountability. An excerpt:

In 2010, a little-noticed ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Terry Wooten in Florence, S.C., kicked the regulatory teeth out of a key statute in the state’s campaign finance laws and opened the floodgates for untraceable political spending by many of the groups seeking to influence elections.

The case revolved around a seemingly mundane sliver of minutiae — how the word “committee” is defined under South Carolina law. But the effects of Wooten’s ruling were far-reaching indeed, and that’s likely just how famed conservative lawyer James Bopp — the star of the case — wanted it. In the Palmetto State, suddenly all bets were off when it came to independent expenditures meant to influence elections. And they still are.

“Until we clarify it, it’s the Wild West to a certain extent,” says Wes Hayes, a Republican lawmaker who chairs the S.C. Senate Ethics Committee. “Until we get that clarified we have no law.”

State legislators, ethics regulators and good government groups here haven’t yet been able to put back the pieces — not in last year’s legislative session, and not in the one just finished either.

Unless and until they do, many worry that South Carolina will remain in a state of anarchy in regard to secret money and its effect on campaigns — with a high-stakes election just five months away…

I urge you to go read it. As Corey said in calling attention to it:

Ready to re-live the days of unlimited, untraceable, undisclosed political spending of the video poker barons in the late ’90s?

It’s already happening post primary, and is bound to get worse. This story shows why.

Actually, Wawa IS pretty amazing

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Let’s set aside for a moment whether Mitt Romney was having a “Bush at the checkout” moment of cluelessness, or celebrating technology that denies jobs to the working class, or any of that stuff.

The bottom line for me is that Wawas are pretty amazing.

Have you ever been to one? I have, in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It is unlike any other Interstate exit/convenience store/gas station/fast food experience I’ve ever had. I wish I could have taken my late father-in-law to one. Since he was in the convenience-store business in Memphis, he would have fully appreciated it.

It’s a sort of Alice’s Restaurant “you can get anything you want” experience, laid out in an attractive and accessible manner.

The last time I stopped at one, the manager told me that Wawa was about to open some stores in South Carolina. Has anyone seen one down here yet? (If so, they’re not included on this store locator, which indicates they are only to be found in DE. MD, NJ, PA and VA.)

Turnout was so low (11.85%), not even I voted

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I’m embarrassed to admit that, because I don’t think it’s happened since the first time I was eligible to vote in 1972. But I was not in town Tuesday, and when I tried to determine last week what I would be missing so that I could vote absentee, I was frustrated.

I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss anything, beyond the opportunity to register a symbolic protest vote against Joe Wilson. I guess I could have voted for my neighbor Bill Banning for county treasurer. But you know, I haven’t the slightest idea whether he or incumbent Jim Eckstrom (who won easily) would have been better in the post. Which is the main reason why the position should not be elective.

Oh, as for my bid to find out what I was missing — I went to the project Vote Smart site to check and see what would be on the ballot in my precinct, and ran into two problems: There were no county races listed, and I think the state House district was wrong. At least, Kenny Bingham recently told me that I had been drawn into his district, and Vote Smart still had me in Rick Quinn’s. So I don’t know. In any case, neither had serious opposition that I heard about.

Add to that the mess with all the challengers thrown off the ballot, and I was pretty sure (and still am) that I was missing no significant opportunities.

Still, I feel bad about it. And I’m not consoled by knowing that almost no one else voted (turnout was a record-low 11.85 percent of eligible citizens). I’ve never considered myself to be in the same category as voting slackers. I suppose next I’m going to take up watching reality TV 10 hours a day.

Anyway, a few brief observations about what did happen:

After all the coverage she got, Kara Gormley Meador’s bid to become a newsmaker came to nothing. The few voters who showed agreed with The State and stuck with Ronnie Cromer.
Aside from that, there are indications that if all those people hadn’t been thrown off the ballot, some of them would have won. As The State noted, “Just nine senators and 14 House members faced primary challengers – including the four House members vying for two seats – in a year when all 170 legislative seats are up for election.” But of those 23 with opposition, six lost. That indicates the mood was right for some change.
All those Democratic bigwigs who endorsed Preston Brittain were utterly ignored by the almost solidly black Democratic primary electorate of the new 7th congressional district. To put it in brutally frank terms, Andre Bauer or whoever wins the runoff is probably going to be happy to run against a candidate named Tinubu who was distinguished in the primary as being the one endorsed by the AFL-CIO. But what there still is of the Democratic “establishment” in SC may be pinning its hopes on a challenge to the result. Oddly, they’re not saying Brittain had the votes; they’re saying that if Vick’s votes had been counted, he’d be in a runoff (remember Vick, who self-destructed?). So. Stay tuned.
One good bit of news: Gwen Kennedy will not be on Richland County Council any more.

Y’all have any other thoughts to share? Let’s have ’em.

All I can think is that Congress just hasn’t been in the news all that much lately

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Gallup finds that Congress is slightly less wildly unpopular than it was last time they checked:

PRINCETON, NJ — Americans’ approval of Congress is at 17% in June, similar to the 15% in May, and continuing the generally low levels seen since last June.

Congress’ latest job approval reading, based on Gallup interviewing conducted June 7-10, is modestly higher than the all-time low of 10% recorded in February. Similarly, disapproval of Congress, now at 79%, is the same as in May, and not far below the record-low 86% recorded in February, and in December 2011.

Congressional job approval has generally been low for years, with readings as low as 18% in the summer of 2007 and 14% in July 2008. It did improve in 2009, as Barack Obama entered his initial “honeymoon” phase as president, with his own job approval ratings in the 60% range. In March 2009, Congress’ job approval reached 39%, the highest it had been since February 2005. But that period of relative positivity did not last, and in 2010, 2011, and so far this year, Congress’ approval ratings have routinely been below 20%. Approval of Congress has averaged 14% so far in 2012.

The only explanation I can think of is that we haven’t heard much from Congress lately. That would tend to reduce the level of utter contempt in which most of us hold the institution.

But watch — the Midlands’ two members, Joe Wilson and Jim Clyburn — will be re-elected, practically by acclamation.

A bad idea (electing judges) gets worse in NC

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The popular election of judges has always been a terrible idea. But now, thanks to Citizens United, it’s worse:

The North Carolina Judicial Coalition is a new tax-exempt organization, known as a super PAC, supported by wealthy conservative Republicans who are determined to make this year’s race for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court ideological and expensive.

This kind of influence in judicial elections is a direct result of the Citizens United decision, which allows corporations and unions to make unlimited so-called independent expenditures in campaigns. In adissent in that case, Justice John Paul Stevens predicted that such spending would overwhelm state court races, which would be especially harmful since judges must not only be independent but be seen to be independent as well. North Carolina is proving him right…

The North Carolina Judicial Coalition was set up to re-elect state Justice Paul Newby, who has opposed adoptions by same-sex couples and disallowed a lawsuit challenging alleged predatory lending. He gives conservatives a 4-to-3 advantage over liberals on the State Supreme Court and is being challenged by the more liberal state appellate judge, Sam Ervin IV, a grandson of the senator and son of a federal appeals judge…

Go read the whole editorial. Yep, it was always a bad idea — nothing like picking justices on the basis of Kulturkampf issues — but now it’s expensive, too.

Corey’s graphic novel about Alvin Greene

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I’m cleaning out my IN box, and I run across a 10-day-old message from Corey Hutchins saying that his graphic novel about Alvin Greene is available for iPhone and iPad — and probably on paper, by now (yes, it is!). This is from altweeklies.com:

Columbia Free Times staff writer Corey Hutchins and former alt-weekly writer David Axe released iPhone and iPad versions of a 100-page graphic novel that traces the stranger-than-fiction U.S Senate campaign of one of American’s most enigmatic political figures, Alvin Greene.

Readers can purchase iPhone and iPad versions of the book, The Accidental Candidate, for $4.99 prior to its release in hard copy.

“Some of my friends don’t read books,” said Hutchins, a political reporter who chronicled the story of Avlin Greene for Free Times. “But they’re on their iPhones all the time. We thought it was a way to reach an audience that’s not so much into the tree-slaying aspect of literature. Tweet that.”

If you’ll recall, Corey was the only reporter in the universe (to my knowledge, so I guess I should say, “in the known ‘verse”) who actually interviewed Greene prior to his becoming the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate.

No question, Ronald Regan was a great Amercian

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OK, now we’re getting into the nit-picking, since this time it was small type way down in a slide, rather than the title of an initiative. And it wasn’t the candidate himself who made either mistake:

First “Amercia,” then “sneak-peak,” and now “Ronald Regan.” No wonder the Romney campaign is searching for a copywriter. (Required skill: “Ability to edit and proof own work.”)

Buzzfeed spotted the latest spelling error from the Romney team on Wednesday after taking a look at a slideshow the campaign’s pollsters put together for bundlers, and the rest of the Web appears to have taken notice. (The Gipper’s last name is spelled Reagan.) Among the international outlets currently running the story: Britain’sTelegraph, Canada’s Star and Ireland’sIndependent.

The typo was in a chart showing the approval ratings of incumbent presidents in the May before their re-election attempt. “Ronald Regan” was noted as having a 53 percent approval rating. (For the record, Obama’s was 47 percent, according to the chart).

But that’s the way it works. Poor ol’ Gerald Ford stumbles once, and the heartless media marketplace labels him a klutz.

For Romney, it looks like it’s gonna be spelling. Sorry, Mitt; them’s the breaks.

I was not aware that she had a CHOICE in this

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I’ve been sort of puzzling over this press release since it came in yesterday:

Carol Tempel to Withdraw from House District 115 Race After Supreme Court Ruling

“It’s the right thing to do”

Carol Temple

Charleston, SC – Democrat Carol Tempel announced Wednesday that she will withdraw from seeking the Democratic nomination for House District 115 (James Island, Folly Beach, Kiawah) after Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling that very clearly stated that candidates must turn in their Statements of Economic Interests and Statements of Intention of Candidacy at the same time. Tempel acknowledged she had inadvertently filed electronically but did not submit a paper copy of her Statement of Economic Interest and thus will be forgoing a run for the nomination. Tempel released the following statement on Wednesday:

“The Supreme Court could not have been more clear in their ruling yesterday. If candidates did not file properly, they should not be on the ballot. I accept full responsibility and thus will forgo seeking the Democratic nomination for House District 115. While the opportunity of serving the people of Charleston County is still on the table, I had to respect yesterday’s ruling and uphold the rule of law. I call on other candidates in Charleston County to follow my lead and do the right thing. If you did not file properly, do not risk being held in contempt of court by stubbornly trying to remain on the ballot. I look forward to fellow James Island resident Paul Thurmond and all other candidates in Charleston County who did not file properly to respect the law and immediately withdraw from the race. “

Tempel is currently weighing the option of running as a petition candidate for House District 115.

#####

OK… but as far as I know, she had no choice in this. I mean, she was legally off the ballot. So I’m confused by the “It’s a far, far better thing I do” tone of this announcement, as though she were making some sacrifice, of her own volition, for the principle of the Rule of Law.

Or maybe I’m just misreading it…

The State roundly rejects Kara for the Senate

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Yes, the endorsement of Ronnie Cromer today in The State discussed him and the other two people challenging him as well, but I take interest in what was said about Kara Gormley Meador in particular because I’ve written about her here.

Here’s what the editors said:

Kara Gormley Meador promises to shake up the status quo without the anger that often accompanies such pledges. Yet despite the fact that our state has some of the lowest taxes in the nation and our Legislature has a fixation on tax cuts, “tax reform” in her mind must include cutting taxes. Even after years of budget cuts, she’s convinced we need spending caps. And while she makes a point of saying she wants to strengthen the public schools, every time we asked her for specifics, she turned the conversation back to home schooling and private schools, and the need to excuse parents from paying their taxes if they take their kids out of public schools.

Dang, I really can’t argue with any of that. Right down the line, she advocates some really ill-considered ideas. And I was sort of vaguely aware of that when I wrote about her.

But it’s interesting to me to be reminded how differently I would have seen her if I had been talking with her for the purpose of deciding whether to endorse her — and the words in that editorial seem consistent with what I would have concluded, given the same evidence. But since I hadn’t been trying to judge Kara — since I was writing about her within the context of it just being interesting that this local personality had tried to vote in one district, then had to run in another — the picture didn’t gel in my mind. I even encouraged her to run.

Not that I was blind to her faults. Here’s part of what I wrote before:

Those of you who know me can see some significant disconnects with my own positions on issues. For instance, as an ardent believer in representative democracy, I would neither unduly limit the voters’ ability to elect whom they like (term limits) nor use a mathematical formula to supersede the representative’s powers to write a budget (“cap government growth”).

Further, I see inconsistencies in her vision. Today, she indicated that she believed enough waste could be found in state spending to both fully fund the essential functions of state government (which she correctly describes as currently underfunded) and return enough money to taxpayers to stimulate our economy.

In a state as tax-averse as this one, there’s just not enough money there to have your cake and eat it, too, barring a loaves-and-fishes miracle. (OK, enough with the clashing metaphors.)

But she’s smart, she’s energetic, and she seems to have no axes to grind. I think she’d quickly see that you can’t do it all, and make realistic assessments of what can and should be done. Her disgust with the pointless conflicts of modern politics, and the way they militate against a better future for South Carolina’s people.

Ohmygosh, do you see what I just said? “I think she’d quickly see that you can’t do it all, and make realistic assessments of what can and should be done.” And then later, I wrote, “My impression is that Kara has the character to be a positive force in politics, whatever her current notions of specific policy proposals.” Wow. Those are the same excuses I used to make about a certain other attractive young woman with a lot of energy and a nice smile. You know, the one who never really learned much of anything, and takes pride in the unchanging nature of her mind. The one who is now our governor, if you need me to get specific.

Once again, I’m reminded of the value of the endorsement process, properly done (and my regret that newspapers do so few of them now). Its value to the journalist, and to the reader. In that process, you get past vague impressions and force yourself to ask the questions that help you evaluate your initial impressions more systematically. Which The State did today.

I still like Kara personally, but that has little to do with whether she’d be a better senator than Ronnie Cromer.

They got a union just for SERGEANTS? Really?

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When I saw this headline at the Chicago Sun-Times site — “Ex-head of Chicago police sergeants union sentenced to 12 years in prison” — I thought what any ol’ Southern boy would think:

They got so many unions up there, they got a special one just for sergeants?

Apparently so.

Which means that those other parts of the country are… really different… from down here. And I don’t mean that in a good way.

As I’ve said before, I don’t hold with public employee unions. Public employees work for the people, not some separate private entity. That means they serve themselves as well as their friends and neighbors. Given that special relationship, there’s something really twisted about employer and employed being on opposite sides of a bargaining table. We should be able to rely on their being on the same side.

Fortunately, that’s one thing (one of the few) that I don’t have to worry about in South Carolina. We ain’t got none o’ that.

Unfortunately, we do get some of the negative effects of public employee unions here, with none of the dubious benefits. For instance… you know all that money that flows into our state from people trying to elect legislators who will undermine public education? They are to a great extent motivated by their animus toward “teacher unions.” Well, we don’t have any of those here, which is why it’s bitterly ironic that we should be a battleground for that issue (thanks in large part to Mark Sanford — his being governor persuaded those interests that South Carolina was fertile ground for their movement). The SCEA is a professional association, not a collective bargaining unit.

Today in the WSJ, there was yet another screed against teacher unions — which of course has no application to South Carolina. Sadly, too few in our state understand that, based on how many times I hear public education critics in our state moan about how the “teacher unions” stand in the way of improving education here. (I actually heard it from the lips of a Rotary speaker recently.)

Anyway, these are the things I’m thinking about as voters in Wisconsin decide whether to recall their governor over a battle about public employee unions. A fight in which we do not have a dog.

Inglis on why the tribe turned against him

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Kathryn brings my attention to this interview piece with Bob Inglis on Salon.

Bob Inglis is a guy for whom I’ve always had a lot of respect — ever since he got elected to Congress in the early 90s as a fiscal (and cultural) conservative, and then voted against highway money for his own district. This was back when nobody did this. “Conservatives” like Strom Thurmond had always talked a good game, but brought home the bacon. Inglis was a trailblazer.

To listen to Bob Inglis talk is to respect him, just as he respects others — something that sets him apart.

Inglis has always been deeply conservative, and deeply committed to his principles. But the know-nothings of his party unceremoniously dumped him in the last election, basically — as near as I can tell — for not being as angry as they were.

Anyway, this is an interesting passage:

Inglis remembers campaigning door-to-door and encountering hostility for the first time.

“I’m wondering, ‘Why is this happening?’” he said. “And what I came around to is that what happens is the tribe selects you to go to Washington. You believe with the tribe, you agree with them, and you go to Washington as their representative.

“Then you get there and you mingle with these other tribes, and you come to understand their point of view – not agree with it, but understand it. So when that view is presented, you don’t have the same sort of shocked reaction that some of the tribe members at home have to hearing that view.”

He recalled getting to know John Lewis, the civil rights icon and Democratic congressman from Georgia.

“He is an incredible American,” Inglis said. “I just disagree with him on this budget thing. But back at the tribe, at the tribal meeting, it’s like, ‘He’s some kind of Communist, that John Lewis. He’s not an American.’ No! He’s an incredible American. He’s one of our heroes.

“But the tribe doesn’t see that. The tribe sees you as sort of getting too cozy with John. And then they start to doubt you, because of this betrayal response. We are hard-wired to respond very violently – as I understand it, the brain really responds to betrayal. It’s one of the strongest human emotions.”…

Inglis, a conservative Republican to his core, speaks here to a very UnParty sensibility. You have your principles and you stand up for them. But that doesn’t mean you delegitimize those with whom you disagree. If you do that, the deliberative process upon which our system of government is built collapses.

Bob understands that. Too few who still hold office do.

Hoping Obama won’t really run this way

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Maybe y’all have time to read this piece by John Heilemann in New York Magazine. I don’t, not today. If you do, please get back and tell me that things don’t really look as dark as they do at the beginning:

The contours of that contest are now plain to see—indeed, they have been for some time. Back in November, Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin, two fellows at the Center for American Progress, identified the prevailing dynamics: The presidential race would boil down to “demographics versus economics.” That the latter favor Mitt Romney is incontestable. From high unemployment and stagnant incomes to tepid GDP growth and a still-pervasive sense of anxiety bordering on pessimism in the body politic, every salient variable undermines the prospects of the incumbent. The subject line of an e-mail from the Romney press shop that hit my in-box last week summed up the challenger’s framing of the election concisely and precisely: “What’s This Campaign Going to Be About? The Obama Economy.”

The president begs to differ. In 2008, the junior senator from Illinois won in a landslide by fashioning a potent “coalition of the ascendant,” as Teixeira and Halpin call it, in which the components were minorities (especially Latinos), socially liberal college-educated whites (especially women), and young voters. This time around, Obama will seek to do the same thing again, only more so. The growth of those segments of the electorate and the president’s strength with them have his team brimming with confidence that demographics will trump economics in November—and in the process create a template for Democratic dominance at the presidential level for years to come…

Y’all know how I feel about Identity Politics. I want leaders who want to lead all of us, not this or that arbitrarily selected subset. Obama, to me, is the guy who inspired a victorious crowd in Columbia to chant, on the night of the 2008 South Carolina primary, “Race doesn’t matter!” Amen, said I. The atmosphere that night — when voters rejected the continued partisan strife that the Clinton campaign seemed to offer — was one in which we put our divisions behind us, and work toward building a better country together, as one people.

And if there’s anything more distressing in my book than Identity Politics, it’s Kulturkampf. Those couple of paragraphs are enough to push me toward political despair on that count. The next two grafs are worse:

But if the Obama 2012 strategy in this regard is all about the amplification of 2008, in terms of message it will represent a striking deviation. Though the Obamans certainly hit John McCain hard four years ago—running more negative ads than any campaign in history—what they intend to do to Romney is more savage. They will pummel him for being a vulture-vampire capitalist at Bain Capital. They will pound him for being a miserable failure as the governor of Massachusetts. They will mash him for being a water-carrier for Paul Ryan’s Social Darwinist fiscal program. They will maul him for being a combination of Jerry Falwell, Joe Arpaio, and John Galt on a range of issues that strike deep chords with the Obama coalition. “We’re gonna say, ‘Let’s be clear what he would do as president,’ ” Plouffe explains. “Potentially abortion will be criminalized. Women will be denied contraceptive services. He’s far right on immigration. He supports efforts to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage.”

The Obama effort at disqualifying Romney will go beyond painting him as excessively conservative, however. It will aim to cast him as an avatar of revanchism. “He’s the fifties, he is retro, he is backward, and we are forward—that’s the basic construct,” says a top Obama strategist. “If you’re a woman, you’re Hispanic, you’re young, or you’ve gotten left out, you look at Romney and say, ‘This [f*@#ing] guy is gonna take us back to the way it always was, and guess what? I’ve never been part of that.’ ”

Yeah, that’s all we need. A campaign that sees itself as an army of indignant minorities, feminists, gays and young people up against a coalition of self-interested white males, Ayn Randers, birthers and nativists, with both sides convinced that it is at war with the other. And each subset being motivated not by what’s good for the country, but by what it sees as advantageous to itself as a group.

So much for the United States.

All that’s left to me at this point is to hope the campaign plays out differently from the way this writer envisions it.

bradwarthen.com

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