Category Archives: Elections

If Mitt loses election, he also loses $5 million a year

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The AP reports on an additional reason for Mitt Romney to run really, really hard to win this thing:

WASHINGTON (AP) — To see where the presidential candidates stand on taxing the rich, just look at how they’d tax themselves. Under his own proposal, Mitt Romney would pay half what he would under President Barack Obama’s tax plan. For a man of Romney’s means, that could save almost $5 million a year.

For Obama, not as loaded as Romney but still well-off, losing re-election could provide a tax windfall. He’d save as much as $90,000 a year if Romney’s plan were enacted rather than his own tax-the-rich vision.

Two nonprofit research groups, the liberal-leaning Citizens for Tax Justice and conservative-leaning Tax Foundation, did the calculations, based on the most recent completed tax returns released by the candidates. Compared with what they owed in April, both men would be dinged in 2013 under Obama’s proposal, along with other wealthy taxpayers. They could expect savings under Romney, depending on which tax breaks the former Massachusetts governor decides to oppose….

That’s assuming, of course, that paying a lot more in taxes matters to Mitt. It apparently doesn’t to his opponent, but of course, he has less to lose.

If I had Mitt’s fortune, I don’t think it would matter to me. But then, that’s probably because I’m not the kind of guy who was ever motivated go out and amass all those bucks. Chicken or egg thing.

Then, suddenly, the economy got worse faster than you can say ‘Polish death camp’

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This hasn’t been a good week for Mr. Obama. First there was the “Polish death camp” thing that wouldn’t go away. (Hey, I understood what he meant, didn’t you? But just try explaining it to the Poles…)

Today, there’s this:

Worst U.S. Job Data in a Year Signals Stalling Recovery

A dismal job market report Friday gave a resounding confirmation to fears that the United States recovery has markedly slowed, reflecting mounting evidence of a global slowdown.

The report, which showed the smallest net job growth in a year and an unemployment rate moving in the wrong direction, was a political game-changer that bodes ill for President Obama as he faces re-election.

It provided traction for his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, at a time when politicians have been deeply divided over the most effective way to strengthen the economy. And it put increased pressure on the Federal Reserve to take further action to stimulate growth.

The United States economy gained a net 69,000 jobs in May, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent from 8.1 in April, largely because more people began looking for work. And there was more unexpected bad news: job gains that had been reported in March and April were revised downward…

Yow. Now the president knows how John McCain felt when the economy got shot out from under him. OK, not that bad. But still not good.

What do y’all think? Is it a blip, or a negative trend? Because I remain convinced that the health of the economy depends in large part on what y’all — all 300 million or so of y’all — think about it. Yeah, there are some things we can’t help, like the Euro mess, but largely we have the ability to stimulate the economy by ourselves. Hey, that sounds kind of dirty, doesn’t it? Well, that’s not how I meant it. Or maybe I did. Talking about money stuff makes my mind wander…

Sympathy for the Devil: Clinton defends Romney

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I liked learning about this today:

Bill Clinton predicted Thursday that President Obama will win reelection this fall “by five or six points,” but the former president’s half-full look at the general election contest was overshadowed by his somewhat unexpected praise of Mitt Romney’s “sterling business career” as chief executive of Bain Capital.

“I don’t think that we ought to get into the position where we say ‘This is bad work. This is good work,'” Clinton said of the private equity industry during an interview on CNN, later adding that Romney’s time in both the private and public sector leaves no doubt he’d be capable of performing the “essential functions of the office.”…

Good for Bill. It’s nice to see someone depart from the SOP tactic of demonizing everything about the opposition.

You don’t have to think private equity managers — or, say, community organizers — are inherently a bad thing to prefer the other candidate.

As Republicans do to the president, too many Democrats want to portray their opponent as the devil. I appreciate Bill Clinton taking the time to run against that grain.

‘Hindsight’ has nothing to do with it

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Kathryn calls my attention to a piece at Salon written by a former Edwards campaign worker, which says in part:

It’s become customary in politically obsessed circles for observers to preen about how they knew that Edwards was bad news all along. His lawyerly ways! His sentimental stories about growing up working class! His hair! How could his silly supporters not see him for the philandering phony he so clearly was?

Of course, a quick perusal of the John Edwards of 2007 demonstrates that this sort of hindsight owes more to revisionist wishful thinking than a correct assessment of the evidence at the time….

Sorry, Amanda. You’ve got that wrong. There were no halcyon days when Edwards was great. Certain not in 2007. Here’s what I wrote about him then.

But you’ve pegged what I’ve thought going back to the 2004 campaign: “How could his silly supporters not see him for the philandering phony he so clearly was?” How, indeed? I used to wonder at it, and worry over it a good bit.

And I may agree with her that his trial was a waste of time and money. Justice was done with regard to John Edwards some time back. All the nation needs to know is that he’ll never hold high public office again, and that’s assured.

The piece ends:

Even those who’ll never be able to forgive Edwards for nearly destroying his legacy should be grateful for the good sense shown by the jury today. Let’s hope the Justice Department takes their lead and lets this one go.

What legacy?

Wesley gets on Joan’s case

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In a release today, Dick Harpootlian invited me “to watch the Republican Senate Caucus Director bash Brady.”

That would be Wesley Donehue. If you’ll recall, Wesley got himself in hot water with Nikki Haley back in 2010. Now he’s going after Joan?

He and “Pub Politics” cohort Phil Bailey just keep on getting themselves in trouble. Yes, life can get confusing when you work for them on the one hand, and play the political pundit on the other.

Or do they — get into trouble, I mean? Does Joan Brady have problems within her party, problems that make it OK for a Republican operative to say things like this? She has called attention to herself on the Haley ethics thing, and you can find Republicans at every point along the spectrum of possible opinions about that…

Dick, of course, is trying to embarrass Joan on Beth Bernstein‘s behalf. That’s going to be a general election contest to watch.

Nikki to Mitt: Think “Indian-American.” Then think, “minority female.” Got that?

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Did y’all see this story yesterday?

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney may not yet know who will be his vice presidential pick, but S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley has some ideas for him.

“There are amazing candidates for VP and (I) believe whoever Gov. Romney chooses will be part of a dream team. My preference would be Bobby Jindal or Condi Rice,” Haley wrote Wednesday when asked her vice presidential favorites during a Facebook chat with South Carolinians.

I didn’t know Nikki was the subliminal-message type. I thought she was more direct than that.

It’s like she’s swinging a pocket watch in front of him, and saying Miiiiiitt… Miiiiitt… You’re getting sleepy… What do you want in a running mate?… You want an Indian-American… like Bobby Jindal… and you want a female minority… like Condi Rice… oh, nooooo… you can only pick onnnnne… how are you going to get everything you want in one personnnnnn?…

Democratic heavyweights line up behind Brittain

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After Ted Vick imploded about as completely as a candidate can last week, top Democrats are publicly lining up behind Preston Brittain in the primary for the new 7th Congressional District:

Brittain

On Tuesday, May 29 at 11:15 AM, Congressman Jim Clyburn, former Congressman John Spratt, former Governor Jim Hodges, and Senators Vincent Sheheen and John Land will hold a conference call for the press to announce their endorsement of Preston Brittain. Brittain, a local Horry County attorney, is currently a Democratic candidate in the newly drawn 7th Congressional District of South Carolina.

Prior to reapportionment, Clyburn and Spratt each represented portions of the newly drawn 7th Congressional District including Florence and Darlington Counties….

That sort of leaves Gloria Bromell Tinubu, the preferred candidate of Donna Dewitt‘s AFL-CIO, out in the cold in the June 12 primary.

Gallup: Veterans are cause of the gender gap

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Here’s an interesting fact I didn’t know before.

Turns out that the “gender gap” that has Mitt Romney doing better among men and Barack Obama doing better among women (the usual pattern for a generation, at least) is less a gender thing, and more a matter of whether men have served in the military or not. According to Gallup:

PRINCETON, NJ — U.S. veterans, about 13% of the adult population and consisting mostly of older men, support Mitt Romney over Barack Obama for president by 58% to 34%, while nonveterans give Obama a four-percentage-point edge.

These data, from an analysis of Gallup Daily tracking interviews conducted April 11-May 24, show that 24% of all adult men are veterans, compared with 2% of adult women.

Obama and Romney are tied overall at 46% apiece among all registered voters in this sample. Men give Romney an eight-point edge, while women opt for Obama over Romney by seven points. It turns out that the male skew for Romney is driven almost entirely by veterans. Romney leads by one point among nonveteran men, contrasted with the 28-point edge Romney receives among male veterans.

The small percentage of female veterans in the U.S., in contrast to their male counterparts, do not differ significantly in their presidential vote choice from the vast majority of women who are not veterans…

Here’s a graph:

Interesting. I wonder what the long-term implications of this will be. Most of the men who have served in the military are older than I am. Twenty years from now, will much of the gender gap have disappeared, in favor of Democrats? I don’t know. I’d need to understand better why this veteran gap exists to be able to answer that.

This could definitely be a setback for Ted Vick

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State Rep. Ted Vick seems to have suffered a significant setback in his bid to represent the new 7th Congressional District:

Columbia, SC (WLTX) — State Representative Ted Vick of Chesterfield County was being held Thursday after he was arrested during a traffic stop.

Early Thursday morning Columbia Police stopped the Democratic candidate for U.S. House District 7 for speeding, resulting in an arrest for D.U.I. and possession of a firearm with an expired permit.

CPD Spokesperson Jennifer Timmons tells News 19 that after officers stopped Vick for speeding, and upon approaching the vehicle and speaking with Vick, smelled alcohol.

They asked him to take a breathalyzer test, but he refused. He was put into custody under suspicion of D.U.I., and he then told officers he had a gun in his car.

The officers found the gun, but Vick informed them his concealed-carry permit had expired…

Of course, how this affects his campaign is one of his lesser problems at the moment.

Cindi cites Her Alleged Majesty for contempt

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As was anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of the rule of law, Cindi Scoppe was aghast at our governor’s behavior last week, both when she goaded the state GOP to defy the law in order to help rid her of a troublesome senator, and when her office responded childishly to the State Election Commission’s refusal to play along.

But Cindi wasn’t struck speechless. From her column Sunday:

If the governor had been the one speaking, she might have added, L’etat, c’est moi.

At least when Louis XIV said it, he had a legal basis to do so. He was, after all, an absolute monarch.

When our founding fathers created this nation, they didn’t just reject the British monarch. They rejected the idea of a monarchy. They rejected imperial rule. And nowhere in the fledgling nation was that concept more thoroughly rejected than here in South Carolina.

The governor of South Carolina isn’t even a real governor. Yet this one fancies herself royalty. An autocrat. With the divine right of queens. L’etat, c’est moi.

She had already demonstrated that she was hypocritical. And careless with the truth. And imperious. Now add lawless. And contemptuous.

Actually, it’s the court that needs to add that last one.

Although the Election Commission blocked the party’s effort to defy a court order, that doesn’t change the fact that the party, at the urging of our governor, acted in a way that was “calculated to obstruct, degrade, and undermine the administration of justice.” That’s the definition of contempt of court, which our Supreme Court has said judges should punish in order to “preserve the authority and dignity of their courts.”

The court cannot ignore such blatant disregard for its orders. It needs to find the governor in contempt. And while it’s at it, it should do the same to the state Republican Party, and the Florence County Republican Party. This is about far more than the candidates who have been mistreated by our state. It’s about the authority of the court itself.

But Nikki Haley wouldn’t know anything about that.

Brooks sees Obama the way I do, as a mensch

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David Brooks didn’t quite go all the way to calling President Obama a Michael Corleone (as opposed to a Sonny, which is more like what George W. Bush was), but he did everything else but say the name:

The key is his post-boomer leadership style. Critics are always saying that Obama is too cool and detached, arrogant and aloof. But the secret to his popularity through hard times is that he is not melodramatic, sensitive, vulnerable and changeable. Instead, he is self-disciplined, traditional and a bit formal. He is willing, with drones and other mechanisms, to use lethal force.

Normally, presidents look weak during periods of economic stagnation, overwhelmed by events. But Obama has displayed a kind of ESPN masculinity: postfeminist in his values, but also thoroughly traditional in style — hypercompetitive, restrained, not given to self-doubt, rarely self-indulgent. Administrations are undone by scandal and moments when they look pathetic, but this administration, guarded in all things, has rarely had those moments….

Brooks said that in the process of marveling at the fact that Obama even has a chance at re-election, since so many of the fundamentals are against him. He concludes that “In survey after survey, Obama is far more popular than his policies” because of what Americans think of him as a man. Not just as a person, but as a man.

Oh, and for those who are tired of me talking about “guy stuff” this week, don’t blame me on this one; Brooks brought it up.

I don’t think either of us has precisely hit the nail on the head. I keep saying “Michael Corleone” to describe his quiet, non-blustering toughness. But of course, the president is a better man than Michael Corleone. “Mensch” doesn’t quite say it either, but it points in that direction. As for Brooks’ reference to “ESPN masculinity” (a term so important to his piece that it’s his headline) — well, I don’t even know what he means by that. Maybe I don’t watch enough sports. (I’ll confess that I also get confused with what people mean when they say “postfeminist.” Some seem to use it to refer to feminism being over and done with, and therefore “NONfeminist.” Others seem to refer to a state in which feminism is taken for granted and no longer a movement, just part of life. So the word is unhelpful to me.)

Another way to say what Brooks is trying to say — “thoroughly traditional in style — hypercompetitive, restrained, not given to self-doubt, rarely self-indulgent” — is “Gary Cooper.”

But we all want to be Gary Cooper (in “High Noon,” specifically — “I’ve got to, that’s the whole thing.”). What Brooks is saying, in a way, is that Obama pulls it off.

An apology from Jake Knotts (apparently)

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Overnight, I got this email that says it’s from Jake Knotts (I didn’t know the email address):

STATEMENT BY SENATOR JAKE KNOTTS WITH REFERENCE TO: Release of leaked video tape

When this story first appeared two years ago, I was embarrassed.  I’m embarrassed again now.
It was a very poor attempt at satire in an interview given inside a pub.  But it wasn’t funny.  It was offensive.  And I very much regret my remarks.
Once again I offer my sincere apology to the Governor and her family.
I only hope people will realize this two year-old interview is being leaked by campaign operatives who hope to hurt me politically.  But that’s no excuse for my behavior.  Heated political rhetoric is not the answer.  I can only say again that I’m sorry.
This experience has made me a better public servant.  I’m not going to let attacks and leaks by opponents distract me.  My focus is on creating jobs and helping the people I represent build a brighter future for their families.

This is in reference to a clip showing his “ragheads” remark from Pub Politics, which has surfaced as an “exclusive” (which means no embed code, which is just plain stingy) on BuzzFeed.

Tell you one thing — whenever Jake’s up for re-election, things are never boring.

The duel that wasn’t (so far as we know)

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It looked like the sort of facetious thing that people say on Twitter and which are quickly forgotten. Yet Katrina Shealy seems to be pinning her hopes for unseating Jake Knotts on the substance of Tweet sent in 2010.

The Tweet in question is reproduced above.

Perhaps there’s more to it, but one couldn’t find it in either the story in The State this morning, or the post by Will Folks that apparently prompted it. (The story in The State seemed to be of that new variety we’re becoming accustomed to — one that the MSM would never have reported in the past without having nailed down all the facts first, but publishes now so as not to appear out of the loop. Neither Jake nor Ms. Shealy was reached before publishing the story, which speaks of a sense of hurry.)

Here are some of the questions that the story raises in my mind:

  • Did Knotts ever say anything to Haddon?
  • Did he actually challenge him to a duel? (Duels, of course, properly constituted, require that both parties be gentlemen. I don’t know Haddon, but Jake has never seemed the dueling sort to me. He’s more of the pick-you-up-and-throw-you-across-the-room kind of guy. Ask Dick Harpootlian.)
  • Is that Tweet Mr. Haddon’s response to the challenge? If so, it is both unclear, and doesn’t seem to follow the accepted forms. It takes more the form of barroom bluster than a formal reply. Perhaps if he would identify his seconds, we could ask them.
  • Has either Mr. Knotts or Mr. Haddon been “out” before (which in the age of dueling meant something different from what it means today)? Who would have the upper hand?
  • If there’s any substance to this, will Jake be barred in the future from conducting classes for those who wish to carry concealed weapons? He has taught such classes in the past. One hopes those classes have not involved standing back-to-back, or pacing off distances.
  • Does Ms. Shealy in any way have standing to be taking legal action in this matter? She thinks she does, because her aim is to bar Sen. Knotts from office. But how does that give her any more standing than any other constituent? It seems that only parties to the alleged duel would have standing. And of course, the Code would (I assume) bar a challenged gentleman from resorting to the courts in order to avoid the Field of Honor.

I, along with you, await answers to all of the above.

Obama sucks! So send me more money!

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Catching up with my email, I’m marveling over this one from Joe Wilson, which takes irrelevant misdirection to a new level. Yes, we know that Nikki Haley got elected governor running against President Obama rather than her actual opponent, but I don’t think anyone has to date produced such a whiplash-inducing change of subject from “Obama sucks!” to “Send me money!” as this one:

Dear Friends,

41% of West Virginia’s Democrats believe that a federal prisoner would make a better president than Barack Obama.

Keith Judd received 69,766 votes Tuesday night in West Virginia’s primary while still serving a 17-year sentence for extortion. Shouldn’t this send a clear message to President Obama that he’s failing the American people?

The President promised to help our economy, but he will not listen to any of the pro-business, pro-competition, pro-free market principles that conservatives have offered.

The President promised to bring change to our country, but his version of change has resulted in restrictions on our American liberties and further partisan divide.

The President promised a lot of things, but he’s been unable to provide the leadership needed.

Americans are tired of the president’s policies. So much that voters say even a jailbird knows more about freedom than Barack Obama.

The choice is clear. In order to get our economy back on track and maintain  liberty, we must elect a new president in November.

We must also elect conservative leaders who are willing to stand up for the truth to President Obama or anyone else in office. I will always work to bring economic policies that produce jobs and protect liberties for the people of South Carolina’s Second District.  Will you join with me and donate to the campaign today?

Sincerely,

Joe

P.S. If you agree that we need to elect a new president this November, please visit Facebook and Twitter to let me know.

When Romney was a bully (or so they say)

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A couple of readers have brought this up, from different ends of the political spectrum. And I suppose I’ll go ahead and post it for y’all to discuss, even though I hardly know what to say about it myself:

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

The incident was recalled similarly by five students, who gave their accounts independently of one another. Four of them — Friedemann, now a dentist; Phillip Maxwell, a lawyer; Thomas Buford, a retired prosecutor; and David Seed, a retired principal — spoke on the record. Another former student who witnessed the incident asked not to be named. The men have differing political affiliations, although they mostly lean Democratic. Buford volunteered for Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. Seed, a registered independent, has served as a Republican county chairman in Michigan. All of them said that politics in no way colored their recollections.

“It happened very quickly, and to this day it troubles me,” said Buford, the school’s wrestling champion, who said he joined Romney in restraining Lauber. Buford subsequently apologized to Lauber, who was “terrified,” he said. “What a senseless, stupid, idiotic thing to do.”…

For my part, I don’t look at the Mitt Romney of today and see a guy who would do something like this. And one hates to hold youthful errors against anyone forever. If Romney was ever like this, then I’m pretty sure he’s not that way now.

But… while I, too, have matured (a bit) over the years, and I might have done some crazy things in my youth… I can’t imagine a time, ever, that I would have done something like this. It just never was in me to do something like this to another person. Of course, maybe if I’d been sent off to boarding school and had to define my place in a Lord-of-the-Flies kind of pecking order, maybe I’d have been a different sort of person.

But this gives me pause, if this is true. Because however much a person matures, he’s still the individual who did this.

I don’t know. I doubt I’d make my decision whether to vote for someone based on this.

But what do y’all think? That’s my purpose in raising this.

Of COURSE state primaries should be in August

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Exaggerating as so many readers do, Rusty DePass (who probably agrees with editors far more often than he thinks) expressed shocked pleasure that he actually agreed with something in an editorial in The State on Sunday.

He was referring to this passage in an edit about the issue of all those candidates disqualified from running in the June primaries:

The Legislature has to fix this problem.

That won’t be easy, but it must be done. And with the primaries just five weeks away, it must be done immediately. It would be difficult to keep the elections on schedule even if every member of the Legislature agreed to a solution. That won’t happen, so part of the solution needs to be delaying the primaries, which we shouldn’t hold until August to begin with…

I assured Rusty that advocating August primaries is a long-standing position of the editorial board. It certainly is of mine.

And it is of Rusty’s. Rusty takes credit for the one time state primaries were held at a rational time in all the years since I moved home to South Carolina — 1992, when a lawsuit over reapportionment delayed the vote.

Rusty tells the story this way: As head of the state election commission (or was the past chairman at this point? I forget now), he wrote to the judge in the remap case asking that the primaries be delayed on account of the legal action. He recalls with satisfaction that all the lawyers he knew were shocked and appalled that he would so address such a view to the judge in the midst of a lawsuit. But the judge read the letter aloud from the bench and said, that’s just what we’ll do.

I had forgotten that part of the story, but I remember how gratifying it was to have the primaries thus separated from the legislative session for once.

Even back when we had loads of reporters and other resources, June primaries were extremely difficult for the newspaper — and other news organizations — to cover adequately. The people who covered legislative and other state elections were the very same people who covered the Legislature. The legislative session didn’t end until the first week in June, and didn’t really, really end until the sine die return session a couple of weeks later.

That lack of coverage, of course, benefited incumbents enormously, because there were fewer opportunities for lesser-known challengers to get their names in the paper. And name recognition is a huge part of the battle.

But the timing benefits incumbents in other, more direct, ways. The reason reporters are so extremely busy in those last weeks of the legislative session is because that’s when almost everything of consequence in the session happens. And those weeks happen to be after the filing deadline for the primaries.

So it is impossible for anyone to decide to run against an incumbent (except as that long shot of long shots, a write-in) on the basis of how that incumbent votes on the most important votes of the session. Aside from the fact that even if the challenger had already filed, he or she will get little coverage.

It’s an absolutely ridiculous problem, which would be completely fixed by always holding the primaries in August, as some other states do (including Tennessee, the “other state” whose politics I have the most experience with).

Politico promises “The Draperization of Romney,” but totally dodges the subject

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The Politico piece (which ran last month, but Nu Wexler just called my attention to) started out with an intriguing premise:

The Draperizing of Mitt Romney is under way.

He may not drink or cheat, and he lacks the fictional ad-maker’s charisma, but Democrats, despite the potential perils of such a strategy, remain determined to paint Romney as a throwback to the “Mad Men” era — a hopelessly retro figure who, on policy and in his personal life, is living in the past…

But it really sort of fell flat.

I thought it was going to go deeper. For instance, the central conflict regarding Don Draper (at least in the early seasons) is that he’s not who he says he is. Now that would be a pretty meaty thing to throw at the famously mutable Romney. You can easily see Don Draper donning any political mantle required to get his way with a client, or a woman, or anyone — because he just doesn’t care about that stuff. Ditto with Mitt. He just wants to be president; he doesn’t give a rat’s posterior about the stuff that the True Believers in his party get all cranked up about.

But the Politico piece completely dodged the subject, instead citing some tired chestnuts about how the 50s and early 60s were awful because moms stayed home with the kids. (Although I admit I’d rather hear that oldie than more of the tiresome “war on women” meme.)

And then… it goes into this interminable discussion of that stupid flap over what some Democrat said about Ann Romney several weeks ago. It goes on and on. I guess that was fresh when it was written, but what does that have to do with the advertised subject? Not much.

Hello!?!?! This is supposed to be about how Mitt Romney is like Don Draper! Neither of them is a woman! Can we stick to the subject? Don’t make me think you’re going to talk about guy stuff and then not even touch on that area… It’s enough to make a guy want to go off with those idiots who get together in sweat lodges and beat tom-toms and talk about how tough it is to be a guy. Almost. OK, not even close. But don’t bill something as being about guy stuff when it’s going to be yet another rehash of chick stuff.

As for Don… I’m worried about the guy. This week’s episode ended with him putting “Revolver” on the turntable (is it 1966 already?) at the behest of his young wife, who’s trying to clue him in on what the late ’60s will be about. He briefly listens alone (his wife is off taking acting lessons, leaving him behind in more ways than one) in his Hugh Hefner dream pad, and the contrast between him and “Tomorrow Never Knows” could not possibly be more stark.

The early 60s — say, round about 1962, which Gene Sculatti‘s brilliant Catalog of Cool termed “The Last Good Year” — was his time, the time he was created for, and which was created for him. He is going to be so lost going forward.

City council’s strong-mayor debacle

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It’s a great shame that Columbia city council voted not even to ask voters whether they would like to inject accountability into city government by moving to a strong-mayor form of government.

But it was predictable that they would do so. I feared that outcome when I saw that the council planned to vote right after a public hearing.

The proposal would have a chance put before the electorate — particularly in the fall, when a much more representative swath of the city’s voters will turn out, as compared to actual city elections.

But the kinds of people who turn up at hearings before council happens to be much the same set of people who passionately oppose such a change — even to the point, apparently, of not wanting their neighbors to have a chance to vote on it.

This is always the way. The people who are most opposed to a reform — or, to use more neutral language, a change of any kind — in the form of government are the very people most invested in the current form. And people who regularly go to council meetings tend to be people who have become comfortable with and accustomed to the current form. They’ve learned to make the existing system stand up and do what they want, so they don’t want it replaced.

I saw this on a much larger scale when we first started pressing for changing the form of state government in the early 90s. We were pushing for a more accountable system in which the will of the electorate would be more likely to be expressed in the way the executive branch of state government was run. We were seeking to replace a bewildering set of mixed-up governing arrangements that varied greatly from agency to agency (and still exists over most of state government).

The system was (and remains) far too complex and fragmented for the average citizen to understand or engage effectively. But what that meant was that the people who DID know how to make it work — experienced lawmakers, skilled bureaucrats, interest-group advocates and lobbyists — had a tremendous advantage in dealing with it. And consequently did not want it to change.

With city government, it’s more likely to be people who are very active in neighborhood associations who oppose a change that would make city administration accountable directly to one person elected citywide, rather than a hodgepodge of at-large and district representatives (with the district people having the majority).

Anyway… Columbia has missed yet another opportunity, and continues to be in the grip of a decades-long rear-guard action against progress.

A postscript… I was quite indignant that council did not wait for new members to join, since I knew that both Cameron Runyan and Moe Baddourah favored strong mayor. It seemed that anti-change incumbents were forcing a vote now to avoid losing.

But then I read in Clif LeBlanc’s report this morning, “Baddourah, who replaces Gergel, said he’s had a change of heart and would not support holding a vote this fall.”

Which really blew my mind, because I saw him on local TV news, either last night or the night before, stating his unequivocal support for strong mayor.

Clif needs to do a full, exhaustive, separate story on what in the world just happened there…

How are Newt Gingrich and John Edwards alike?

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When The Washington Post posed this question this morning on Twitter:

What do John Edwards and Newt Gingrich have in common?

I thought the answer was obvious, and shared it:

Ummm… Both won SC, but not much else?

Of course, that’s not exactly what the Post had in mind. This is what they were thinking:

Don’t be surprised if you hear the names of John Edwards and Newt Gingrich mentioned on the Senate floor this week.

Senate Democrats plan to consider a measure Tuesday that would extend lower interest rates for some federally subsidized college loans and pay for the extension by ending tax breaks for firms with three or fewer shareholders — commonly referred to as “S-corporations.”

Democrats call these types of tax breaks the “Newt Gingrich/John Edwards loophole,” because both former politicians took advantage of a federal tax law that allows those with high incomes to avoid paying Medicare payroll taxes on earnings by establishing S-corporations and treating only a portion of their total earnings as taxable wages…

Later, Cindi Scoppe (my mind is blown by the fact that Cindi is now on Twitter) weighed in with another answer, from the NYT’s Frank Bruni:

Gingrich and Edwards belong to different parties but are beholden to similar demons, and they have a whole lot more in common than a bounty of hair — white in the Republican’s case, brown in the Democrat’s. They’re the salt and pepper of outsize egos in presidential politics.

And to look at the two of them together, which their recent convergence in the news and on the map encouraged, is to confront some unsettling truths about a kind of person too frequently drawn to high-level office and about traits that often abet his rise and then seal his fall.

Beware the extreme narcissist. Although he may radiate a seductive confidence, he can justify and forgive himself for just about anything, given his belief in his own exalted purpose. He’ll lose sense of the line between boldness and recklessness. And he’ll quit the stage reluctantly, because he can’t bear not to occupy the very center of it…

So I guess the bottom line is that they have a lot in common.

Doing the candidate limbo (how low can you go?)

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Still trying to find some reliable info as to who is, and who is not, a legitimate candidate in next month’s primaries, following this development:

The state Supreme Court Wednesday ordered S.C. political parties to remove up to 100 candidates from their June 12 primary ballots, sending candidates and voters into a tailspin in an election year already fraught with confusion.

Any candidate who did not file a statement of economic interest — listing income, property and other financial information — at the same time they officially filed for office must be removed from the ballot, the court ruled in a unanimous decision. The ruling does not affect incumbents seeking re-election or officeholders seeking another office because they already had economic-interest statements on file.

The deadline to file to run was March 30…

I asked Adam Beam (who wrote that story) today whether he had more info about which candidates were affected. He said, “No. I have an unofficial list of just House candidates. But I’m not 100 percent sure it is accurate.” Then he added, “Election Commission will post a list of qualified candidates by noon tomorrow.”

So, we observers are left in limbo.

In the meantime, any candidates out there who know you have been disqualified, please speak up here, and tell us your story…