Category Archives: Elections

Nikki Haley’s ‘limited hangout’ (This is what she means by ‘transparency,’ when it’s applied to her)

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First, for you youngsters who’ve only been alive for five minutes or so, here’s a definition of “limited hangout.” Or perhaps we should refer to what Nikki has done as a “modified limited hangout,” the extra-special version invented by Richard Nixon and his droogs.

In any case, this passage from The State‘s story today pretty much tells you all you need to know about what Nikki means by the word “transparency” when it is applied to her. To be helpful, I’ve boldfaced the most important parts, in this passage and subsequent ones:

Sheheen released his legislative e-mails, copies of his hard drives and campaign receipts two weeks ago in response to identical open records requests The State sent to both campaigns. Haley released her e-mails, but said she would not release any other documents or allow reporters to review her state-issued computer hard drives. A hard drive keeps a permanent record of e-mails.

Then there’s this little elaboration, which I suppose Nikki put out for the benefit of the technological Neanderthals among the electorate:

“I think 10,000 sheets of paper is a lot,” Haley said, referring to the volume of e-mails in defending the decision not to match Sheheen’s disclosure. “I’m comfortable with how transparent we have been. I’m not going to get into this tit for tat about whether that’s enough sheets of paper.”

Ahem. Nikki, if you’d just go ahead and release the hard drives — you know, the public hard drives that belong to us, the taxpayers whom you allegedly love so much — nobody’s asking for so much as ONE “sheet of paper.” This is the 21st century. Give us the frickin’ hard drives, and we’ll have all that we need. Your good faith will have been demonstrated. Those “sheets of paper” you’re touting are the emblem of your refusal to just go ahead and be transparent, the physical manifestations of your selectivity. And you say there are 10,000 of them. Ten thousand documents attesting to your refusal to simply open up access to a public resource.

Then there’s this:

The Haley campaign emphasized she is exempt from state open records laws as a lawmaker, and all compliance is voluntary.

Wow. Yeah, Nikki, lawmakers ARE exempt, because they write the laws, and refuse to abide by the openness they have statutorily imposed on the rest of government, from the governor to the guy who sweeps up in the offices of our bureaucracy. This is an exemption they carved out for themselves, and themselves alone. This is the very cult of stonewalling that someone we know constantly berates her fellow legislators about. That someone’s initials, in the spirit of limited hangout, are N.H. And I’m not talking New Hampshire.

And you want to hide behind THAT? Really?

Amazing.

More on Rod Shealy, from his sister Sherry

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Photo courtesy of Nathan Ballentine...

The former Sherry Shealy has put up a couple of blog posts about her brother Rod, which you can find here and here.

An excerpt:

Rod was a gift to many people. He ran winning campaigns for lots of candidates who probably wouldn’t have won without him…
Two years ago, he had a cancerous brain tumor. He had surgery in August 2008; one hour after the brain surgery, he was on the cell phone doing business as usual. Rod quipped: “I can see the headlines now: ‘Shealy Survives Surgery; Dies of Boredom’.”
That surgery removed the tumor – totally – and he was fine.
At least for a while.
Some time during the summer of 2009, he learned that the cancer was in his lungs.
This year, we learned it was back in his brain.
Rod had maintained a very positive and upbeat attitude. Sometimes he said things like, “The folks at the hospital like me ‘cause everybody else is sick.”
I first ran for office in 1970; he helped me in that campaign and then ran every campaign of mine after that one. He ran my campaign for lieutenant governor in 1990; it’s was my first loss and I believe he took it harder than I did. …
When I asked him several years ago if it was too late to throw my hat in the ring for a particular race, he replied, “Yep. By about 34 years.”
Whether it was politics, family, or anything else, Rod enjoyed life to the fullest. He had a dry wit, a keen sense of humor and a heart of gold. He loved to play the guitar and sing. He loved being creative.
Other than in the hospital bed, I can’t remember the last time I saw him without a bright floral Hawaiian shirt. That was one of his trademarks. In fact, he went to an inaugural ball; like others, he wore a tuxedo – but with the Hawaiian floral print bowtie and cummerbund, along with tennis shoes, I believe.

Requiescat In Pace, Rod Shealy

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Rod Shealy, in a photo from his Facebook page.

John O’Connor of The State tweets that the “Family of S.C. political consultant Rod Shealy says he died this afternoon at MUSC.”

This sad news has already provoked a suitably quirky tribute, as follows:

PhilBaileySC

Tomorrow will be Hawaiian Shirt Day on Pub Politics to honor our friend Rod Shealy.

Mr. Shealy

As I was pulling this together, John posted the following at thestate.com:

Influential South Carolina political consultant and newspaper owner Rod Shealy died this afternoon at the Medical University of South Carolina, according to his sister Lorri Unumb. He was 56 years old.
Shealy died of bleeding on the brain, Unumb said, possibly related to the brain cancer he was diagnosed with in 2008. Unumb said Shealy had fallen and broken his hip over the weekend, but was optimistic the cancer treatments at MUSC were working.
Shealy specialized in advising long-shot candidates to victory, such as longtime friend and client Lt. Gov Andre Bauer. Shealy – a protégé of Lee Atwater — also had a penchant for pushing the limits of campaign law in search of an advantage.
The Irmo resident pled guilty in 1992 for failing to report a campaign contribution after he was accused of hiring a black fisherman to run for office to help drive Lowcountry turnout for his sister’s bid for Lt. Governor.
Unumb has a son with autism, and said Shealy helped her draft and find legislative support for a bill requiring autism insurance coverage that is now law. A big Jimmy Buffet fan, Shealy was instantly recognized by the Hawaiian shirts he wore.
“Politics was a profession and a passion, but it was also a fun game,” Unumb said, referring to Shealy enjoying the intellectual challenge of elections. “Intuitively he just understood people. He was just one of them. He identified with the common folks.”
Rod was a guy much loved by his allies, and disparaged by others — including yours truly at times, although I had developed a fairly cordial relationship with him in recent years. He may have done some highly questionable things and associated with some unsavory types — which I’m sure he himself sometimes had occasion to regret — but he certainly added some color to local politics. And he was very good at his job.

“Noooooo! Goooooooo! Nooooooooo! Go away!”

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Well, Alvin Greene has been unfairly besmirched once again by the MSM.

They claim that’s his voice howling “Noooooooo!” and “Goooooooo!” on that video clip. Or on this audio clip.

Actually, it’s the SC Democratic Party executive committee, begging Alvin to quit after his indictment.

At least, that’s what it sounds like to me.

SC Democrats give sarcasm a try with new TV ad

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This just in from SC Democrats:

COLUMBIA- South Carolina Democrats fired the opening shot of election season with a television ad criticizing Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley for her tax hypocrisies. The ad, titled “Thanks Nikki,” will begin airing today in Columbia.

In the ad Mark Sanford’s disciple, who voted for a two percent rise in the sales tax and against a sales-tax exemption for groceries, is “thanked” by her constituents for failing to vote for South Carolina interests. Video may be also viewed on the ad’s companion site, http://thanksnikki.com.

South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler said today that the ad will inform voters about Haley’s real legislative record.

“Voters deserve to know the truth about Nikki Haley and her record of broken promises,” said Fowler. “This ad only skims the surface of Haley’s hypocrisy and highlights the stark contrast between her campaign promises and her actions in the legislature. Voters are already starting to realize that Nikki Haley’s candidacy is all smoke and mirrors. South Carolinians are ready to move forward with real leadership.”

Nikki certainly asks for sarcasm, by running on transparency while dragging her heels on being transparent, and by touting her accounting abilities while failing repeatedly to do what most of us do every year (file our taxes on time).

But whether this approach will work remains to be seen. For one thing, it’s too focused on taxes, rather than the items that she’s really begging for sarcasm on. And yeah, Nikki voted for the execrable Act 388, which is a big reason why the Chamber is backing Vincent Sheheen. And while that act foolishly and carelessly raised the sales tax, it did so in order to (equally foolishly and carelessly) drastically reduce property taxes on owner-occupied homes. And if I’m a Haley supporter, I’d protest vociferously the use of a house (for the “through the roof” metaphor) to illustrate the point that she raised sales taxes, thereby subliminally giving the erroneous impression that she raised homeowner property taxes.

Of course, she DID raise property taxes — on businesses and rental property (thereby raising rents on those who can’t yet afford to buy) — by pushing the burden from those whiny people with houses on the lake to other categories of property tax. But this doesn’t make that point, at least not overtly.

There are two main problems with this ad. First, that it oversimplifies. Nikki is definitely guilty of voting for very bad ideas in the realm of taxation. She is one of the reasons why we so desperately need comprehensive tax reform, because she has so thoughtlessly participated in fouling up the system, making it less logical, less fair and less effective.

Second, this sidesteps the two things Nikki is most vulnerable about in order to go after her on taxes. This is no doubt based in an assumption (possibly backed by polling or focus groups, but I have no idea) that voters care more about taxes than about the fact that Nikki is such a hypocrite on her signature issues. It’s a risky move, trying to out-anti-tax a Republican in a general election. (Also, if you’re a Democrat, do you really want to call your opponent a “tax and spend…” anything?) But I guess they figure, what do they have to lose?

You’ll say that this calculation and oversimplification is just the way the game is played. Yep. And that’s a shame. Because there are very good reasons why no one should vote for Nikki Haley, and this ad only skirts them.

Don’t look for sanity inside Beltway this year

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To elevate a comment exchange to post status, back here Bart said:

The GOP may be a joke but it looks like they will have the last laugh come November when the American voters, who are a lot more intelligent than most give them credit for, sends a message that they don’t appreciate being Punk’d by a bunch of lying Democrats. Democrats, who by the way, are no picnic at the beach either.

The sword cuts both ways when it comes to deceit, dishonesty, and downright thievery by politicians.

I agree completely with you, Bart, about the Dems being no bargain. But no one should make the mistake of thinking a swing to the Republicans, particularly the Republicans of 2010, is in any way better.

Yes, the GOP will be more successful in November than Democrats, winning control of one or more of the two chambers of Congress.

And next time we have a Republican president, two years after he is elected, the Democrats will be more successful in the mid-term elections than Republicans.

And so on. It means nothing. The sad thing is that Republicans will foolishly believe that they won this year because of something they DID, and will give the credit to their mad rush to the extremes. So we’ll get more of that garbage.

Occasionally, something different from that happens. For instance, in 2006 a number of moderate Democrats won office, thanks in part to a campaign run by Rahm Emanuel. It drove the loony left even loonier, they hated it so. But it was better for the country. Unfortunately, those moderates — in both parties — make up such a tiny minority still that they have little impact upon the partisan insanity inside the Beltway.

My point is that these midterm shifts don’t have to be swings back and forth to the wacky fringes. They can pull us to the middle, toward sanity. It just doesn’t look at all like that’s going to happen this year.

This year — wow. This year, we see Sarah Palin not only NOT swept to history’s dustbin, as would happen in a country in which the voters were as sensible as Bart asserts (after all, she was a HUGE part of why the GOP lost the White House in 2008), but has such a secure brand (we Mad Men use words like “brand” a lot) that she is able to play kingmaker. Or queen maker, as the case may be. Although, reassuringly, it didn’t work out so well in Georgia last week.

If the voters choosing the GOP were so sensible, a sensible guy like Henry McMaster wouldn’t have fallen so easily to the likes of Nikki Haley. Nor would he have resorted to his own desperate attempts to prove that he, too, was suffering from Obama Derangement Syndrome.

No, the Republicans winning the House this year will not be a good thing, any more than it was a good thing when Nancy Pelosi became Speaker. Same diff.

So are you running for re-election, or not?

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Speaking of Twitter — which seems to be my theme today — I really like this new feature that, each time you open or refresh your home page, suggests two users you might want to follow. It’s obviously based on whom you’re following already, and it seems to work pretty well. The last 20 or so people or organizations I’ve elected to follow have been based on those suggestions. Which is good, because I’m trying to build up my followers, and the way to do that is to follow more people yourself — I’ve found that I usually have a little more than twice as many followers as I follow myself (and I’ll consider my “brand” to be dying when the number I follow starts to catch up). But it’s hard, on my own, to increase the number I follow dramatically. I don’t like having my feed clogged up with stuff that doesn’t interest me. This new feature helps me build the numbers with relevant stuff.

But occasionally, I get a suggestion that sort of puzzles me. Like the suggestions to follow people who haven’t tweeted in 6 months — why not amend the algorithm to cull those out? And then there are those like this one (screen capture image above), which seem designed to push me away. (And I’m setting aside the turnoff from Twitter’s blatant number disagreement in that message.)

I mean, seriously — are you or are you not running for re-election? And if you are, why are you turning people who want to know more about you away?

Shannon Erikson is by no means alone in this. I’ve run across it before. Hers just happened to be the most recent example when it occurred to me to comment on this.

I just don’t get the thinking behind this phenomenon. If you are such a private person, don’t run for office. If you aren’t, throw open the doors and windows. Come on.

If only Karen Floyd cared about what I really think

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I got an invitation this morning, via e-mail, to participate in an opinion survey, from state GOP Chairwoman Karen Floyd. It was just another of those bogus surveys that the political parties send out — you know, the ones that are more about making partisan assertions and whipping up the faithful (so that they’ll give money), rather than actually trying to learn from what other people think.

To be fair, this one is better than most such. I get the impression that this one is more about testing messages with the faithful (which is a FORM of information seeking at least) than about merely whipping them up. So it could be worse.

But I can’t help wishing that a party would actually try to determine what other people think, and learn from that, rather than just spinning the plate. Of course, if it did that, I suppose it would no longer be a political party.

Here was the come-on to get folks to take the survey:

THE QUESTIONS: As we move through the 2010 election cycle, endure an economic decline and watch liberal leadership fail our nation, there are a lot of big questions that we must answer together.

YOUR ANSWERS: Please take the time to answer these short questions. We will be sending the results to every South Carolina Republican member of Congress and the General Assembly next week.

JUST 3 MINUTES: Will you take 3 minutes today to give us your opinion on the biggest issues facing South Carolina?

And here was the survey itself:

Please fill our out Summer Survey and give us your opinion on the biggest issues facing SC.
1. Do you think a mosque should be allowed to be built at ground zero?
Yes
No
2. Do you agree with our gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley that we can create jobs by cutting the income tax?
Yes
No
3. Should the Bush tax cuts be extended?
Yes
No
4. Do you agree with a judge’s decision to stop parts of Arizona’s immigration law from being implemented?
Yes
No
5. Should South Carolina should pass an Arizona style immigration plan?
Yes
No
6. Should South Carolina’s coastline be opened up for natural gas exploration?
Yes
No
7. Do you support or oppose the federal takeover of our health care system?
Yes
No
8. Should the state of South Carolina fight the nationalization of our health care system on the grounds that it is a violation of states’ rights?
Yes
No
9. Our Lt Governor candidate Ken Ard wants to resturcture the way we elect our Governor and Lt Governor so that they run together on a ticket and work more hand-in-hand to create jobs for our state. Do you agree with Ken Ard?
Yes
No
Do you think that Democratic 2nd Congressional district candidate Rob Miller should return the $370,000 he received from liberal activist group MoveOn.org?
Yes
No
10. Should South Carolina voters replace Nancy Pelosi’s chief budget writer John Spratt with a strong conservative like State Senator Mick Mulvaney?
Yes
No
11. What else would you like us to know today?

What gets me about these kinds of questions is that, aside from the last one they don’t allow you to answer truthfully. For so many of these questions, a “yes” or “no” answer is entirely inappropriate. But parties are about forcing people to choose “yes” or “no,” and unfortunately the MSM cooperate in rewriting our political language so that we can’t think in any other terms — which of course was the same idea behind Newspeak in 1984 — if you lack the words to think new thoughts, you can’t think them.

Here are the answers I gave, but please don’t do like the party and take them at face value. After each I am providing an answer, in italics, that tells what I REALLY think. But Karen didn’t ask for that, or provide me any way to give her that. Hence this post:

Please fill our out Summer Survey and give us your opinion on the biggest issues facing SC.

1. Do you think a mosque should be allowed to be built at ground zero? Yes. I say that only because the mosque indeed has the RIGHT to build there. And of course, that right is an important part of who we are in this country, and what we’re fighting for in the War on Terror. If the question, therefore, is should it be ALLOWED, then the answer has to be “yes.” But if you asked whether it should be built there, I’d say no. If you asked whether I think the choice of this site is a deliberate provocation of American sensibilities, I’d say I’m afraid that is likely the case, on some level — although I lack enough information to know. I find it very disturbing that the leader of this group wants America to share blame for 9/11 and refuses to say whether Hamas is a terrorist organization. And it doesn’t help a bit that Hamas endorses the plan to build there. Finally, if you ask whether I think building there represents a sincere attempt to bridge differences and heal wounds, I would say that if that’s what they truly wanted to do, they’d do it elsewhere. But in the end, do they have the right? In America, they do.

2. Do you agree with our gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley that we can create jobs by cutting the income tax? No. Can cutting a tax be part of a rational plan to stimulate the economy and thereby create jobs. Absolutely. But do I believe cutting a tax CONSTITUTES a rational plan to stimulate South Carolina’s economy, absent any plans to build physical or human infrastructure? To that, I say you’ve gotta be kidding. Bottom line, Nikki Haley doesn’t have a plan for creating jobs. She has a series of cookie-cutter GOP talking points: Cutting taxes, decreasing regulation, and privatization. That’s not a plan.

2. Should the Bush tax cuts be extended? No. Actually, I have no idea. Frankly, I’m loath to end them right now because of the condition of the economy. Any increase in the tax burden at any level, before we’ve got the economy growing again, is problematic. I never saw any need for these particular tax cuts to begin with, and had I been in Congress would likely have voted against them, as they were presented. But I’m not certain this is the time to end them. But I answered “no” because I don’t side with your party’s belief in the magical goodness of tax cuts in all circumstances, absent other measures, and I wanted you to know that.

3. Do you agree with a judge’s decision to stop parts of Arizona’s immigration law from being implemented? Yes. For the simple fact that immigration is a federal function. Yeah, I get it — your base believes it’s time for states to step in because the federal government isn’t getting the job done. I’m unpersuaded by that. I also know that the people across the political spectrum most adamant about this issue have been the main obstacle to the federal government adopting a comprehensive solution to the problem that does exist. Work on that if you want to have a constructive effect. Don’t advocate states usurping a federal function.

4. Should South Carolina should pass an Arizona style immigration plan? No. Of course not, for the reasons cited above.

5. Should South Carolina’s coastline be opened up for natural gas exploration? Yes. I said yes because that’s the Energy Party answer. We should do anything and everything, within reason, to make this country energy-independent. The objections on the left to such exploration are rigidly faith-based, like your party’s belief in the magical powers of tax cuts. It’s an article of faith that is immune to argument or circumstances. That said, my “yes” comes with a caveat — seems to me I’ve heard that the SC coast isn’t that likely a place to explore (tell me if I’m wrong on that; I can’t recall where I heard it). So let me amend my answer to say that by all means, we should explore in likely locations. If SC is a likely location, explore away.

6. Do you support or oppose the federal takeover of our health care system? Yes. Absolutely. If such a thing were proposed, I’d be all for it. That is, I’d be all for a substitution of a single payer for the insane way that we pay for health care now. Which is not the same thing as a “takeover of our health care system,” but it would come a heckuva lot closer to being that than anything that has been seriously proposed in this country, but less actually enacted. As for your implication that something that could be characterized a “federal takeover of our health care system,” that is an absurd fantasy on your part, a lie that you are trying to propagate in order to have a straw man to knock over. And there’s no way you should be allowed to get away with that. In the meantime, we need to let this feeble “reform” that Congress passed have a chance to be implemented so that we can see if it helps at all — which I doubt, but let’s give it a chance before condemning it. Your attempts to repeal it before it’s been implemented is unconscionable, because the need for some kind of change to our system is unquestionably dire.

7. Should the state of South Carolina fight the nationalization of our health care system on the grounds that it is a violation of states’ rights? No. Oh, get a life, people! How can we fight something for being something that it is NOT?

8. Our Lt Governor candidate Ken Ard wants to resturcture the way we elect our Governor and Lt Governor so that they run together on a ticket and work more hand-in-hand to create jobs for our state. Do you agree with Ken Ard? Yes. Although a better way to put it would be that Ken Ard, someone I hadn’t heard of before three or four months ago, agrees with me on something I’ve publicly advocated for almost 20 years. Not to toot my horn, but to suggest this Ard guy (who I strongly suspect to be an MSM plant because headline writers love a guy with a name that short) should get credit for the idea is patently ridiculous. If he does what the rest of us reformers have failed to do and actually gets the idea implemented, I’ll applaud. But not until then.

9. Do you think that Democratic 2nd Congressional district candidate Rob Miller should return the $370,000 he received from liberal activist group MoveOn.org? Yes. But only because I think he and Joe Wilson have both raised far too much money already to waste on their campaign, which presents voters with a no-win proposition. That’s why I say yes, not because I despise. MoveOn.org. I mean, I DO despise MoveOn.org, but that’s not my reasoning here. I just think this race is a total waste, and wish I had a better candidate than either of these guys to vote for.

10. Should South Carolina voters replace Nancy Pelosi’s chief budget writer John Spratt with a strong conservative like State Senator Mick Mulvaney? No. Give me a frickin’ break. What you meant to say, of course, was “Should 5th District voters replace the smartest and most capable guy in our House delegation, the very moderate and sensible John Spratt, with some ideologue more to our suiting?

11. What else would you like us to know today? I’d love, absolutely LOVE, a survey that sought thoughtful answers, rather than mere fodder for keeping the partisan spin machine turning.

Oh, and thank you for the opportunity, Karen. My answers were rather hasty, and not as in-depth as such complex questions demand — but they’re far more thoughtful than what you were looking for. Which is my point.

Whoa! Anton Gunn drops out to take federal post

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This just in:

Dear Friends, Constituents of House District 79 and the people of South Carolina,
As your State Representative, I have been blessed with the honor of serving you and taking your concerns and voiceswith me to the State House. This is a privilege that I have taken very seriously. Thank you for entrusting this office to me. I have not taken the opportunity for granted and I have served you each day with purpose and passion. My goal has always been to make our state and community better by improving the health, safety and well-being of all South Carolinians. By making sure our government was responsive and accountable, I have worked across the aisle to move closer to that goal. While serving as your Representative, I have done my best to help people and to serve with integrity, honor and humility.
It is with these thoughts in mind that I have been faced with a very honorable yet tough decision. Recently, The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius has asked me to accept a presidential appointment to serve as the Regional Director of the United States Department of Health & Human Services in the South (Region IV). The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is the United States government’s principal agency for protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. It plays an important role in our nation. Whether helping children, seniors and the disabled, or protecting our public health, this agency plays a critical role in our nation’s security.
I am humbled by the consideration to accept this senior position. It is not every day that a person is given an opportunity to either serve their country broadly or to continue the pursuit of re-election for House District 79. This decision weighed upon me heavily as I consider it a privilege to be of service in any capacity to the people of this state. After much prayer and deliberation with my family, I believe I can benefit the people of my district and South Carolina by answering the call to serve as the Region IV Director in the US Department of Health and Human Services in Atlanta, Georgia.
Therefore, I will not be seeking re-election as your State House Representative. As most of you know, I have always considered South Carolina to be my home. After graduating as a Gamecock, this is where I chose to live, marry and raise my family. While living here for nearly 20 years, my experiences with the people and my ties to the community have always been my motivation to seek public service.
This is not only a tremendous honor for me personally but a tremendous opportunity for our state. There are dire human service needs in South Carolina and across the Southern Region. As regional director, I will be able to have a greater impact on the quality of life for South Carolina’s seniors, children, disabled and the working poor.
As the Secretary’s senior appointee in the Southern Region I will continue to work on these issues that I have been passionate about while serving as your representative. The commitment to God, family, community and my fellow man are the values that I will carry with me into this next endeavor.
My family and I ask for your prayers and understanding.
Sincerely,
Anton J. Gunn

OK, I’m stunned. And saddened. Anton has easily been one of the most promising young lawmakers in the State House.

Also, does this mean that Sheri Few wins this time? Wow, what a loss.

What Vincent Sheheen’s been up to lately

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Up until a couple of weeks back when he finally came out swinging on Nikki Haley’s painfully obvious hypocrisy on transparency (not to mention her inability and/or refusal to pay her taxes on time — and this from the candidate who wants to run the state the way she runs her business), I was getting worried because I wasn’t hearing anything from Vincent Sheheen.

Yeah, I knew he was busy with a reorganization, and rebuilding from a primary to a general campaign, and quite likely fund-raising (something he needs to do a LOT of, considering all the free national media Nikki gets). But still, the precious days were passing, and given how critically important it is that our state not be subjected to another four years like the past eight, and how hard a Democrat would have to work to change the electoral math, I was worried.

I feel better now that I’m seeing a lot more life out of his campaign, although I’m still not feeling as good about it as I’d like. He really, really needs to be doing something extraordinary to overcome the inertia that causes the SC electorate to remain in a state of stagnation.

Anyway, in light of all that, I was glad to get this form e-mail today from his campaign manager:

We wanted to bring you an update of all the wonderful things that your campaign has been doing the past couple weeks in our mission to transform South Carolina!

Almost every day, Vincent has hit the road taking his message of hard work and hope to our citizens.  From the Upstate to the Lowcountry, Vincent has been meeting with businesspeople, educators, the young, the old and just plain folks talking about his vision for South Carolina.

During the last two weeks, Vincent visited healthcare professionals from all over South Carolina to share his plans to grow opportunities for our workers in health care.  Nurses, medical technicians and physicians represent growing opportunities for our workforce.With our medical universities, technical colleges, dental school and growing population, South Carolina has the potential to grow its health care economy exponentially. Our state should be a destination for Americans looking for the best medical care.

Recently, Vincent visited the SC State Ports Authority in Charleston. Vincent has called on political leaders from both parties to join forces to ensure funding to deepen the Charleston Harbor to remain competitive with North Carolina and Georgia. As governor, Vincent will focus on increasing our ports’ volume to attract business and jobs to our state.

Vincent has also met with local builders and green energy advocates to discuss the continued opportunities our state has to jump start the housing market and grow new industries in the state. We can create jobs in South Carolina while reducing our energy costs and improving our vitally-important conservation efforts.

The message we hear loud and clear from all parts of South Carolina is the same – South Carolinians are ready once again for a leader we can be proud of! A governor who will be focused on job creation for all of South Carolina. We can do it!

Thanks for your continued support,

Trav

Trav Robertson
Sheheen for Governor

Of course, what an update like that implies is that the campaign itself is realizing that people have been wondering what Vincent’s been up to. And if they are realizing that, good — as long as they keep working harder to do something positive about it.

Greene juggernaut could be in trouble now

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Those of you — and there must be someone out there who fits this description — thought Alvin Greene was a shoo-in to unseat Jim DeMint this fall may have to re-evaluate your assessment in view of this shocker:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Longshot U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene was indicted Friday on two charges, including a felony charge of showing pornography to a South Carolina college student.

A Richland County grand jury indicted Green for disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity – a felony – as well as a misdemeanor charge of communicating obscene materials to a person without consent.

Greene, who surprised the Democratic party establishment with his primary victory, was arrested in November after authorities said he approached a student in a University of South Carolina computer lab, showed her obscene photos online, then talked about going to her dorm room.

Actually, I didn’t realize he hadn’t already been indicted. Guess I should have paid closer attention.

By the way, I saw the semi-famous Alvin Greene sign last week outside Manning on my way back from the beach. I was past it before it fully registered on me what it was. There was a little (green, of course) Greene yard sign next to it. In retrospect, I really should have turned around to go get a picture, because I sorta doubt I’m going to see many more of those.

At breakfast this morning someone wondered aloud whether there would be any confusion among voters (who we know were already pretty confused back during the primary) between Greene and the Green Party candidate.

That caused me to wonder: I wonder which of them would be harmed more by that confusion?

Democrats start clock ticking on Haley

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Today I got this from the S.C. Democratic Party:

Dems Challenge Nikki Haley:  Where Are Your Emails?
Sanford disciple says she’s “compiling” taxpayer-funded email for release; what’s she hiding?

COLUMBIA- It’s been three days since The State reported that Nikki Haley, Mark Sanford’s favorite to succeed him asGovernor, was “compiling” her taxpayer-funded email for public release, but she’s not moving fast enough for South Carolina Democrats.  This morning the SCDP re-launched HaleyinHiding.com, a website devoted to holding Mrs. Haley to her own promises of transparency.

“Mrs. Haley has been refusing to release her taxpayer-funded emails for months now, so naturally I’m happy to see her even giving lip service to a position that was the heart of her primary campaign,” said SCDP Chair Carol Fowler.  “Unfortunately, she’s tipping her hand by stalling and delaying.  Just as with her tax returns, it’s clear that there’s something in those emails that Mrs. Haley doesn’t want us to see.”

Sigh… I guess that’s the party’s role to play in this.

Nikki, end this silliness! Release the blasted e-mails already…

Irony of the day: Sarah Palin and Twisted Sister

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Most interesting item from Twitter today… Aaron Sheinin, formerly of The State (and now of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) tweeted this at midday:

The song Palin and Handel are coming on stage to:http://youtu.be/WT1LXhgXPWs
about 4 hours ago via TweetDeck

To explain — Sarah Palin was in Jawgia today to campaign for Karen Handel, that state’s former secretary of state, who is in a bitter runoff tomorrow for the GOP nomination for governor. (Yet another case of rather presumptuous people, such as our own Jim DeMint, jetting around the country to play right-wing kingmaker and fragment the Republican Party.)

And the two women made their entrance at the event to the strains of “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” Yes, by Twisted Sister. Yes, the self-appointed maven of true, traditional downhome American values was striding out to a theme by a band that, when I was a young Dad back when they first hit the charts, I would have leaped tall buildings in my haste to keep my children from seeing so much as a picture of, so deeply offensive to basic traditional sensibilities (such as my own) I found everything about the band — their name, their look, and (to a lesser extent) their head-banging sound — to be.

By the way, I double-checked with Aaron to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding, and he responded:

@BradWarthen going on right this second.
about 4 hours ago via TweetDeck in reply to BradWarthen

At this point, I could digress with a discourse on how the grossly childish, hostile, chip-on-shoulder attitude embodied in that song, that whole “grownups aren’t going to tell me what to do” petulant pout, fits PERFECTLY with the worldview of the Tea Party and the other bits and pieces of ex-Gov. Palin’s fan base. Which, I’m sure, is why it was chosen.

To give you a further idea of the mentality the song embraces, another reader responded to Aaron’s observation thusly:

JVTress @asheinin You know who else used that song? The one and only John Rocker.
about 4 hours ago via TweetDeck in reply to asheinin

You know, John Rocker — the former Atlanta Braves closer who was better known for shooting off his mouth and offending people than for putting out rival hitters. You know — the guy most famous for saying this when asked whether he would ever play for the Yankees or the Mets:

I’d retire first. It’s the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the 7 Train to the ballpark looking like you’re riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It’s depressing… The biggest thing I don’t like about New York are the foreigners. You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?

In other words, “a Real American.”

But bottom line, the thing that gets me is the cultural aspect of the Palin-Twisted Sister connection. You know, I have frequently called down some of my interlocutors here for making like Bristol Palin’s shame is a legitimate topic for political dissection. I don’t hold with attacking folks’ families. But it does occur to me that if mom thinks Twisted Sister is a good place to go for background music, kiddies could grow up a bit confused. (And no, it’s not that I’m square, as we said in my day. I was just into Elvis Costello and Men at Work and the like at that point in musical history. I was never into “let’s twist glam until it’s positively gross.” The closest I came to that was my deep admiration for the work of Spinal Tap.)

Anyway, I’ll say this for the video at least: I love the little homage to “Animal House” in the video, from using the actor (Mark Metcalf) who played “Doug Neidermeyer” to the paraphrase of his most famous line: “What it THAT? A Twisted Sister pin on your UNIFORM?!?!?”

That did make me smile.

Is that the best Haley can do? Bring up Obama? Wow, that is truly lame…

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There wasn’t much new in The State‘s recap Sunday of how Vincent Sheheen is pretty much thrashing Nikki Haley on her signature issues (transparency and business savvy) — nothing much you couldn’t have read here the middle of last week.

But I was struck by the unbelievably lame response recorded from the Haley campaign:

For its part, Haley’s campaign has argued Sheheen, a state senator from Camden, is ducking questions about whether the Democrat supports recently approved national health insurance law and the Obama administration’s lawsuit challenging Arizona’s immigration law, two issues Sheheen could have to deal with if elected governor.

Really? That’s the best you can do? He’s totally crushing you on transparency, and making a mockery of your desire to run government the way you run your business, and that’s your response? You retreat to the current GOP playbook? That book only has one play these days, you know. It goes something like this:

When cornered, talk about Obama. Don’t worry that it has nothing to do with the office you’re running for. Just cry, “Obama! Obama! Obama! We hate Obama! Do you hate Obama? If you don’t, you’re not one of us, because we really, really hate him…” Yadda-yadda. Just keep going; don’t worry about repeating yourself or not making the slightest bit of logical sense, because your base will eat this up…

As for the last phrase in that excerpt from The State — “two issues Sheheen could have to deal with if elected governor” — it’s hard to imagine a more transparent case of news people bending over backwards to act like a source is saying something rational when he or she is not. Yeah, you stretch a point and sure, health care reform affects every state (just as it does business and many other aspects of life) and a governor will govern in an environment in which a lot of people insist that immigration is a huge state issue. But you could say that about almost any hot-button national issue, from Afghanistan to the BP oil spill — it still wouldn’t be central. Everyone, but everyone, knows that the Haley campaign putting out that response has absolutely ZERO to do with what faces the next governor, and everything to do with the fact that if it isn’t in the Sarah Palin songbook, they can’t sing it.

Anyway, we are left waiting for a substantive response actually bearing on the two things that are allegedly Nikki’s strong suits, and why we should believe anything she says about them. And Vincent didn’t pick these issues — Nikki did.

Way to go, Vincent. Can you catch up now, Nikki?

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I’m glad to see Vincent Sheheen took my advice. OK, so maybe he didn’t do it because I advised it; likely he figured it out for himself.

In any case, I was glad to see this release come in on my Blackberry today:

VINCENT SHEHEEN RELEASES SENATE EMAILS

“Sheheen calls on Haley for transparency and full disclosure.”

Camden, SC—-Today Vincent Sheheen, candidate for governor, released his legislative emails for the public to review. He released information from both the L Drive and the G Drive for his Senate office.
 
In releasing his emails, Vincent stated, “ In order to restore trust, honesty and integrity to our state, we as candidates must be transparent in our actions. Today, I have released my legislative emails and I challenge Representative Haley to do the same. Candidates must practice what we preach. It is about a true and open government.”

This keeps Vincent way out ahead of Nikki on the transparency front — you know, the issue that she chose to run on…

She’s probably starting to regret making a big deal of this issue. Today, her campaign released some tax records, although not for the full 10 years that Sheheen has released. And even though she picked the years she released, she has revealed a record of late filings and having to pay fines. From the AP story:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee Nikki Haley has repeatedly paid late fees and penalties for not paying her income taxes on time.      Tax records released Wednesday by Haley’s campaign show she and her husband filed more than a year late on two occasions. They have not filed by the usual April 15 deadline since they began owing money five years ago.

No wonder she’s such an anti-tax zealot. She has so much trouble paying them.

The state Democratic Party is of course loving this; they’ve put out a release to chortle:

“Nikki Haley not only refused to release 10 years of tax returns to match Vincent Sheheen’s record of transparency, her attempt to save face has backfired,” said Fowler.  “At no point in the past five years has Ms. Haley paid her taxes on time, but she’s running for office citing her experience as an accountant and claiming to be a fiscal conservative.  If this is how she manages her own books, imagine what she has in store for South Carolina.  This reeks of the worst kind of hypocrisy.”

So now we’re all left waiting to see the rest of those tax records — and the e-mails, of course. There are shoes left to drop in this saga…

Just ran into Nikki Haley. She looked well…

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I ran into Nikki Haley at lunch today, at M Vista on Lady Street. She was there with Rob Godfrey and Tim Pearson of her campaign.

I think it was the first time I’d conversed with her since that time at Starbucks on Gervais shortly after the 2008 election. That day, she had a young woman in tow whom she introduced as being “with my campaign,” and I thought that was odd. The ’08 campaign was over, and it was early for a House candidate to be having meetings about the next campaign. I was probably the most shocked guy in South Carolina when it came out a month or two later than she was running for governor — it just seemed so totally unlikely that she would see herself as ready for that. It was the beginning of me seriously wondering about Nikki…

Anyway, Nikki was pleasant and charming as always when I went up to chat with her today. I don’t think Rob or Tim were all that thrilled to see me, though. They certainly didn’t smile, but then we guys don’t, do we, under such circumstances? Nikki did, but then ladies do.

We didn’t talk shop. She did the standard thing polite people do when other topics are awkward — she asked after my family. Then she asked how I was doing, and I told her that I was with ADCO and having lunch with my colleagues over there, and gave her one of my ADCO cards. She said I was probably glad not to be at the paper any more, and I thought that was perceptive of her. Or a good guess. Maybe it was just an understated slap at the paper; I don’t know. So I asked how she was holding up, and she said great, and I said something about how things had probably gotten a lot less crazy in the last few weeks, and she agreed. And then she asked me again about my family. So I began to dismiss myself, thinking I should wish her all the best but wanting to be honest, and ended up saying something totally inane like, “Well, as long as you’re enjoying yourself; that’s the thing…”

My ADCO friends thought it odd that I had gone to speak with her. Maybe they thought I was showing off, as in That Brad! He’ll just do any crazy thing! But that’s because they only know about Nikki and me through what I’ve written on the blog lately. They don’t realize that I’ve known her for years, and we’ve always had a very cordial relationship. I’ve happily endorsed her twice — in 2004 and 2008 (those were the only elections in which she had opposition), and always enjoyed chatting with her. I always had good hopes for her — before she embarked on her quest to become the new Mark Sanford and darling of the Tea Party, South Carolina’s answer to Sarah Palin. Which is deeply unfortunate.

So it was nice to see her, even though there was that slight awkwardness.

Benjamin joins Ogletree, Deakins law firm

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Just got this release…

OK, never mind! I was going to copy a couple of grafs out of the release here for your perusal, but it’s a blasted PDF file, and you know how sometimes you can copy text out of a PDF and sometimes you can’t? This is one of those where you can’t, which is another occasion for me to say, as a blogger who values convenience and accessibility in information online…

I FRICKIN’ HATE PDFS, AND DON’T KNOW WHY PEOPLE INSIST UPON USING THEM!!!

OK, that’s out of my system.

Anyway, the release, which you can find here, says that Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, one of the nation’s largest labor and employment law firms, has hired Steve Benjamin effective Aug. 1.

I guess it’s kind of hard keeping a small law firm (Benjamin Law Firm, LLC) going when you’re distracted by the all-consuming “part-time” job of being mayor. Maybe someday we’ll get all grown up and have a full-time mayor in this town, and then the mayor won’t have to make arrangements on the side to feed his family. In the meantime, this kind of move makes sense: Going with a large firm that can afford to give you lots of leeway on your time…

Mike Fitts’ piece on Sheheen and the Chamber

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The lead story in the latest print version of Columbia Regional Business Report was about the S.C. Chamber of Commerce’s historic decision to endorse a candidate in the governor’s race — specifically, Vincent Sheheen. I can’t link you to the full piece because for some reason it’s not online. But Mike Fitts shot me a copy of his piece to save me all that nasty typing as I give you this excerpt:

Chamber weighs in on governor’s race

Executive summary: Frustration with Gov. Mark Sanford has helped prod the S.C. Chamber of Commerce to give its first gubernatorial endorsement, to Vincent Sheheen.

By Mike Fitts
[email protected]

There was one overriding factor that prompted the S.C. Chamber of Commerce to make an endorsement for the governor’s race for the first time: the gridlock around the current occupant.

A large majority of the members of the chamber’s board, which is made up of more than 50 business executives from across the state, thought that it was time for the chamber to do its first endorsement in a statewide race. The view that Gov. Mark Sanford had failed to get things done for eight years was a major driver in that decision, said chamber CEO Otis Rawl. The business community “didn’t make much headway” with the governor’s office during his term, he said.

“Our board didn’t want that to happen again,” Rawl said…

Here are some things that interested me about the piece:

  • The fact that it was for the first time. That hadn’t fully registered on me. It seems to me a reflection of business leaders’ realization that sitting on the sidelines has led to stagnation in South Carolina’s political leadership. Rather than let another do-nothing governor get elected on the base of ideological slogans, they wanted to act to get some real leadership.
  • Although I’d read it before, I was struck again by the vapid immaturity of the Haley campaign’s response: Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey had said to the AP: “The state chamber is a big fan of bailouts and corporate welfare, so it’s no surprise that they would prefer a liberal like Vincent Sheheen over a conservative like Nikki Haley.” I wonder if Nikki opened her secret meetings with business people with those words. If she truly believed in transparency, if she really wanted to let those people know what her campaign stood for, she would have. A response like this confirms that the Chamber chose wisely.
  • A factor in the Chamber’s decision was that Sheheen, rather than resorting to ideological slogans, had more specifics about what he’d do to build our state’s economy: “Sheheen offered better answers on keeping the state’s ports successful, building up the state’s infrastructure and improving the state’s workforce, which is vital to keeping such employers and Boeing and BMW happy, Rawl said.”
  • Sheheen also made the case — and this should truly be the measure of this campaign — that unlike Haley, who has built her brief career on fighting against the Legislature, he could actually get his plans acted upon: “It’s OK to rail against the good ol’ boy system, Rawl said, but a governor has to be able to get legislation thru the General Assembly.”
  • Then there’s the execrable Act 388, which distorted our whole tax system — putting an excessive burden on businesses and renters, and shifting the load for supporting public schools onto the volatile, exemption-ridden sales tax — for the sake of the subset of homeowners who lived in high-growth areas. Vincent did what he could to stop it; Nikki voted for it.
  • The vote of confidence by the Chamber’s board was huge and dramatic. They didn’t even wait for the GOP runoff to be over before 75 percent of them voted to support Sheheen in the fall. As for the broader membership, there has been “scattered pushback” from some individual members, but nothing to make the Chamber leadership (which has not been given to taking such risks) sweat. Which is truly remarkable with such a broad, conservative membership as the Chamber’s.

Finally, the thing that got the Chamber to take this unprecedented step was the fact that this election is so pivotal, a fact that I started writing about before I left the paper (which is normally LONG before I would focus on something like this). South Carolina simply cannot continue to drift while our elected leaders play ideological footsie (when you go to that link, scroll down to “Sanford on Fox 46 times”) with national media. We have to get serious. That’s a conclusion that the Chamber has reached as well.

Richland Dems can’t count either!

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Ya gotta love it.

Just now, I received a fund-raising message from Richland County Democrats that boldly asserts in the headline:

Get Active! 99 Days to the Election!

OK, so that means Richland Democrats agree with Nikki Haley, but disagree with Rob Miller, as to how many days there are until the election. Right?

Yo! Boyd! Get a calendar!

So which was it — 99 days or 100?

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Meant to raise this question yesterday, which would have been less confusing, but when it occurred to me last night I didn’t feel like breaking the laptop back out, so here goes.

On Monday, I received a release from the Rob Miller campaign headlined “99 Reasons,” and beginning this way: “It seems far away now, but we are just 99 days from ending Joe Wilson’s congressional career.”

OK. Aside from that sounding excessively optimistic, it wasn’t particularly interesting. So I set it aside.

Then I got a release from the Nikki Haley campaign headlined “100 days,” and saying essentially that that was how many days were left. How she arrived at the number is further confused by this boldfaced passage:

Yesterday marked a significant milestone in our campaign — there are only 100 days left until Election Day.

So does that mean they were counting from “yesterday,” which would have been Sunday? If so, why does the sentence go on to use the present tense, saying “there ARE only 100 days left”? One is left to conclude that the Haley campaign was saying there were still 100 days left.

Was she counting Monday itself, as a way of asserting her wish not to waste a day? Perhaps. But I’m left with the impression, once again, that these Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on anything. But I set that aside, too.

Then last night, just before 10 p.m., I got a release from Karen Floyd headlined “99 Days of Bad Ideas” and just chock full of the sort of ranting nonsense you expect from parties:

We’re going to hear from liberals like Joe Biden, who just stopped in to raise money for John Spratt, saying that we should have spent even more “stimulus” money.  We’re going to hear fromCongressman Spratt himself that the budget he wrote is actually fiscally responsible, although we all know it increases our debts and puts our nation at risk. We’re going to hear from Rob Millerthat it’s okay for candidates to accept millions of dollars from liberal Washington special interest groups. We’re going to hear from Vincent Sheheen that English doesn’t have to be our state’s official language and that tax cuts won’t create jobs and grow our economy. We’ll hear from Matt Richardson (he’s the liberal running for Attorney General, in case you’ve never heard of him) that we don’t need to stand up to the federal government when they step on our rights every other day. We’ll even hear from their US Senate candidate who believes action figures of himself will fix our high unemployment rate.

Why don’t they just save themselves trouble by typing “liberal” once and then just pasting it into the text over and over? “Liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal…” It would make as much sense, and be just as relevant. They could italicize some of them and boldface others, for variety. “Liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal…” If they don’t think variety is ideological heresy, of course.

And where on Earth did they get the thing about English as an official language? What does that have to do with anything? And is that really the best they can come up with as an indictment of Vincent?

Anyway, the thing that interested me was that Karen Floyd was siding with Rob Miller on the number of days left. Just goes to show that there is room for finding common ground across the partisan divide. And it demonstrates how out of touch Nikki is, even with her own party.

Yes, that last sentence would have had a smiley face after it if I did smiley faces.