Category Archives: Elections

Like Mitt Romney really needed this today…

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Elie Wiesel, seen in a file photo with an area man.

If we’re not having a Kulturkampf in one direction, it’s coming at us from another:

Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor who has devoted his life to combating intolerance, says Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney “should speak to his own church and say they should stop” performing posthumous proxy baptisms on Jews.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner spoke to The Huffington Post Tuesday soon after HuffPost reported that according to a formerly-Mormon researcher, Helen Radkey, some members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had submitted Wiesel’s name to a restricted genealogy website as “ready” for posthumous proxy baptism. Radkey found that the name of Wiesel had been submitted to the database for the deceased, from which a separate process for proxy baptism could be initiated. Radkey also said that the names of Wiesel’s deceased father and maternal grandfather had been submitted to the site…

To which I can only say, Proxy baptism? Really? That doesn’t sound kosher to me, somehow.

Anyway, the Mormons are saying they didn’t really “baptize” Wiesel, even though his name pops up in their records. Nor did they intend to sorta, kinda baptize Simon Wiesenthal’s parents:

SALT LAKE CITY — Mormon church leaders apologized to the family of Holocaust survivor and Jewish rights advocate Simon Wiesenthal after his parents were posthumously baptized, a controversial ritual that Mormons believe allows deceased people a way to the afterlife but offends members of many other religions.

Wiesenthal died in 2005 after surviving the Nazi death camps and spending his life documenting Holocaust crimes and hunting down perpetrators who remained at large. Jews are particularly offended by an attempt to alter the religion of Holocaust victims, who were murdered because of their religion, and the baptism of Holocaust survivors was supposed to have been barred by a 1995 agreement…

The church immediately apologized, saying it was the actions of an individual member of church — whom they did not name — that led to the submission of Wiesenthal’s name…

Hey, it could happen to anybody, right? Right?

I don’t want to cast any aspersions, but this seems kind of… out there. I mean, we baptize babies who don’t know what’s going on, but dead people? Dead people who are not of your persuasion?

Kara says she’s out for good, may run in Dist. 18

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This just came in from Kara Gormley Meador, as a comment on the previous post about her:

Good morning folks. I checked with an attorney who is working on the redistricting suit. It sounds as if I am out of 23 for good. The suit underway is based on race. The attorney told me that gerrymandering is not illegal, unless there is a racial component. It is another sad truth about our elected officials; they can draw the lines in a way that helps keep them in office. Just one more reason I am for term limits for our legislators. I still have some decisions to make, like whether or not to run in District 18. It’s something that I am strongly considering.

If she runs in 18, that would mean opposing Ronnie Cromer. I can’t offer much of a read on her chances. She could have been a real threat to Jake Knotts, I think. Anyone have a read on 18?

And she’s right — the courts have long held that incumbency protection is allowed in redistricting. No, that doesn’t seem right, but that’s what the courts have said.

Santorum catching up to Romney in national poll

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OK, so now it’s hard to dismiss Rick Santorum’s victories as just isolated anomalies here and there.

A new New York Times/CBS News poll has him catching up to the erstwhile front-runner nationally:

After his surprise triple victories in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, Rick Santorum has begun soaring among Republican primary voters, erasing Mitt Romney’s lead in the race for the party’s presidential nomination.

A New York Times/CBS News poll released Tuesday morning showed Mr. Santorum surging among Republican primary voters nationwide, lifted by support among conservatives, evangelical Christians and Tea Party supporters.

In the new poll, 30 percent of Republican primary voters say they support Mr. Santorum, compared with 27 percent for Mr. Romney. While Mr. Santorum’s lead is essentially a tie with Mr. Romney because it is within the margin of sampling error, it reflects a significant jump for him from earlier polls.

The two other major candidates are further behind, at 12 percent for Ron Paul and 10 percent for Newt Gingrich. Mr. Gingrich’s numbers have fallen sharply since his win in South Carolina on Jan. 21…

Newt who?

And of course, therein lies the cautionary tale for Santorum. Several weeks back (starting the week before the SC primary), we saw Gingrich catching up to Romney in national polls.

All Romney can say in defense of his status is that he is always the guy the other people are talking about catching.

So what do you think? Is this real, or just another one of these whack-a-mole upsurges of the “not-Romney” flavor of the week?

My loss of innocence, in the bicentennial year

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On my last post, I said something about how insulting I find it when someone says that my opinions would be different if my personal circumstances were different. Such as when people say, “A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged,” or “if your daughter were pregnant, you wouldn’t be opposed to abortion,” or whatever.

I was insufficiently clear, as I learned when one commenter thought I mean people shouldn’t change their minds. I’m all for mind-changing based upon new information. (And indeed, sometimes that new information is conveyed by changed personal circumstances.) What I object to is the suggestion that, if it were in your self-interest to change your mind, you would.

Part of the reason why I find this so offensive is the puritanism of the journalist. News journalists aren’t even supposed to have opinions, which I’ve always understood to be absurd, of course. But when journos are allowed to have opinions, and even paid to express them publicly, as I was for more than 15 years of my career, it’s such a special gift that the responsibility is huge to formulate political opinions according to the greater good of the community, limited only by your ability to discern the greater good. Anything that smacks of abusing that privilege for self-interest is appalling to me.

I’m a bit more wordly today than I was in the early stages of my journalism career, but the ideals are intact.

This led me to share an anecdote from the days when I realized that not everyone, not even all journalists, looked at the world as I did…

In 1976, I was pretty excited about Jimmy Carter’s candidacy. I saw him as what the country needed after Watergate, etc. One day close to the election, I had a conversation with another editor in the newsroom. She said she favored Gerald Ford. That sounded fine to me; I liked Ford, too — I just preferred Carter.

What floored me, flabbergasted me, shocked me, was that she said the REASON she supported Ford was that she and her husband had sat down and looked at the candidates’ proposals, and had computed (who knows how, given the variables) that if Carter were elected, their taxes would go up by $1,000 a year.

My jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe it, because of the following:

  • I couldn’t believe that ANYONE would actually make a decision based on who should lead the free world based on their personal finances. (I really couldn’t; I was that innocent.)
  • I thought that if there WERE such greedy jerks in the world, you would not find them among the ranks of newspaper journalists, who had deliberately chosen careers that would guarantee them lower salaries than their peers from college. If you care that much about money, this would be about the last line of work a college graduate would choose.
  • If there WERE a journalist whose priorities were so seriously out of whack, surely, surely, she’d never admit it to another journalist.

But I was wrong on all counts.

For a time I regarded her as an outlier, as an exception that proved the rule. But that delusion wore off, too, as I had more such conversations with many, many other people. (Although she still stands out as the must unabashedly selfish journalist I think I’ve ever met. Others may be as self-interested, but they’re more circumspect.)

Today, I have a much more realistic notion of how many people vote on the basis of self-interest. But I have never come to accept it as excusable.

Yo, parties: Neither of you holds a monopoly on Truth, OK?

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Today’s news from OFA, which stands for Obama For America (but always makes me think of that thing that Greeks say when they party):

OBAMA FOR AMERICA LAUNCHES THE TRUTH TEAM TO PROMOTE THE PRESIDENT’S ACHIEVEMENTS AND HOLD REPUBLICANS ACCOUNTABLE

Chicago, IL – Today, Obama for America announced the launch of the Truth Team, a new national effort by President Obama supporters online and on the ground to promote the President’s achievements, respond to attacks on his record and hold the eventual Republican nominee accountable.  More than a million people took action as part of the Fight the Smears initiative during the 2008 campaign; the goal of the Truth Team is to double that number, reaching two million grassroots supporters who will communicate the President’s record and fight back against attacks before the Democratic National Convention this fall.

Beginning today with events across the country and continuing through the election, the Truth Team will engage grassroots supporters to spread the truth about the President’s record and respond to Republican attacks.  The program will be housed at BarackObama.com/TruthTeam, with individual websites –KeepingHisWord.com, KeepingGOPHonest.com, and AttackWatch.com – serving as quick, comprehensive resources to help set the record straight.  Designed to put responsibility for spreading the truth in the hands of the President’s supporters, the websites contain videos and information on the President’s record, and fact checks on Republican claims about the President and themselves.  The sites also contain tools for sharing materials via Facebook, Twitter and email, and empowers supporters to take further action by volunteering, writing letters to the editor, sending postcards to undecided voters with information about the President’s record, and more.  The goal is to ensure that when Republicans attack President Obama’s record, grassroots supporters can take ownership of the campaign and share the facts with the undecided voters in their lives.

Republican Super PACs have committed to spend a half billion dollars on negative ads to defeat the President.  But from the start, the Obama for America campaign has relied on grassroots supporters to spread the truth, and today’s announcement builds on and expands that effort.

Truth Teams will be announced today in many states including Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina and Wisconsin with events being held in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia.  National supporters including the National Education Association (NEA), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) and the United Steelworkers Union (USW) will be participating in this effort.

To find out more about the Truth Team, please visit: Barackobama.com/TruthTeam

I really, really don’t like this kind of stuff. Yes, tell your story; argue your case. But I detest this “truth squad” nonsense that both parties have engaged in since at least the ’80s. It says “our party is the source of truth” and “the other party speaks nothing but lies” and must be “held accountable” them. This stuff oozes from the core of the rottenest assumptions that underlie hyperpartisanship.

I expect better than this from the president. The Republicans have been painting him already (with very thin justification) as having gone back on his promise to rise above such things. The best way to give the lie to what they’re saying is to avoid stuff like this. He is rightly held to a higher standard, because he set the standard himself.

My first memory of encountering this sort of thing was in 1988, at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta. Then-Gov. Carroll Campbell and other Republicans took turns holding press conferences at an off-site location in the city, and they called it “truth-squading.” This year, we saw practically daily press availabilities held by the Dems in an effort to grab some of the attention being devoted to the Republican primary here in SC.

Not that the Obama people aren’t providing true information, often in reply to some pretty silly nonsense on the other side. But that is often the case. I remember when Campbell appeared in Atlanta, the point was made (either by him or by Tucker Eskew or someone, I forget) that he took almost no security with him, while Lt. Gov. Nick Theodore had taken a small army with him to the convention. Which was true. You should have seen their communications center in the hotel.

But the thing that really gets me is this “truth” rhetoric that they wrap it in.

Yes, I realize each side believes that what it has to say IS the truth, while the others sit on a throne of lies. But they’re both wrong. They need to cut back on the hubris, and those of us in the middle would be more inclined to listen.

This is what I was warning about, people

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It was Tuesday when I warned that the unnecessarily-fanned flames of several Culture War flashpoints threatened to make this into the kind of presidential election I detest — one that consists entirely of yelling about social issues (about which no one changes anyone else’s minds, which makes them ideal tools for infuriating the base and raising money to keep the pointless partisan strife going), rather than talking about issues more central to the job of president, such as foreign affairs, national security and the economy.

Now, it seems the MSM is catching up with me. This AP story was on the front page of The State this morning:

WASHINGTON — All of a sudden, abortion, contraception and gay marriage are at the center of American political discourse, with the struggling — though improving — economy pushed to the background.

Social issues don’t typically dominate the discussion in shaky economies. But they do raise emotions important to factors like voter turnout. And they can be key tools for political candidates clamoring for attention, campaign cash or just a change of subject in an election year.

“The public is reacting to what it’s hearing about,” said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center. In a political season, he said, “when the red meat is thrown out there, the politicians are going to go after it.”…

Precisely. And on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, also this morning:

In a year where the economy was supposed to dominate the November elections, the contraception backlash showed that social issues could have a powerful influence on the race. Republicans used the controversy to paint Mr. Obama as assailing religious rights—and adding another black mark against the 2010 health overhaul that spawned the policy….

Yep. That’s what I’ve been on about.

In any case, you were warned of it here first. And of course, the 137 comments on my previous post (so far) are indicative that even smart people, such as you, my readers, can’t resist rising to such bait. What hope do we have that the rest of the country will let it go, and allow us to return to more relevant (to the job of president) issues?

Kara Gormley Meador running against Jake Knotts. No, wait, she’s not…

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Speaking of Republican women and media…

There was a flurry of excitement earlier in the day when word was going around that Kara Gormley Meador, formerly of WIS, was preparing to run for the Senate against Jake Knotts. As Jack Kuenzie reported:

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) – The race for state Senate District 23 was thrown a major curveball Thursday with the announcement from a former WIS anchor and reporter that she intends to enter the race.

Kara Gormley Meador enters an already crowded field of contenders in the form of former Lexington County GOP chair Katrina Shealy and incumbent Sen. Jake Knotts.

Meador says she had been considering the decision for a while and planned on rolling out her campaign on March 1, but rumors began to spread that she was looking to make a run at the  seat….

And when I say excitement, I mean excitement. Check this sampling of comments from her Facebook page:

  • I am SO PuMpEd! You go Kara! I know you’re gonna win this! I’m your biggest fan!
  • Iam in tears…tears of joy. Kara I am so proud of you words in this status could never express it. I have already put you on a prayer list. As I shared with Jim Matthews when he ran: Proverbs 29:2, “When the righteous increase(rule in other versions), the people rejoice, But when a wicked man rules, people groan.” I love you!
  • YES!!! YesYesYesYesYesYES!!!! We’re buying property in Lexington County JUST so we can VOTE! GO KARA!!!!

See what I mean? Mitt Romney would kill for a tenth of that enthusiasm for his candidacy. That sort of enthusiasm makes the excitement about Obama in 2008 look like tepid dislike. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever run across that much enthusiasm for anybody. If anyone hurled it at me, I think I’d back away in fright. Fortunately, that’s not likely.

In any case, it was all for naught, as this was reported later in the day by a certain rival news organization:

The Lexington Election Commission says the recent redrawing of state Senate districts means former WIS anchor Kara Gormley Meador can not run for the state Senate seat held by Jake Knotts.

Instead, Meador will be in district 18, held by Sen. Ronnie Cromer. That race is already crowded, with former Lexington County Republican party chairman Rich Bolen saying he plans to run.

Filing for state Senate seats does not open until March…

So I guess Jake has escaped having a tidal wave of enthusiasm wash over him…

SC went for Tillman rather than Hampton

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Here’s an observation that occurred to me the weekend of the South Carolina presidential preference primary, but which, being busy, I never got around to writing. It occurred to me again this morning, so here it is…

Before the primary, I wrote that the usual pattern for SC Republicans would be to pick the candidate who seemed most like the boss, or the massa, if you will. That would be Romney. I said it within the context of the possibility of Gingrich overtaking him, but at the same time I thought, wrongly, that most white folk in our state would follow the most patrician candidate just as they followed such men into battle in 1860. That’s what had happened in the last few cycles. OK, there were other factors, such as going with the guy whose turn it was, but that also worked for Romney.

Nice theory. It got shot all to hell.

What South Carolinians did, explaining it in terms of our history, was what they did in the 1890s — they turned away from Wade Hampton, and went for Ben Tillman.

Gingrich, with his fulminations against the uber-rich Yankee Romney and the dirty, no-good press, stirred something deep in the race memory of these voters. He was the closest they could find in these tepid times to fellow populist “Pitchfork” Ben, who urged them to rise up against the hoity-toity ruling class. Of course, Newt is rather tepid by comparison. Newt made the crowd roar by scornfully dismissing that Negro who dared to challenge him on his “food-stamp president” line. But that’s thin stuff compared to when ol’ Ben said he would “willingly lead a mob in lynching a Negro who had committed an assault upon a white woman.” Black men, said Tillman, “must remain subordinate or be exterminated.”

And Newt’s put-down of the media in the next debate was downright wimpy compared to Ben’s nephew gunning down my predecessor, N. G. Gonzales, at noon on Main Street for having dared write critical editorials about him. (He was acquitted by the ancestors of some of those Gingrich voters, who decided, after the editorials were entered into evidence, that the editor had it coming.)

No, Gingrich is no Tillman. But I suppose angry white folks have to settle for what they can get these days.

You must, of course, consider me a biased source. The State newspaper, as you may know, was founded for the purpose of fighting Tillmanism. The newspaper was from the start opposed to lynching (those wild-eyed liberals!), and has since that one incident frowned on shooting editors as well. And some of my own ancestors were anti-Tillman. My great-grandparents were appalled when they found themselves living next to Sen. Tillman in Washington. (My great-grandfather Bradley was a lawyer for the Treasury Department, and later helped found the GAO.)

In conclusion, let me say this this analogy, too, is imperfect. It doesn’t explain why, for instance, all those rather patrician, or at least Establishment, Republicans went for Gingrich at the last minute. That’s rather more complicated, and in some cases had to do with rivalries and resentments that wouldn’t make much sense to folks who are not SC Republican insiders. Some of it, for instance, was about stopping Nikki Haley from seeming to have a win. There were other old scores being settled, some going back a number of years. Once I can get some of these folks to talk about it on the record, I’ll write more about that.

But I think my analogy has at least a ring of truth in it when applied to the great mass of voters out there who never ran a campaign or even met many of these movers and shakers. Or am I attaching to much importance to those visceral roars when Gingrich baited black, liberals and the media in those debates?

Discuss…

And now, we turn to the city election…

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… which I’ve been neglecting.

Long ago, I wrote something about Cameron Runyan announcing for the at-large seat. Since then, two others have stepped up to oppose him: Robert Bolchoz, last seen running for attorney general last year, and, drumroll… Joe Azar (note that the website is from his last run for mayor, but that’s what Google gives me).

Then there’s District 2, where Nammu Muhammad — last seen among a big crowd running for major (no, wait — Congress) — is challenging incumbent Brian DeQuincey Newman, who is seeking re-election for the first time after he replaced E. W. Cromartie in mid-term.

Then there’s the really active one, District 3. Back before Christmas, I went out for beers with young Daniel Coble, and took notes, and was going to write about it. But I wanted to talk to the other candidates first, and what with the holidays and the presidential primary, I just didn’t get to it and didn’t get to it…

Then on Monday, I ran into Jenny Isgett at Rotary, which was when I realized that I was going to have to start paying attention to this stuff again. Because it’s coming up in April. Ms. Isgett and Mr. Coble are opposed by restaurateur Moe Baddourah, who has sought the office before, and my former colleague Mike Miller, who is now described by our former paper as “a freelance writer active in Columbia’s music and arts scene.”

So I need to start lining up interviews with these people. This morning, I met again with Cameron Runyan, at his initiative. I actually didn’t have a notebook on me, but here’s what I learned in terms of what’s up with his campaign now…

He’s spending two or three hours a day, and five or six on Saturdays, walking the districts door-to-door. On Sunday, he hits two or three churches.

He’s assembled a fairly impressive professional team: Heyward Bannister, campaign manager; Kendall Corley, field; Adam Fogle, message, mail, media; Rick Quinn, strategy; Keely Saye, social media; Bob Wislinski, development.

As you’ll recall, he has the mayor’s backing — hence the fact that his team looks a lot like the mayor’s from two years ago. Mr. Benjamin called while we were talking this morning.

We talked about other stuff, having to do with disagreements on issues with other candidates. But I want to talk to said candidates before I elaborate.

As the days go by, I’ll be finding out more as I talk with those folks.

Let sleeping culture warriors lie, please…

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I’m beginning to suspect that the Left is dissatisfied at the prospect of an election about real national priorities, and is conspiring to get the Culture Warriors of the Right — heretofore MIA — to enter the 2012 fray.

I’m just going by the top three stories on my most recent email from The Slatest:

Federal Appeals Court Deems Prop 8 Unconstitutional

But backers of California’s gay marriage ban are expected to take their fight to the Supreme Court.

Komen VP Resigns in Wake of Planned Parenthood Dispute

Karen Handel defends her work to cut funding to the group, saying it was the best for Komen and the women it serves.

University Selling “Morning-After” Pill from Vending Machine

Students at Shippensburg University now have easier access to Plan B emergency contraception.

Think about this for a minute, people…

The Culture Warriors of the Right have been pretty quiet lately. Their guy in the GOP presidential contest, Rick Santorum, hasn’t caught fire, in fact has been totally an also-ran since Iowa. It was looking like we might have a presidential election about national security and the economy, which I’ve gotta say, would be nice for a change.

So what happens? Culture Warriors of the Left sue to get a court to overturn a public vote on a hot-button issue, and get a favorable ruling from a panel of… the 9th Circuit. This of course will now be taken all the way to the Supremes (who on the right would ever be satisfied with the judgment of the 9th?), assuring that this attempt to overturn a public vote by judicial fiat (talk about waving a red flag at a bull!) will blaze on through the election.

Some of their comrades then go totally ballistic over a decision by one private organization not to help fund another private organization. These Culture Warriors freak out to such an extent over what — $680,000? And the ramifications continue, with everybody on all sides all worked up.

As for the third thing… I don’t know. I’ve been to Shippensburg a number of times, and I’m trying to square this with the images I have of Amish people riding up the High Street in horse and buggy, and Civil War re-enactments. This is a whole new wrinkle…

All I can conclude is that the left just wasn’t happy with the Culture Warriors of the right being all dormant. It’s like there is a concerted effort to make the 2012 election about all this Kulturkampf stuff. Which I, for one, would not appreciate. And I don’t think it’s a good idea for Obama’s re-election chances to get the right’s Culture Struggle machine all hot and bothered.

Oh, you know what the fourth story on the Slatest email was? It was this:

Santorum Poised for 2 Wins in Tuesday’s GOP Contests

But with no delegates up for grabs, the Iowa winner will need to be content with PR victories.

Coincidence? Well, yeah, I think it is a coincidence. But those of us who would rather this election be about something other than abortion and sexuality and the like still eye such developments as all of the above with foreboding.

The good news is that the White House appears to be trying to take down the temperature a bit, on one thing it can control. It may dial back on its recent ham-handed effort to make Newt Gingrich’s ravings about a “war on the Catholic Church” seem to be true. That’s good. I like the sound of that. No-Drama Obama, that’s what I want to see. This was yet another completely unnecessary fight (and with a demographic that the president needs to keep in battleground states, which made it seem particularly weird).

Next, could we all talk about Iran and Israel and Afghanistan and consumer confidence? Throwweights, perhaps? Please? Anything but this hyperemotional stuff…

Post poll shows Obama pulling ahead of Romney

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The matchup shows President Obama being favored over Mitt Romney, 52 percent to 43 percent. Most troublesome for Republicans, I would think, is this passage from the WashPost story:

Overall, 55 percent of those who are closely following the campaign say they disapprove of what the GOP candidates have been saying. By better than 2 to 1, Americans say the more they learn about Romney, the less they like him. Even among Republicans, as many offer negative as positive assessments of him on this question. Judgments about former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who denounced Romney on Saturday night in Nevada, are about 3 to 1 negative.

Meanwhile, the president’s recent remarks are better reviewed. Among the roughly 6 in 10 Americans who heard or read about the president’s State of the Union address, 57 percent say they approve of most of what he laid out….

Joel Sawyer joins forces with Wesley Donehue

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A screenshot from an episode of "Pub Politics" when Joel Sawyer, right, stood in for Wesley Donehue. At left is Phil Bailey, and the guest is the record-holder, making his 8th appearance.

Joel Sawyer, ex-press secretary to Mark Sanford and until recently the public face of the Huntsman campaign in SC, has a new gig:

Columbia, SC – February 6, 2012 – Two of South Carolina’s top up-and-coming political and communications talents are teaming up, with Donehue Direct CEO Wesley Donehue announcing today that Joel Sawyer would be joining the firm effective immediately as Senior Vice President.

“Donehue Direct has already established a brand as being the premier internet, social media, and political consulting firm in South Carolina,” Donehue said. “Joel is going to help take this company to the next level in terms of growing our brand and expanding our presence across the region. “

Sawyer and Donehue were recently named among Columbia’s 50 Most Influential People by Columbia Business Monthly, the only political consultants to receive the honor.

Sawyer began his career as a newspaper reporter with the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, where he won S.C. Press Association Awards for spot news reporting and in-depth reporting. He then served in Gov. Sanford’s communications office for more than six years, most recently as Communications Director. He moved on to become Executive Director of the SCGOP, where he guided the state party to its first-ever sweep of Constitutional Offices and taking the 5th Congressional District. Most recently, he served as state Campaign Manager for Jon Huntsman for President.

“This is an incredible opportunity to join a growing firm that is really at the cutting edge of internet and social media technology,” Sawyer said. “Wes and his team are literally creating the roadmap for the convergence of new media and traditional political consulting – and this partnership is going to take it to new heights.”

Donehue Direct is a political consulting and technology firm with operations in Columbia, Charleston and San Francisco. The Donehue team runs campaign and internet operations for clients ranging from City Council and State Legislature to United States Senator and Governor. Last year, Donehue Direct CEO Wesley Donehue was named Republican Innovator of the Year by Campaigns and Elections magazine.

Congratulations to both Joel and Wesley. They seem poised for success in the Republican interactive services market. In South Carolina, that’s a growth niche…

SC Democrats tout latest employment figures, give Obama the credit

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Rep. James Smith, Mayor Steve Benjamin and Councilwoman Tameika Devine gathered at Main and Gervais today to celebrate the latest employment figures.

Here’s a quote from the release that summoned me to the windswept presser (sorry about the sound quality):

When the President took office, we were losing more than 700,000 jobs a month. The economy was spiraling out of control, and the economic security of millions of middle-class Americans was vanishing. Now, the private sector has added more than 3.7 million jobs, the American auto industry and the more than 1.4 million jobs it supports were saved, and manufacturing is creating jobs for the first time since the 1990s. But the President didn’t just address the immediate crisis and stop there.  He began to lay a foundation for a stronger economy across the country so such a collapse can never happen again.

This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and we have a lot more to do if we’re going to continue the trend we’ve seen for the last two years. That’s why the President has outlined a vision for an America built to last.  It’s a blueprint based on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers and a renewal of the American values that made our nation’s middle class the envy of the world – values like fairness and opportunity.

Mitt Romney and Republicans in South Carolina don’t share this vision.  He doesn’t think we should invest in our workers, our students or American industries like carmakers and clean energy. He doesn’t think that we should be rewarding companies only when they bring jobs back to states all across the country, not when they send them overseas. And just as baffling, Romney and the Republicans don’t even admit that this reversal and recovery is happening.

Today, Democrats are embracing the fact that in January, unemployment plummeted to its lowest point in three years. Here’s a copy of the chart they’re standing next to. Meanwhile, some of their detractors are saying that a record number of people dropped out of the workforce that same month.

So I guess you pick the stats of your choice, according to your predilections.

For my part, I told James after the event, all I know is that Obama was inaugurated, and six weeks later, I was laid off. I guess that makes me a tough audience. 😉

But seriously, folks, whoever can claim credit, I’m glad to see promising signs, and look forward to when everybody’s doing as well as they did before 2008.

South Carolina is now an electoral outlier

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On Monday, Bobby Harrell was talking about taking legislative steps to try to ensure South Carolina’s status as the first-in-the-South presidential primary (for both parties, not just the GOP).

But nine days earlier, SC GOP primary voters opted to undermine the best excuse for the Republican national committee, at least, to give South Carolina precedence. For the first time since 1980, they went out of their way to support a candidate who would NOT be the eventual nominee.

So why should anyone care what South Carolina thinks four years from now?

I, for one, will miss all the attention when it drifts away. I like it when the world is paying attention to us for something other than making jackasses of ourselves. I like the buzz. I like South Carolinians having a chance to affect grand events. And yes, I enjoy doing the national and international media interviews. Most importantly, who’s going to pay for me to take a mid-winter break in Key West when nobody cares any more what SC thinks?

I certainly wish my fellow SC voters had taken a moment to think about these things before they capriciously wasted their votes on Newt Gingrich on Jan. 21. But no, they were intent on throwing it all away.

For a moment there, it did look as though Floridians would accept the SC judgment as an early clue to the new direction, but then they woke up and said to themselves, “Wait a minute… this is Newt Gingrich! And we’re not South Carolina. We don’t go off on wild hairs, firing on Fort Sumter and voting for bombastic egoists…”

And they settled down and did what South Carolina usually settles down and does, but didn’t this time: Picked the safe choice, the obvious choice, the guy whose turn it is. They put Mitt Romney back on his inevitability path, and did so decisively.

And already out there, they’re forgetting South Carolina. I can feel it… The next time they pay attention to us, it will be Jon Stewart making fun of us again. And in the unlikely event that Mitt Romney is elected president, he’ll feel less grateful to South Carolina than Barack Obama does (the incumbent at least had an important primary victory here).

We’re drifting… drifting… into irrelevance…

Sigh…

Newt admits he was wrong… OK, who are you, and what have you done with our Newt Gingrich?

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All right, technically it wasn’t Newt himself who made the admission, but his “camp.” But until he leaps forward to call his campaign people liars, I’m taking it as an admission from Newt.

Here’s what CNN is reporting:

(CNN) – Newt Gingrich’s campaign admitted Wednesday night the former House speaker was inaccurate when he claimed his team offered several witnesses to ABC News to refute statements made by Gingrich’s second wife in a controversial interview aired last week.

CNN Chief National Correspondent John King reported the campaign said it only recommended Gingrich’s two daughters from his first marriage, who wrote a letter discouraging ABC to release the interview…

R.C. Hammond, the campaign’s press secretary, told CNN the only people the campaign offered to ABC were the speaker’s two daughters, Jackie Cushman and Kathy Gingrich Lubbers, who make regular appearances for their father on the campaign trail…

How satisfying it must have been for John King to report that story, eh?

By the way, in case you have trouble keeping the relationships straight, these are his daughters by his first marriage. The one making the allegations was his second wife.

Oh, and ABC reported what they had to say the same day as running the ex-wife interview, which was also the same day that Newt unfairly and untruthfully lambasted ABC.

Mitt defends media from Newt. So I guess it’s true: Romney IS a RINO

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What other explanation could there be for siding with the godless news media against a fellow Republican. Oh, Mitt… I’m glad Spiro Agnew isn’t alive to see this…

Now you see, that was mockery — what I just did, in my headline and lede. The Politico item I’m about to quote is headlined, “Mitt Romney mocks Newt Gingrich’s attacks on media.” But what follows doesn’t support that. It’s more like “criticizes” or “corrects” or, perhaps most accurately, “takes exception to.” At least going by the words. Maybe he said them in a snarky way. Maybe I need to see the video…

In any case, here’s what he said:

“It’s very easy to talk down a moderator. The moderator asks a question and has to sit by and take whatever you send to them,” Romney said on Fox News. “And Speaker Gingrich has been wonderful at attacking the moderators and attacking the media. That’s always a very favorite response for the home crowd.”…

But the former Massachusetts suggested that being on the offense against the media doesn’t equate to the more important skill of being able to take on other rivals in the presidential field.

“It’s very different to have candidates go against candidates, and that’s something I’ll be doing against President [Barack] Obama if I get the chance to be our nominee, that this guy has been a failure for the American people, he has not gotten people back to work, internationally he shrunk the power of our military. He has to be a guy who we replace from the White House,” he said.

Graham or DeMint? Or, to put it another way, Reagan or Ron Paul? Whither goest the GOP in the world?

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Charleston’s City Paper records another skirmish in the internecine battle between Republicans over America’s role in the world:

After the Republican presidential debate in Myrtle Beach last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham said on Fox News, “I hope people in the country understand that we’re Ronald Reagan Republicans in South Carolina. We believe in peace through strength and we’re not isolationists.”

In an interview the next day, Graham’s fellow South Carolinian Sen. Jim DeMint said on Fox Business,”If we spread ourselves too thin around the world we’re not going to be able to defend the homeland, particularly with the level of debt that we have right now. It’s foolish for us to think that we can have military bases all over the world, spend billions of dollars when we’re going broke back home. It just isn’t going to happen.”

Austerity may be a bad word to Graham when it comes to Pentagon spending, but for DeMint it’s the very definition of conservatism. When Republicans like DeMint and his Senate ally Rand Paul say that Pentagon spending cuts must happen, Republicans like Graham and his Senate ally John McCain call such actions “isolationist.” When Paul was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010, McCain said he was worried about the “rise of isolationism” in the GOP. When Paul later led the charge against President Barack Obama’s military intervention in Libya, both Graham and McCain trotted out the isolationist label again…

I’m sure you don’t have to ask where I stand.

Translate, please: Is that some sort of threat?

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So what do you think this other former speaker is saying about Newt Gingrich when she says, “There is something I know.”

Taegan Goddard over at Political Wire says, “It doesn’t seem like Pelosi is bluffing” when she says that.

But it seems to me it could be read two ways:

  1. She’s saying there’s a deep, dark secret, yet unknown except by her, that will do in Newt in a fall campaign.
  2. She’s simply emphasizing that, based on what is already widely known — especially among those who served with him — she knows that he won’t be president.

Which do you think it is? Or is it something else? Or nothing?

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney says he sure wishes he knew what that secret was. I’ll be he does.

And Gingrich’s reaction is pure Newt:

She lives in a San Francisco environment of very strange fantasies and very strange understandings of reality. I have no idea what’s in Nancy Pelosi’s head. If she knows something, I have a simple challenge: Spit it out.

You know you’re really over the top when Rush Limbaugh advises you to chill

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The Slatest brings my attention to two fascinating items bearing on the GOP field’s new front-runner:

First item:

Newt, a.k.a. Maximus the Entertainer, said he won’t participate in any more debates if the crowd isn’t allowed to roar. “The media is terrified that the audience is going to side with the candidates against the media, which is what they’ve done in every debate… The media doesn’t control free speech. People ought to be allowed to applaud if they want to.”

Here’s a tip, Mr. Big Brain Who’s Written a Bunch of Books: “Media” is a plural noun. So you should say, “The media are terrified” and “The media don’t control free speech.” Just for future reference, professor.

Second item:

Rush Limbaugh wants Newt Gingrich to ease up on his recent offensive against the media, warning that such theatrics may play well with some conservative voters but will only get him so far in his quest to be the next president.

Yes, that Rush Limbaugh. According to the Daily Caller, the conservative radio host took some time on his show Monday to warn Newt on his favorite debate subject. “The days of being able to keep this momentum going by ripping on the media are over. The standing ovations for taking on the media are over, or they have very short lifespan,” Limbaugh said, adding, “You can only go to the well so many times on this stuff.”

Wow. When Rush tells you to chill, maybe you’d better. Not like he’s a model of self-restraint or anything…

‘Are you not entertained?’ The increasing futility of the GOP nomination process this year

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Bret Stephens really sliced and diced the Republican presidential field in today’s Wall Street Journal, in a piece with a headline that does not equivocate: “The GOP Deserves to Lose.” After predicting, as have I, that Barack Obama will win re-election, he goes on to excoriate the challengers:

As for the current GOP field, it’s like confronting a terminal diagnosis. There may be an apparent range of treatments: conventional (Romney), experimental (Gingrich), homeopathic (Paul) or prayerful (Santorum). But none will avail you in the end. Just try to exit laughing.

That’s my theory for why South Carolina gave Newt Gingrich his big primary win on Saturday: Voters instinctively prefer the idea of an entertaining Newt-Obama contest—the aspiring Caesar versus the failed Redeemer—over a dreary Mitt-Obama one. The problem is that voters also know that Gaius Gingrich is liable to deliver his prime-time speeches in purple toga while holding tight to darling Messalina’s—sorry, Callista’s—bejeweled fingers. A primary ballot for Mr. Gingrich is a vote for an entertaining election, not a Republican in the White House.

Newt reminds me less of Claudius than of the fictional Maximus in “Gladiator.” Are you not, indeed, entertained?

And last night, we didn’t even get that. Mitt Romney, looking every inch the sap gladiator whose role in the ring is to approach the headliner hesitantly and poke at him before getting killed (could he have seemed MORE desperate?), dutifully played his part. But Newt, now in the position of front-runner, wouldn’t fight. He didn’t do what he had done in South Carolina, where he recklessly drove the mob wild.

So I have to ask, if there are to be no more circuses, where’s our bread?