Category Archives: Elections

He said/he said: Hard to keep up with this Dem chair race

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I’m really busy today with Mad Man stuff, but if I don’t go ahead and share some of this stuff with y’all I’ll never catch up again.

Since my last post on the subject last night, SC Democratic Party chairman candidate Phil Noble has sent out TWO more releases in his war of words with opponent Dick Harpootlian. Here’s one:

Noble: Harpootlian’s Response Inadequate – Contributions to GOP
are Insider Politics as Usual

Yesterday, I called on Dick Harpootlian to withdraw from the race for South Carolina Democratic Chair after it was revealed on a political blog that he contributed more than $15,000 dollars to Republicans like Jake Knotts and Henry McMaster.

I was very disappointed he didn’t seem to take this seriously. He essentially dismissed the issue by saying he’d given much more to Democrats than Republicans, and Democrats should be happy about that. He didn’t even say that he regretted what he did, or that he wouldn’t continue to do it in the future.

This is not a trivial concern.

How does a party chairman go out and recruit Democratic candidates to run against Republican incumbents to whom he has personally made substantial financial contributions?

How does the leader of a party recruit volunteers and donors to support a Democratic candidate who is trying to unseat those Republicans he apparently admires enough to write them a big check?

I believe the Democratic party in South Carolina needs to set a new course. We need to show the people of this state that we do have a fresh vision for the future that does not include good ole boy politics, backroom deals, and an I’ll-scratch-your-back-you-scratch mine mentality.

I was particularly disappointed that Dick’s response to this matter was to resort to the old politics of half-truths and misinformation to discredit me.

Here are the facts:

Fact 1: I gave money to Barack Obama via his website within an hour of his announcement. Early in 2007, long before he was a popular candidate in South Carolina, I was organizing lit drops, and precinct activities to help his campaign get off the ground. I was proud of my support for him then, just as I am now.

Fact 2: I am a member of the board of the South Carolina Archives and History Foundation. As a board member, I was asked to contribute to the mounting of an official state historical marker designating the site of the signing of the Ordinance of Secession. It had nothing to do with supporting the idea of secession of the civil war. The same evening the marker was dedicated, a “Secession Ball” was held in Charleston. While that event was underway, I was speaking at an NAACP rally protesting the Ball.

Fact 3: My opponent claims that in 2002 I contributed $900 to a conservative Illinois Republican by the name of Phil Crane. This is simply not true. I don’t support his far-right politics, and I certainly have never given him any money. Period, full stop. As I said in my original statement, I have never given money to a Republican candidate and I never will. Any records that would appear to contradict this are obviously in error or fraudulent, and I’ll be happy to release my check register or bank records from that year or any year to verify that I don’t give money to Republicans.

We need to have a debate on the future of our party and how we can change and win. Let’s move forward and have that conversation now.

###

And here’s the other:

Former FEC Commissioner: Harpootlian Charge Rests On Fraudulent Documents From Convicted Felon

Yesterday, I called on Dick Harpootlian to withdraw from the race for South Carolina Democratic Party chair after it was revealed that he has contributed more than $15,000 to Republican candidates for office in South Carolina.

To my surprise, Dick responded to this news by actually trying to justify these donations to right-wing Republicans like Jake Knotts and Henry McMaster, and by accusing me of having given a $900 donation to an Illinois Republican named Phil Crane in 2002. As I immediately made clear in a statement last night, I have never given money to Phil Crane or any other Republican and I never will. “Any records” I said, “that would appear to contradict this are obviously in error or fraudulent.”

Today, former Federal Election Commissioner Scott Thomas has come forward to tell us it was the later.

“Christopher Ward was treasurer of the Phil Crane campaign when this fraudulent donation was allegedly made by Phil Noble,” Thomas said in a statement issued today. “Ward was a crook and he pled guilty in 2010 to massive embezzlement from several political committees. Ward committed multiple scams, frauds and forgeries affecting many party and candidate committees where he served as treasurer. One of his tricks apparently, was to move money from a party committee account to a candidate committee under false names so he could then embezzle the funds more easily. This would explain why Noble’s name was fraudulently used by Ward and the Crane campaign.”

Commissioner Thomas was a Federal Election Commissioner from 1986 – 2006 during the time that the fraud was perpetrated. He is available for comment by phone at 202 420 2601 or email at [email protected].

Statements and Stories detailing Chris Ward’s Fraudulent Campaign Finance Activity:
http://www.justice.gov/usao/md/Public-Affairs/press_releases/press08/FormerTreasurerofNationalRepublicanCongressionalCommitteePleadsGuiltytoEmbezzling844718.html
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/09/03/former-gop-committee-treasurer-christopher-ward-pleads-guilty-to/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/03/christopher-ward-nrcc-embezzlement-guilty_n_705533.html

I suppose I need to step out of the way before I get hit in the head by another one from Harpootlian…

Harpootlian fires back at Noble

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Well, that didn’t take long. Dick “Tough Guy” Harpootlian just fired back a full broadside at Phil Noble in response to his earlier shot:

HARPOOTLIAN: “NOBLE DAZED AND CONFUSED”

Harpootlian given over $500,000 to Dems; Noble didn’t give a dime to President Obama; Lied in his press release

For immediate release:

Monday, April 20, 2011

Contact:

Amanda Alpert Loveday

Columbia, SC — This afternoon Dick Harpootlian responded to an attack by Phil Noble that misleadingly highlighted a handful of Harpootlian’s contributions to the exclusion of well over $500,000 given to Democrats during the same period.

Harpootlian said:

“I gave money to Jake Knotts because, like me, he has supported the last three Democratic candidates for governor.

If Phil wants to talk about money, lets talk about why he gave money to erect a Confederate Monument in Charleston but didn’t give a single dime to Barack Obama. Phil claims to be a big Obama supporter, but it’s just not true.

While I’m attacking Republicans, like Nikki Haley and her corrupt administration, Phil is spending his time attacking me with misstatements and untruths.  The South Carolina Democratic Party needs someone who will spend their time building the party, not tearing it down.”

The December 27, 2010 edition of the Charleston Post and Courier reported that Noble, a former member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, contributed money to erect a monument commemorating the signing of the Ordinance of Secession.

“Phil’s not telling the truth in his press release either. He claims never to have given or raised ‘one red cent’ to a Republican, but he clearly gave $900 to an Illinois Republican in 2002,” said Harpootlian. “That’s $900 more than he gave Vincent Sheheen or Barack Obama.”
# # #

I’d say more, but I’m listening to Harpootlian on Pub Politics right now…

“The Brad Show” 2011 season premiere! Starring Dick Harpootlian!

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Heh-heh.

I saw that Pub Politics was going to have Dick Harpootlian as their guest tonight, and decided to scoop ’em. It wasn’t hard, since I had already interviewed Dick last week.

Anyway, here’s the video.

Were there any bombshells during the show, along the lines of wanting to rent the black vote, or opposition pols being light in their loafers? Well, there WAS a comment about a certain GOP senator and hoop skirts. But I wasn’t actually trying to elicit such. It’s just that Mr. Harpootlian is rather irrepressible.

I’m involved in negotiations with his opponent in the race for state Democratic Party chair, Phil Noble — negotiations that consist of trying to find time when he’s in town and the studio is available (Dick’s office is just a few blocks away, and that made it easier) — but no dice yet. In a pinch, we may have to fall back on a phone interview, but I hope it doesn’t come to that. There’s also the possibility of Skype, which would be an innovation for the show.

But we’re all about innovation here at “The Brad Show.” That, and in-depth discussion of the issues of the day. Who knows what we may get up to in this new season? I certainly don’t. We just sort of make it up from episode to episode…

Could Obama lose? Well, yeah, but it seems unlikely given current trends

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Saw this this morning on Twitter, from Political Wire:

Yes, Obama could lose… http://pwire.at/hfiOUM

To which I responded, “Yeah, and I could conceivably WIN – anything can happen – but what are the odds?”

ANYTHING can happen over the last 19 months (things that would turn this assessment around 180 degrees), but watching the sluggish “race” for the nomination to run against him — and seeing some of the characters getting the most attention (here’s a question for you conspiracy fans: Is the “liberal media” deliberately overplaying the likes of Michele Bachmann, Donald Trump and Sarah Palin in order to undermine conservative chances?) — it seems extremely dubious.

Dubious to the point that I’d really, really appreciate it if the opposition would stop acting like he’s somehow illegitimate, and seeking to undermine everything he tries to do (like the health care reform the nation so badly needs, as inadequate as his efforts in that regard may be). Because folks, not only did he win the last election, but he’s probably going to win the next one. And I think the stronger potential GOP candidates know that, which is why we’re not seeing much activity from anyone but the extremists.

By the way, did you follow the link on that Tweet, which quoted a Salon article asserting that, if the economy doesn’t get better, “the GOP will be well-positioned to oust Obama in 2012, provided the party doesn’t nominate a fringe candidate.”

Run that by again: “…provided the party doesn’t nominate a fringe candidate.” Right now, that looks kind of like a big IF.

In 08, we were blessed by having both parties’ nominees being the less partisan options. It seems unlikely that we’ll be thus blessed in ’12. Unlike Democrats, who are cheering for the GOP extremists because they want to run against them, I hope the GOP does come up with a mainstream, sensible nominee because… as I say, ANYTHING can happen, and I’d like to reduce the chance of a having a nut job in the White House. But will that happen? I actually suspect it will. But I do worry.

Some Bachman, in case you haven’t had enough

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For those of you who may have missed Michele Bachman when she was in SC the last few days, here are some things she has said in the past, which a colleague sent to me today:

“Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.” -Rep. Michelle Bachmann, April, 2009

“Take this into consideration. If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the Census Bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations at the request of President Roosevelt, and that’s how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps. I’m not saying that that’s what the Administration is planning to do, but I am saying that private personal information that was given to the Census Bureau in the 1940s was used against Americans to round them up, in a violation of their constitutional rights, and put the Japanese in internment camps.” -Rep. Michele Bachmann, June 2009
“I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out under another, then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.” -Rep. Michele Bachmann, on the 1976 Swine Flu outbreak that happened when Gerald Ford, a Republican, was president, April 28, 2009

Hmmm. Wait a sec. This post may not be in my interest. Rep. Bachman has already been throwing around advertising money in SC, way out ahead of other prospective candidates. If she sees this, she’s likely to think, a) I’m glad to see that Brad Warthen is spreading my ideas for free, so I don’t need to send HIM any ad bucks; or b) That Brad Warthen is holding me up to ridicule, I’m not about to spend any ad bucks with HIM. Either way, I lose.

This is one reason why not many people, admire me as they might, see me as a good businessman.

Of course, I could have just shared with you what she said while she was here:

BLUFFTON, S.C. — Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann told a packed tea party gathering she doesn’t think President Barack Obama is “on our side anymore” as she blamed him for a “foolish” war in Libya and high gasoline prices…

Oh, and here’s what she said on the State House steps today:

You recognize that in Washington D.C., your rights are being taken away from you…

… something that I did NOT know, by the way. You?

Obama’s just looking better and better to me (and the UnParty) all the time

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And no, this isn’t just because the Republicans who would oppose him seem engaged in a contest to see who can be the biggest whack job. It’s more about Obama himself.

Earlier, I indicated that Obama was, after a weak outing in 2008, looking more and more like the Energy Party candidate for 2012.

Well, now… and I’m even more happy about this… he’s looking more and more like he wants the nod of the UnParty.

I saw this most clearly reading a piece in the NYT’s Week In Review from Sunday, “Obama, Searching for a Vision.”

Well, first off, I don’t think Obama’s searching for a vision. I think he’s got one, and it looks clearer, and better, every day. Perhaps he is, as the piece suggests, “being pressed as never before to define what American liberalism means for the 21st century.” At least, pressed by some.

But what I think he’s doing is something much higher and better — defining pragmatism for the 21st century. This is what I’ve always liked about him, but as he comes to embody it more fully, as the right hates him more passionately and the left whines louder about how disappointing he is, I see him more favorably than ever.

Perhaps this can be explained most simply by the fact that he keeps doing stuff I agree with. Take this passage from the piece:

Mr. Obama has always cast himself as a pragmatist and he seems to be feeling his way in the post-midterm election environment. In some areas, he has retreated. The decision announced last week to try the accused Sept. 11 plotters in a military commission at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, represented a 180-degree reversal under pressure from congressional Republicans and some Democrats. His embrace of a free-trade pact with Colombia continued a new emphasis on trade for a Democrat who once vowed to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, or Nafta.

The war in Libya represents one of the most complicated issues for Mr. Obama as he sets out his own form of modern liberalism. The hero of the anti-war movement in 2008 effectively is adopting Mr. Clinton’s humanitarian interventions in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s as a model, while trying to distinguish his actions from Mr. Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Most of that I knew about, and have applauded. But somehow I missed that he had shaken off the completely irrational, amoral opposition of Big Labor to the Colombia Free Trade pact. Way to go, Mr. President!

Most political commentators, trapped in the extremely limiting notion that the politicians they write and speak about must either be of the left or right, can’t make him out. But he keeps making perfect sense to me. Perhaps I should send a memo out to the MSM letting them know that there’s a third way they can think of a politician (actual, there’s an infinite number of ways, but let’s not blow their little minds; one step at a time). There’s left (as “left” is popularly and imperfectly described) and right (as “right” is popularly and imperfectly described), and then there’s Brad Warthen. As in, “The candidate’s recent statements have been Warthenesque,” or “That was a distinctly Braddish move he made last week.”

It would open up whole new vistas for our national political conversation. Certainly a broader landscape than what we’re used to, with its limited expectations.

I LIKE a guy who at least tries to give us health care reform. I thought he didn’t go nearly far enough on that, but now that I see Republicans’ internal organs have turned inside-out in apoplexy at what little he’s done, I suppose he lowered his sights out of compassion for what REAL reform would have done to them.

I like a guy who realizes that closing Guantánamo (as both he AND McCain wanted to do, and generally for sound reasons) and trying all those guys in civil courts was impractical, and moves on.

And folks, please — he was never the “anti-war” candidate. Come on. He considered Iraq to be the “wrong war” — a respectable position to take — and that the “right war” was Afghanistan. Yeah, I have a beef with his timeline stuff, but at least he’s left a hole in that wide enough to drive a Humvee through. He’s been pragmatic about it. And yeah, maybe he got out-toughed by the French, but that’s a GOOD thing. Let France feel like the knight in shining armor for once. Maybe it will be less surly in the future.

But seriously, the guy just looks better all the time — from an UnParty perspective.

Harpootlian moves toward inevitability

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The other day, a former Democratic Party executive committee member warned me not to speak as though Dick “The Once and Future Chairman” Harpootian’s candidacy was a sure thing — because, after all, Phil Noble and that other guy were running, too.

Well, first, I don’t think I said it WAS a sure thing (I said Dick returning to this arena should be fun). And second… well, now that you mention it, maybe it IS. This just in, from Jim Clyburn and Vincent Sheheen:

Harpootlian for SCDP Chair
Dear Fellow Democrats,

Please join us in supporting Dick Harpootlian’s candidacy as the next chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party.

We believe Dick is who and what the party needs right now — a proven leader. He’s tough. He’s articulate. He’s a proven fundraiser. He has the experience to get our party back on track and start winning elections again. We can’t afford to wait until the next campaign season to hold Republicans accountable for their failures. We must start immediately, and Dick shares our sense of urgency.

We believe Dick is uniquely suited to ensure that our party secures the resources not just to compete, but to win. Under his prior leadership as chairman of the state party, South Carolina Democrats had a very successful coordinated campaign, and Jim Hodges was elected governor by defeating the sitting Republican governor.

We hope you will join us in supporting Dick Harpoolian for Chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party at the State Convention on April 30th.

Thank you for your commitment to our party and to our state.

Sincerely,

Congressman James Clyburn
Sen. Vincent Sheheen, 2010 Democratic gubernatorial nominee
Former Gov. Jim Hodges
Sen. John Land, Minority Leader
Sen. Darrell Jackson
Sen. Gerald Malloy
Sen. John Matthews
Rep. Harry Ott, Minority Leader
Rep. Jimmy Bales
Rep. Boyd Brown
Rep. Bill Clyburn
Rep. Todd Rutherford
Rep. John Scott
Rep. Bakari Sellers
Rep. James Smith
Rep. Leon Stavrinakis
Richland County Councilwoman Bernice Scott
Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin
Former SCDP Chairman Joe Erwin

And the fact is, Dick had most Democrats at “Jim Clyburn and Vincent Sheheen.” Personally, I’m impressed by the last name on the list. While I hate to praise ANY party official, as party chairs go, Joe Erwin was a good one. He’s the guy who managed to stop his own party, at the last minute, from having an effectively closed presidential primary in 2004. My kind of partisan, that Joe Erwin.

Anyway, in endorsement terms, this is looking like the state political equivalent of Blitzkrieg.

Feelings, nothing more than feelings: The video launching Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign

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Have you viewed the video kicking off Obama’s re-election campaign (which was all anyone was Tweeting about this morning, it seemed)?

Not much to say about it — because it doesn’t have much, or really anything, to say.

All it really conveys is… feelings. Vague feelings at that. And even for communicating vague feelings, it’s low key.

I’m a bit of a wonkish sort, and prefer a tad more heft than this — not much, just a bit would do. Presumably, more substance is to come. But then again, I’m reminded that Obama is a Democrat, and that party reflects the distaff side of the gender gap, so…

OK, there’s more I could have said there, but I thought better of it. Each party has its aspects that fail to connect with me, and with the Dems it tends to be a certain… femininity… in communication style.

There, I said it. Fine. I haven’t been yelled at all day; might as well start.

Of course, hats off to the ad wizards behind this because they DID start off with a Southern white guy. From the beginning, you hear that voice, over the touchy-feely strumming of an acoustic guitar, and you think: Who’s that? Certainly doesn’t sound like most Obama supporters I know. Which, of course, is what I’m supposed to think. What that guy is saying, by being who he is demographically, is “Don’t put Obama in a box.”

Anyway, what did y’all think of it?

God bless U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs

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I say that because her ruling kept me, and the other sensible folk who refuse to surrender their ability to think to a party, from being disenfranchised by the SC Republican Party:

A federal judge tossed out a lawsuit by Republicans Wednesday who wanted South Carolina to begin requiring voters to register with a party before voting in a primary.

If Republicans don’t want outsiders to help choose their nominees, they have other options, like picking candidates at a party convention or filling out petitions to get them on the ballot, U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs ruled.

The decision reverberates nationally.

South Carolina’s first-in-the-South Republican presidential primary, which has been won by the party’s eventual nominee in each election since 1980, is open to any registered voter in the state, forcing candidates to moderate their message to a wider audience. The Democratic contest is also open.

“It’s a great day for independents. It’s a great day for all voters in South Carolina,” said lawyer Harry Kresky, who argued the case for IndependentVoting.org. “The primary confirms a great deal of legitimacy on a candidate.”

IndependentVoting.org. joined with the state, Tea Party members and black lawmakers in fighting the lawsuit…

Not that all is right with the world. We’re still forced to choose one primary or the other. There is no way I, who live in the most Republican county in South Carolina, where the GOP primary IS the election for most offices, should have been disenfranchised — prevented from having ANY say in local or legislative races — because I chose a Democratic ballot to vote for Vincent Sheheen last June.

But moving to the Louisiana system, as wonderful as that would be, is another battle for another day. For now, I’ll take satisfaction from the fact that the judge prevented the SC Republican Party from further eroding my right to vote for whomever I like.

SC Dems are whistling ‘Dixie’ past own graveyard

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The headline in the paper over the weekend said, “S.C. Democrats: ‘We’re coming back'”:

S.C. Democrats still are smarting from a brutal November that stripped them of one of their two congressional seats, their only statewide office and a handful of General Assembly seats.

But, after some serious post-election number crunching, the state party contends Palmetto State Democrats fared better than Democrats in other states — whose candidates were clobbered by wide margins, too — and actually grew their ranks, laying the groundwork for a comeback.

“We’ve grown our base. These new numbers show we’re not dead and done like some people say,” said Jay Parmley, director of the S.C. Democratic Party. “Yes, we lost everything, but we’re coming back.”…

And what that headline tells us is, SC Democrats are delusional.

Oh, I’m not saying that it’s impossible that some new megatrend that has not yet been spotted by anyone could begin a reversal of the process that started in 1964, when Strom Thurmond joined the Republican Party, and white folks across the state started following him — first in a trickle, then in an accelerating flood.

What I’m saying is that there is no evidence extant at this time to believe that the Democrats are reversing nearly five decades of history trending against them in this state.

Certainly not the main “evidence” the optimists, whistling past their own partisan political graveyard, cite.

Vincent Sheheen’s strong showing is by no means a good sign for Democrats. Vincent Sheheen didn’t do that well because he was a Democrat. He did that well in spite of being a Democrat.

Vincent Sheheen was obviously a stronger candidate, who would clearly have been a better governor, than Nikki Haley. This could not be hidden from SC voters. They liked him better. But he lost, barely, because there are so many white folks in this state who would rather poke themselves in the eye with a sharp stick than pull the lever for a Democrat. His being a Democrat was therefore a huge liability.

If he had NOT been a Democrat — if he and Nikki had both run as Republicans, or if voters had somehow been kept ignorant of the party identification of the two candidates or, if you’ll allow me to dream (and Lord, hasten the day!), no candidate had had ANY party label — then he would have won.

This was obvious. Other statewide Republican candidates, in this huge year for Republicans nationally (and if you will recall, Nikki did everything she could to make the campaign national, running against Barack Obama instead of Vincent Sheheen, who was more likable than she) won in landslides. We’re talking double-digit margins. As I wrote right after the election:

It was so evident that Nikki was the voters’ least favorite statewide Republican (yes, Mick Zais got a smaller percentage, but there were several “third party” candidates; Frank Holleman still got fewer votes than Vincent). I look at it this way: Mark Hammond sort of stands as the generic Republican. Nobody knows who he is or what he does, so he serves as a sort of laboratory specimen of what a Republican should have expected to get on Nov. 2, 2010, given the prevailing political winds. He got 62 percent of the vote.

Even Rich Eckstrom — and this is truly remarkable given his baggage, and the witheringly negative campaign that Robert Barber ran against him — got 58 percent…

Oh, for those of you who don’t know, Mark Hammond is the secretary of state. Voters, by and large, don’t know that. All they knew was that he was labeled “Republican.”

That Nikki Haley, with her 51 percent, didn’t come anywhere close to their margins testified to voter discomfort with her (as opposed to a generic Republican like Hammond), and to the strength of her opponent (because SOME of those voters who went for the GOP in every other race voted for Vincent).

If she hadn’t had an R after her name, and he hadn’t had a D, he would be governor now.

And Democrats who say otherwise are fooling themselves.

Nikki Haley dumps Darla Moore: A plain case of old-fashioned naked patronage

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It’s really hard to keep up with all the petty outrages (both “petty” and “outrageous” — yes, that seems about right) that our new young governor keeps pumping out.

I’m a busy guy — working, blogging, trying to grab a little sleep at night — and sometimes find myself momentarily out of the loop. Particularly when there are so many far more important things going on in the world. Let’s see, the Japan earthquake, Qaddafi (I’ve gotten to where I just spell his name with the first combination of letters that my fingers hit, so I hope that suits) moving to crush the rebellion while the world is distracted with Japan, Saudis intervening in Bahrain and people getting killed… And sometimes you have to put even that aside, and do other stuff…

So when I finish my Virtual Front Page and close the laptop, I sometimes don’t see any new developments until 7ish the next morning. Which is why I was taken aback at the very first Tweet I saw this morning:

Nettie Britts @nettie_bNettie Britts

Explain Darla Moore to me.

I replied, “Well, she’s this rich lady from South Carolina who tries to give back to her home state. That’s the Twitter version, I guess…” And I went on to breakfast. There, the grill room at the Capital City Club was buzzing with what I didn’t know about, since I hadn’t sat down to read the paper yet (don’t ask me why it wasn’t on thestate.com when I was doing the Virtual Front Page yesterday; maybe it was and I just missed it). The state and community leaders weren’t going, “Did you hear about Darla?” It was more like, “What do you think of the news?” Period.

Yep, this stuff happens to me, too. Not often, but sometimes.

So I sat down, and I read the paper. And I Tweeted this out:

Brad Warthen

@BradWarthen Brad Warthen

Nikki Haley dumping Darla Moore is classic case of naked, arbitrary exercise of patronage power….http://tinyurl.com/4nu4of8

You can congratulate me later for having gotten a link, an editorial point, “Nikki Haley,” “Darla Moore,” and “naked” into the Twitter format (with 14 characters of room left!). Let’s move on to the substance.

And the substance is… well, what I just said. It just doesn’t get any more blatant, plain, slap-in-the-face, I-don’t-care-what-you’ve-done-for-our-state-or-this-institution-I’ve-got-my-own-guy than this. Just bald, plain, take-it-for-what-it-is. Although I do have to hand it to Haley staffer Rob Godfrey for managing to twist the knife a bit with this bit of sarcastic insouciance:

Asked why the appointment was not announced, he said: “Given that there are over 1,000 appointments to boards and commissions the governor can make, we never intended to have a press conference for each one.”

Because, you know, Darla Moore isn’t any more important than that.

At the Cap City Club this morning, one of the regular movers and shakers made a rather naive and innocent remark (sometimes movers and shakers can surprise you that way), honestly asking, “How do you just brush aside someone who’s given $100 million to South Carolina?” (Yeah, I know she’s only pledged $70 million to USC and $10 million to Clemson, according to the story, but I guess he was rounding.)

I replied, patiently, here’s what Nikki Haley would say to that (were she brutally honest, of course): “She didn’t give ME a hundred million dollars. Tommy over here gave me $3,500. I don’t understand the question.” That’s Tommy Cofield, by the way, a Lexington attorney.

People who are not movers and shakers (and who in fact have a sort of visceral aversion to movers and shakers) can say some naive things, too. Over in a previous comment, our own Doug said “Are we assuming that Sheheen wouldn’t have replaced anyone he didn’t like?”

To that, I responded once again with the painfully obvious: “No, Vincent would not have replaced Darla Moore with an unknown, minor campaign contributor in such a prestigious post. If that’s what you’re asking.” Of course, I should have added, “without a reason.” By that, I would mean a valid reason, one that takes South Carolina’s and USC’s legitimate interests into account, one that is not just arbitrary.

Oh she GAVE what I suppose some folks (probably including Doug, believing as he does that there is nothing so deleterious to society as experience and commitment to the public weal) will regard as a reason: “As is the case with many of our appointees, the governor looked for a fresh set of eyes to put in a critical leadership position…”

That’s it.

And if you are one of the people who takes Nikki Haley at face value, as her supporters tend to do, and you don’t know or care about Darla Moore or the University of South Carolina — you just like to cheer on your Nikki — that will suffice. In with the new, out with the old. She will feel in no way obligated to explain what was wrong with Darla Moore’s service on the board, or to cite any of the exciting new ideas that her appointee brings to the table that were previously missing. No one will expect that of her; it probably wouldn’t even occur to her to think about it. The governor will skate on this with these people — this is something that is core to her whole approach to politics ever since she transformed herself into the darling of the Tea Party in preparation for her run for this office for which she was so unprepared.

This WORKS for her. She skates on this, just as — with the voters she cares about — she will skate on apparently having told a prospective employer in 2007 that she was making $125,000 a year when she was telling the IRS that she made $22,000. This will matter not. People are just picking at her. The nasty, powerful, status quo people — those people who hang out at the Capital City Club! — are picking at Nikki because they’re mean, you see. (By the way, on the “petty” vs. “outrageous” spectrum, the thing on the job application is more the typical “petty” violation of her alleged principles that we have come to expect; the Darla Moore thing, dealing as it does with the leadership of such an important state institution, is more of an “outrage.” If you’re keeping score.)

She will not only skate, but her supporters — or at least, this is what the governor banks on — will continue, in spite of all evidence, to see her as a champion of transparency, a reformer, a nemesis of “politics as usual” and patron saint of Good Government. Which just, you know, boggles the mind if you’re the sensible sort who thinks about things.

That’s the plan, anyway. And that’s why she did this, and really doesn’t care if you, or the university, or the business community, or Darla Moore don’t like it.

But really, what DO you say?

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Trav Robertson, as we saw him during the 2010 campaign.

Still sort of reeling from this discombobulation called Daylight Savings, and having had three glasses of sweet tea with my lunch at Seawell’s — to no noticeably helpful effect — I decided to do a wide swing through Five Points to get some REAL caffeine at Starbucks on my way back to the office.

So I got my tall Pike, and once again impressed the baristas with my fancy gift card from across the sea (thanks, Mr. Darcy!), and on my way out ran into Trav Robertson, whom I hadn’t seen since the election. Trav, if you’ll recall, managed Vincent Sheheen’s almost, but not quite, campaign for governor last year.

We chatted for a moment, mainly about the state of news media today and how it relates to politics (he said one of the toughest things he found to adjust to in the campaign was this newfangled notion that the story changes at least four times in the course of what we once so quaintly called a “news cycle”), and we parted, and as I walked back toward my truck, who was coming up the steps from Saluda but Larry Marchant. He smiled and we shook hands, and turning back to see Trav standing at the coffee shop door, I said, “Well, here’s you, and here’s Trav Robertson — we’ve just got everybody here, Democrats and Republicans…” as I moved on toward my vehicle.

Which is a pretty stupid and meaningless thing to say, but what DOES one say in such a social situation? I mean, I’m not gonna say, “Well, lookee here, we’ve got Trav, whose candidate lost a close election to a woman you claimed to the world to have slept with, and I last saw you being made fun of by Jon Stewart….”

No, I don’t think so.

And really, I suppose it’s not all that cool to say it here on the blog, either, but… it seems to me there’s a social commentary in here somewhere, having to do with Moynihan’s concept of Defining Deviance Down or whatever. And when I say “deviance,” I’m not picking on Larry or anybody else, but talking about us, the people who are the consumers of such “news.”

I mean, how does one conduct himself in polite society — or any society — in which such things are discussed, disclosed, dissected and displayed publicly? Actually, “publicly” isn’t quite the word, is it? Doesn’t quite state the case. Way more intense than that.

If you’re Jon Stewart, life is simple. You make a tasteless joke or two, get your audience to laugh, and move on to the next gag. But what do you say if you’re just a regular person out here in the real world, and you run into the real people about whom these jokes are made?

Whatever the right thing is, I haven’t figured it out, so today I just fell back on the time-honored stratagem of ignoring any weirdness inherent in the situation, and saying something insipid. Which, in this polite state of ours, still works.

As for Trav and Larry — did they speak after I left? Do they even know each other? If they spoke, what did they speak about? I have no idea. I retreated to the office with my coffee.

Larry Marchant, as we saw him during the 2010 campaign.

Just to say something you don’t hear all that often

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The quixotic demonstration at the State House yesterday by citizens sick of seeing our state’s infrastructure rapidly eroding under the stewardship of shortsighted politicians was of course an exercise in futility.

But I’m no stranger to that. A few minutes ago, looking for a link for a previous post that needed one, I went back to the last week of posts on my old blog I had at the paper, and ran across this forgotten item — which, as it happens, was day after the post in which I announced that I had been laid off:

Good job rejecting the tuition caps

This might sound strange coming from a guy who was already counting pennies (or quarters, anyway — I miscounted how many I had this morning in my truck, and ended up with a parking ticket because I didn’t have enough for the meter), with my two youngest daughters still in college. And now I’m about to be unemployed.

But I’m glad the House rejected tuition caps at S.C. colleges and universities. I have an anecdote to share about that.

Remember the recent day when college students wandered the State House lobbying lawmakers on behalf of their institutions. They wanted the state to invest in higher education the way North Carolina and Georgia have. Either that day, or the day after, I had lunch with Clemson President James Barker, and he told me an anecdote he had witnessed: He said the students were pressing a lawmaker NOT to support the tuition caps, because they were worried about their institutions being even more underfunded — they hardly get anything from the state — some are down below 20 percent funding by the state, and the rest has to come from such sources as tuition, federal research grants and private gifts. Eliminate the ability to raise tuition, and the institution’s ability to provide an excellent education is significantly curtailed. If we want lower tuitions, the state should go back to funding higher percentages of the schools’ budgets, the way our neighboring states with better higher ed systems do.

The lawmaker listened to the kids, and then said with great condescension, maybe you kids don’t care if tuition goes up, but I’ll bet your parents would like a cap. He thought he had them there, but the kids set him straight: None of their parents were paying the bills. These kids were working their way through schools and paying for it all themselves. And they didn’t want to see the quality of what they were working so hard to pay for be degraded by an artificial cap on tuition. The lawmaker had not counted on getting that answer.

I wish I had been there to see it, because I’ve been in a similar place before. Back in 95 or 96, Speaker Wilkins had brought his committee chairs to see us, and I started challenging the wisdom of their massive rollback of property taxes paid for school.One of them allowed as how he bet I was glad to get that couple of hundred dollars I didn’t have to pay. And I answered him that I was ashamed that I was paying so little through my property tax to support schools that I knew needed more resources. He said smugly that he was sure I wouldn’t want to give it back. I told him I didn’t see as how there was any channel for doing that, but if he could point me to the right person who would take my money and see it gets to the right place, I would pay the difference. He didn’t have a good answer for that.

It would be great if our lawmakers would stop assuming that all of us in South Carolina are so greedily shortsighted that we can’t see past our personal desire to pay less money, and that we are corruptible by a scheme to starve colleges of reasonable support.

Reading that now, with all that’s happened since — the rise of the Tea Party, the eagerness of Republicans, demoralized after their 2008 defeat, to embrace destructive extremism (and of course, what happens to the Republican Party as happens to South Carolina, which it dominates), the election of Nikki Haley over more experienced, less extreme candidates of both parties — it reads like thoughts from another century. And, of course, another place.

Imagine, even dreaming of our state caring enough about education to invest in it the way our neighboring states have, much less suggesting that we do so. How anachronistic can one get? All that’s happened since then is that South Carolina has run, faster every day, in the opposite direction — with out elected leaders firmly convinced that that is not only the right direction in which to run, but the only one.

Obama: Ready To Tap Oil Reserve If Needed — which it ISN’T, not by a long shot

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The president at this afternoon's presser. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

Well, gasoline prices are rising toward levels that might, just might, cause some of us to face reality and acknowledge that it’s not a good idea at all to be so desperately dependent on cheap oil from crazy-dangerous parts of the world, and what are our elected leaders — Democrats and Republicans — doing?

Why, what they always do — pandering. But there’s pandering, and then there’s pandering.

The GOP is busily blaming Barack “Root of All Evil” Obama. The president himself is responding by saying, at a press conference today, that he’s prepared to tap the strategic oil reserve, if needed.

But that last part is key, and his way out as a rational man. It’s like his promise to “start” withdrawing troops from Afghanistan by a certain date, which in no way commits him to draw down dangerously before it’s wise to do so. Obama’s smart; he’s not going to pander so far that he commits himself to something irresponsible. This is a quality that he has demonstrated time and again, and which has greatly reassured me ever since he beat my (slightly) preferred candidate for the presidency. This is the quality — or one of them — that made me glad to say so often, back in 2008, that for the first time in my editorial career, both major-party candidates for president were ones I felt good about (and both of whom we endorsed, in their respective primaries).

It’s certainly more defensible than Mr. Boehner’s reflexive partisan bashing. And it’s WAY more defensible than Al “Friend of the Earth” Gore asking Bill Clinton to tap the reserve to help him win the 2000 election.

To quote from the report I just saw on the NPR site:

Obama said he’s prepared to tap the U.S. emergency oil reserve if needed. But as gas prices climbed toward $4 a gallon, the president said the U.S. must adopt a long-term strategy of conservation and domestic production to wean itself off foreign oil.

“We’ve been having this conversation for nearly four decades now. Every few years gas prices go up, politicians pull out the same political playbook, and nothing changes,” Obama said.

“I don’t want to leave this to the next president,” he said.

Some in Congress have been calling on Obama to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And the president made clear Friday that that was an option, although he indicated he wasn’t yet prepared to exercise it. He declined to specify the conditions that would trigger the step, but said it was teed up and could happen quickly if he chooses to call for it….

His threshold, based on what he said, is a Hurricane Katrina, or worse. Personally, I’d raise the bar a bit higher than that, but he’s on the right track, trying to set a high standard. (You make a disruption like Katrina the standard, then next thing you know, you’re tempted to lower it to, say, a BP oil spill — and that’s not the direction you want to go in.)

The key word here is “strategic,” a threshold that I would think wouldn’t be crossed until we have a sustained inability to GET oil to power our economy — something we came close to, in spots, in recent crises. But it seems to me one only turns to such “strategic” options as a last resort. The president should be “prepared to tap the U.S. emergency oil reserve if needed” in the same sense he is expected to be prepared to crack open the “football” and activate the codes for going nuclear. OK, maybe that’s a bit extreme, but you get where I’m going with this. It’s something we hope and pray never happens, and we do our best to pursue policies that avoid such an eventuality.

By the way, back to that excerpt above. I particularly love “the president said the U.S. must adopt a long-term strategy of conservation and domestic production to wean itself off foreign oil.” Earlier today, I disparaged the president for being no Energy Party man. (I was essentially repeating an observation I made about both him and McCain in a July 6, 2008, column.)

But maybe I was wrong. If he keeps saying things like that, he may deserve the Energy nomination in 2012 after all.

SC political party does an appalling thing (surprise, surprise!)

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All day, I’ve been trying to find time to fulminate about this, which I learned from Twitter this morning:

State GOP goes to court to close SC primaries

GREENVILLE, SC (AP) – South Carolina Republicans hope a federal judge will set the stage for closed primaries that require voters to register by party.

The Greenville Republican Party and state GOP are pushing for the legal ruling at a Thursday hearing in a Greenville federal courtroom.

A ruling there could change South Carolina’s taxpayer-funded presidential, state and local primaries.

South Carolina’s attorney general has asked that the case be dismissed.

It is also opposed by the Columbia Tea Party, members of the state Legislative Black Caucus, the Independence Party of South Carolina and IndependentVoting.org.

Oh, and before my liberal friends counter that Once again, you’re forcing a false nonpartisan parity by refusing to recognize that only those awful Republicans would do such a thing, and Democrats never would, allow me to remind you that leading Democrats tried to do this very thing (although a different way) in 2006, by requiring that anyone voting in the presidential primary here had to swear to being a Democrat. (Then-chairman Joe Erwin heroically stepped in at the very last minute to stop it, to his everlasting credit.)

At least with the Republicans, it sort of makes a twisted kind of sense for them to try to close primaries, since they see it to their advantage as the majority party. For the Democrats, with their dwindling ranks, it made NO sense to bar independents such as myself from voting in a Democratic primary. Golly, who knows — they might get into the habit!

Anyway… I haven’t seen yet what happened in court today. But this is one time that I’m rooting for the Tea Party (if I understand it rightly and they are opposing the GOP on this — it was a little hard to tell from that brief item; the wording was sketchy.)

You know what I think? I think we ought to do like Louisiana, and let everybody vote in a single primary that candidates of all parties (and nonparties) vote in. That way the citizens, rather than parties, get to decide which two candidates they’ll be choosing from in the fall. When the UnParty takes over, that’s the way it will be here.

UPDATE:

Arguments were heard today, but the judge apparently hasn’t decided the case yet. The update was as sketchy as the original item, unfortunately. I’m hoping to see something more complete, because this deserves a MUCH wider airing.

Callista? Wasn’t she that disturbingly skinny chick on TV?

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Well, I’m behind the curve again — when Politico posted this:

Callista Gingrich moves to spotlight

The first word from Newt Gingrich at his announcement last week that he would explore a presidential campaign was “Callista.”

Callista Gingrich is, literally, in the foreground of her husband’s new campaign website, over which her beaming blonde visage looms as large as his. The former speaker’s wife co-signs his organization’s e-mails, produces his movies, appears beside him on Fox News, and even reads his work for audio-book adaptations – but she has maintained such a low profile over a decade in their marriage that she remains an enigma even to some of his closest supporters.

She is, ironically, simultaneously the most public and the least known of the political partners bracing for the scrutiny of a presidential campaign. In eleven years of marriage, Callista Gingrich has never been the subject of a profile. Gingrich’s aides declined to make her available to POLITICO for an interview, to talk about her or the marriage on the record or on background, or even to suggest friends who might offer a glimpse of the would-be First Lady….

… I’m like, Callista? Wasn’t she that chick on that TV show I never watched, the one that everyone talked about being so disturbingly thin?

Apparently not.

But who she IS is a matter of some concern, especially since it looks like Newt’s going to be the latest candidate offering us a “twofer” (which, whether it’s Bill and Hillary or Mark and Jenny or whatever, generally tends to make me uncomfortable, seeing as how one of them isn’t actually elected) and so little is known about her.

For instance, is she Wife 3? Or Wife 4? With Newt, you need a scorecard.

Since she is … let me check … as much younger than Newt as my oldest child is than I (was that last bit grammatically correct? hey, don’t ask me to diagram it), she will no doubt invite comparisons to Jeri Thompson (not to be confused with Mick Jagger’s Jeri, for whom he foolishly overthrew Bianca), who as it happens was born the same year. Although I think she actually looks more like Cindy McCain.

OK, that’s more musing than I usually do on candidates’ wives. But I wanted to get something up for running to some meetings, so there…

Some other candidate please put me on your campaign e-release list — and hurry!

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Today, I received TWO e-mails from the aforementioned campaign to draft, of all people, Donald Trump, to be, of all things, President of the United States.

Never mind what they were about; it’s the number of them that gets me.

This is disturbing. It rattles my sense of proportion and perspective.

Please… I know the other campaigns are taking their time getting organized this time, compared to the pre-2008 rush, but some of y’all please put me on your mailing list, now. Someone relatively (and I stress relatively) sensible, like Mike Huckabee, or Mitt Romney.

(Funny, after thinking they were a little out there when they were running against John McCain, I’m seeing those guys as relatively sensible. Shows how much the GOP has shifted since then. In 2008, Romney was DeMint’s guy. Today, he’s … the Father of Obamacare. Who knew?)

Who would do that, who was not being PAID to do it?

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I guess the answer to my question is, Nick McLaughlin would:

COMMITTEE TO DRAFT DONALD TRUMP IN 2012 FORMED

National and New Hampshire Leaders Named
ST. CHARLES, MO. — Decorated Iraq War veteran Nick McLaughlin of St. Charles, Missouri, has announced the formation of a grass-roots, all volunteer organization to draft New York developer Donald J. Trump for the 2012 Republican Presidential Nomination.
McLaughlin saw combat in three tours in Iraq in the US Marine Corp and was hit by shrapnel from a car bomb in Ubush, Iraq. He was awarded a Purple Heart and nine other medals including a Presidential citation.

“Under Barak Obama, America has become a laughingstock around the world,” said McLaughlin. “America needs a strong leader like Donald Trump to restore America’s economic strength and respect around the world.”

McLaughlin, who has never been active in politics before, said he had filed the committee with the Federal Election Commission and that the organization was not directed, authorized or funded by Trump. “I have never met Mr. Trump,” said McLaughlin, “But I am certain he is the man America needs.”…

Volunteer? Really? Who would actually want Donald Trump to be president of the United States, and want it bad enough to spend time and energy trying to make it happen, except for someone who was being paid to do it?

This is a question to which I do not have an answer.

I’m not doubting the guy’s word; I just don’t understand his motivations.

One step closer to nothing of consequence

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This message came in this morning from Karen Floyd, headlined, “One Step Closer to Securing Our Elections.” Here’s the text:

Dear Brad Warthen
As many of you are aware, passing Voter ID legislation is one of the top goals we have for this busy year. Republicans in both the House and Senate are determined to protect our state’s elections process by requiring voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot. Yesterday, we got one step closer to achieving this important goal.
The Senate Judiciary Committee passed Voter ID legislation, which means that the next step is for the bill to be presented on the senate floor. While we prefer the House version of the bill, we are happy that the Senate is working hard on this crucial issue.
We would like to thank Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Glenn McConnell for pressing this bill passed committee, as well as acknowledge Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler for making this bill a top priority. Also, our special thanks goes out to Senator Chip Campsen, who sponsored the bill and is working tirelessly to see this matter through until the end.
Please click here now to visit the Senate’s Facebook page and leave a comment on how important it is for Voter ID to become law this year! Also, please visit Senator Harvey Peeler’s and Senator Glenn McConnell’s Facebook page if you would like to leave them a comment as well.
Sincerely,
Karen Floyd
SCGOP Chairman

As I’ve said before, whether we have Voter ID is neither here nor there. The Republicans INSIST that representative democracy as we know and cherish it will cease to be if we don’t have it, on account of all this supposed fraud going on everywhere. The Democrats INSIST that representative democracy as we know and cherish it will cease to be if we do have it, because all sorts of already marginalized people will be disenfranchised (or something else really bad — I haven’t gotten a release from the Dems in this particular cycle, so I’m just going by memory here).

Whereas to me, it’s just another arm-wrestling match between parties to see which one can have its way. As with so many other issues. I just don’t think either the threat of fraud or the harm to the disadvantaged looms large enough or convincingly enough to be worth all the partisan hubbub. Both sides have a point, to the extent that they cancel each other out — the slight threats of fraud and disenfranchisement are of roughly equal size and believability. It most certainly is not a clear-cut case of one or the other, but a mutually-cancelling wash.

As I wrote before:

For my part, I think the Republicans’ assertion that this legislation is needed and the Democrats’ assertion that it will lead to dire consequences are both misplaced. Here’s a column I wrote on the subject awhile back. The best thing, of course, would be if our lawmakers didn’t waste a single second on this issue that ultimately is about the fact that Republicans don’t want certain people who are likely to vote Democratic to vote, and Democrats want them to for the equal and opposite reason.

Yeah, I get it. It’s about race and class and perceptions regarding those phenomena, and who cares and who doesn’t, and all those things that the parties posture over. Which means it’s about each of the parties polishing up their reps (since I’m not persuaded of the actual problems they say they’re addressing).

And Democrats are right when they say that when Republicans say, “secure our elections,” they mean “make our elections safe for Republicans.” And Republicans are right when they say that the Democrats are just trying to turn out as many people as possible who are likely to vote Democratic.

So in the end, it makes me tired. A step toward nothing of consequence, except to partisans.

Trying to muster enthusiasm about Dems gathering just up the road

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Phil Noble found an unusual way to celebrate the fact that the Democratic National Convention will be in Charlotte next year:

“This is the best news for South Carolina Democrats since our native son Andy Jackson was elected President in 1828. With tens of thousands of Democrats, and the global media converging just a stone’s throw away from President Jackson’s birthplace, South Carolina Democrats will have their voices heard on the national and international stage.”

“The Convention will be the rallying point we need to strengthen and build our party throughout the state. It will give us our first real opportunity in a generation to launch the kind of root-and-branch reform movement that could make South Carolina a truly competitive two-party state again. This is just the first of many ‘big things’ ahead for Democrats in our state.”

I’ve just got to say, what does that have to do Andrew Jackson? Personally, I think the fewer reminders that Jackson came from here, the better, but I’m kind of an unreconstructed Federalist. And I don’t even mind a Democratic Republican now and then, if he’s qualified, like Jefferson and Madison. But Jackson? Shudder… And the suggestion that we’ve had no news better than Jackson’s election in 183 years. Well, that’s just depressing. I mean, I know it’s been a long good news drought for SC Democrats, but come on — y’all were pretty happy when Obama was elected, weren’t you? And personally, I’d count that as WAY better than Ol’ Hickory.

Anyway, in the second graf Phil got to the main business, which was to try to get SC Dems pumped about a city that’s almost in our red state hosting the convention. Nice try, there, Phil.

Me, when I heard it, my first thought was “Maybe the paper will let me go there and cover the frickin’ thing THIS time, since the travel cost would be minimal.” But then I remembered. Oh, yeah…

Maybe I’ll find an excuse to wander up that way sometime during that week. Although I gotta tell ya, it can’t possibly be as much fun as the one I went to in New York in 2004 — the last time I managed to con a publisher into paying for it. There’s nothing like closely observing SC politicos partying in unfamiliar surroundings. Charlotte… well, how much fun can you have in Charlotte, really? I mean, what’s it known for? Banking?

Then, of course, there’s the fact that with an incumbent president, there won’t be a heckuva a lot of news to cover. So, no party. No news. I don’t know. I might have to think long and hard about whether to take time away from my real job for this…