Category Archives: Elections

Alvin Greene not really anything new for SC

At lunch today, I said something about “Mad Men,” and a lady friend mentioned that one of the actresses from the show was on the cover of Playboy. This grabbed my attention, although I calmed down a bit when she told me it was NOT Christina Hendricks, who plays Joan Holloway. Yes. I was disappointed, too. But I wanted to know who it was, and was already trying to think whether an actress from “Mad Men” being on the cover would be a good enough excuse to buy a copy, the way I justified to my wife buying the Jimmy Carter interview edition (think, honey — all those interesting articles!), while the lady did some hunting on her iPhone — and came up with the picture.

And as I looked, and admitted I didn’t recognize her, but might if given the opportunity to study additional photos more closely, she said, “You know, this is what Alvin Greene got arrested for.”

Which is true. And in fact, the more I think about it, that arrest is perhaps the one thing that explains why we’re so flabbergasted that he is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate. There are other things. His unemployment, for instance. But I was unemployed for a year, and I’d vote for me. The fact that he lives with his Dad? Why wouldn’t a single, unemployed guy, recently out of the Army, stay with his aged father? As for being out of the Army: Sure, we don’t know why he was involuntarily released, but is it all that unusual to have unanswered questions about a candidate’s military service, if he even has any? Do we really know where W. was when he was supposed to be on Guard duty? Has anyone yet learned exactly where and how John Kerry was wounded to get those Purple Hearts that were his early ticket home? Mr. Greene was honorably discharged, and how much else to we need to know.

OK, so he’s no public speaker, and his grasp of the issues is unimpressive. Whoop-te-doo.

Allow me to remind you that this state’s last Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate was no great bargain either. Remember Bob Conley? He, too, was a bit on the flaky side. Sure, he actually had some campaign materials, but they reflected a set of values that seemed oddly out of place in a Democrat, and would make a reasonable person wonder how in the world he won the nomination.

Here’s what I wrote about him in The State’s endorsement of Lindsey Graham:

Bob Conley is one of those anomalous candidates who occasionally step into political vacuums — a nominal Democrat who takes the position of the angry right wing on immigration and would abolish the Federal Reserve. His Web site touts words of support from Ron Paul and the wife of Patrick Buchanan.

Bob Conley

In fact, he sounded for all the world like he was running under the Tea Party banner, before we’d even heard of the Tea Party. For more about Bob and his views, check this campaign flier.

He was fringe. He was out there. He was nobody’s concept of a Democrat. In fact, the few views that Alvin Greene has expressed are a far better fit for the party. So how did this guy win the nomination? The same way Alvin Greene did. Zero attention was paid to the race beforehand because Lindsey Graham, like Jim DeMint today, seemed like a sure bet (once he got past the extremists in his own party in the primary). So voters went into the booth without crucial information — and inexplicably, inexcusably voted for someone they knew nothing about. Sound familiar?

It could just as easily have been Alvin Greene — and this time, it was.

There is very little new in this situation. So the guy faces charges from showing pictures to a co-ed? Hey, he could have been an ax murderer for all the voters knew.

So why are we so worked up about Alvin Greene, as though nothing like this has ever happened before? Here’s my theory: The national media had their eyes on SC because of the craziness surrounding Nikki Haley, and just before they turned away, they went “Hey wait — and these nuts also elected some guy they’d never heard of…?” And from that, another star was born.

Silly national media. They didn’t realize we do this all the time.

… but no pledges, please, Vincent

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Having praised Vincent Sheheen for challenging Nikki Haley to actually be transparent for a change (since that’s, you know, her platform), I’ve gotta say I’m with Nikki on this:

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Vincent Sheheen has signed a pledge, promising to make an effort to appoint qualified women to senior level positions on state boards and commissions if he is elected.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley declined to sign the pledge.

Like Nikki, I wouldn’t sign the pledge, either.

Now settle down, ladies. (If you’re OK with me calling you ladies.) Nothing against hiring women.

The problem is the pledge.

My objection may seem a bit wonkish and technical, but please attend:

I believe candidates should not sign pledges about what they will do or not do in office. The cause doesn’t matter; the problem is the pledge itself. It undermines the integrity of the political process. Candidates may speak of general intentions, but specific promises — particularly when taken to the extreme of putting them in writing — are a bad idea.

It is essential to self-government, and particularly to our system of representative democracy, that once in office a public servant should study the actual situation that he faces in office (which can never be accurately, fully anticipated before the election), and engage as an honest, unencumbered agent in deliberation with others to reach a decision about what to do.

You think this is just a fine point, a mere ephemeral abstraction? Well, you liberals applauding Vincent for this stand should take a moment and contemplate the severe damage done to South Carolina by the fact that Grover Norquist got so many GOP lawmakers to sign his anti-tax pledge. It has made comprehensive tax reform impossible, and led to a downward ratcheting of tax revenues that had nothing to do with the state’s actual spending needs, and everything to do with Norquist’s aim of shrinking government to the point that he can drown it in a bathtub.

But whether you like the aim of the pledge or not, they are a bad idea — that includes the pledge that Democrats were passing around awhile back to promise to spend more on education — because they shackle an officeholder from dealing in the future with the actual, practical situation that lies before him.

So Vincent — please do express your desire to see more qualified women serve in your administration. That’s great. But no pledges, please.

Good move, Vincent. Now release your e-mails, too

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Finally, after a couple of weeks hiatus, there’s a sign of life from the Sheheen campaign, and it’s a good one. Vincent released his last 10 years of tax records, and challenged Nikki Haley to do the same.

Normally, this kind of gesture wouldn’t mean much to me. But it means a lot in the context of this particular contest. As you may recall, refusing to release the last 10 years of her tax records is one of several rather glaring ways in which the Republican running on a “transparency” platform has refused to be transparent. Only after Gresham Barrett pressured her into releasing the last three years (saying, when asked by The State, that releasing 10 years would be an “excessive” amount of transparency) did we learn that she had previously failed to disclose that Wilbur Smith had paid her$42,500 for her influence.

So laying his tax records out and challenging Ms. Transparency 2010 to do the same is perfectly appropriate, and a service to the voters.

Now I’d like to see him release his publicly-issued e-mail records. That is, if he hasn’t done so already (I didn’t get a release on the tax records and had to read it in the paper of all things, so for all I know I missed one on the e-mail records, too). There is no way that a candidate running entirely on trying to tear the veil of secrecy from the Legislature should be hiding her e-mail records behind a special exemption to FOI law that lawmakers carved out for themselves. No way at all.

I did think this was of note:

The couple’s charitable giving has risen as they earned more money. The couple reported charitable donations of $1,025 in 2000, or 1.4 percent of their income. In 2009, the couple reported $7,301 in charitable donations on $372,509 in income, or 2 percent of their total earnings.

Haley and her husband, Michael, earned a combined $196,282 in 2009 and gave $971 to charity, or one half of one percent of total earnings.

Yeah, OK, so he’s giving more than Nikki, but 2 percent is pretty sad. Maybe this doesn’t include giving to the church. I mean, we Catholics are notorious for not tithing but come on, Vincent.

At least he’s not hiding the fact, though.

Sanford Redux? Let’s pray not. But the long knives ARE likely to come out for Lindsey

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First, the good news: As the one most thoughtful and principled Republican in the United States Senate — a guy who will fairly consider Democratic court nominees, just as he demands the same intellectual honesty from Democrats with Republican nominees — Lindsey Graham today became the only GOP senator to vote Elena Kagan out of committee.

Sure, some of the Republicans who voted against her and Democrats were voting for were voting their convictions, too, but the only person you KNOW was doing so was Lindsey Graham, because there was nothing in it for him politically. Except for the respect of us UnPartisans, and we’re not that powerful a lobby.

So, for the sin of being thoughtful and intellectually honest and really meaning it when he says elections have consequences and presidents’ choices, if qualified, should be given respect by the opposition, back home the yahoos are lining up to run against Lindsey Graham in the 2014 primary.

Really. Because this is South Carolina, where we don’t wait around for crazy; we grab it by the throat and ride it to death.

And of course the national media, from the MSM to Jon Stewart, have come to expect crazy from us, and have even started trying to anticipate it.

Which is why today, on the very day of the Kagan vote, we already have The Washington Post’s Chris Cilizza speculating about which Republicans will line up to run against Lindsay.

Frankly, I think it’s an overreaction. I suspect that when all is said and done and four years have passed Lindsey will — if he still wants the seat — face only marginal opposition from within his own party. But given what the nation has seen from the GOP within SC in recent months, who can blame Cilizza for compiling this list?

* Katon Dawson: The former chairman of the state Republican party would have the financial network and connections in the state to make a serious run at Graham. And, he may be looking for a next act after losing out on the Republican National Committee chairmanship in 2009.

* Jeff Duncan: Duncan, a state representative, is the odds-on favorite to replace Rep. Gresham Barrett in the 3rd district this fall. (Graham held that same Upstate seat before being elected to the Senate in 2002.) That would provide a real geographic base from which to run in four years time.

* Mark Sanford: Yes, that Mark Sanford. The soon-to-be-former governor has made clear to political insiders that he is interested in a return to politics and targeting Graham in 2014 might give Sanford enough time to rehab his badly damaged image.

* Trey Gowdy: Gowdy is a heavy favorite to come to Congress this fall after he crushed Rep. Bob Inglis (R) in a primary in the strongly Republican 4th district. He gets rave reviews from smart political people in the state but it remains unclear whether the Senate is an office he covets.

* Mick Mulvaney: Mulvaney, a state senator, is currently running against Rep. John Spratt (D) in the 5th district. Win — or even lose — and he’s likely to be in the Graham primary mix.

* Tom Davis: Davis is a state Senator from Beaufort (in the Lowcountry). He’s also a close ally of GOP gubernatorial nominee Nikki Haley. If Haley is elected governor this fall, her allies will be in the catbird’s seat for offices down the line.

“Yes, THAT Mark Sanford.” Just sends chills down the spine, doesn’t it? It that man’s political career is not over, then there is no justice in the political world. And between the kind of insanity that has some Republicans who would actually vote for him again (and you know there are a lot of them), and enough people on the Democratic side who would and did vote for Alvin Greene, it would pretty much end my faith in democracy as a positive force in South Carolina.

But you know what’s really awful about this? With Lindsey Graham, South Carolina has the best representation in the U.S. Senate that it’s had in my lifetime. Representation that, for once, we can truly be proud of. And the very idea that anyone would want to take that away from us is appalling.

But that they would be motivated to do so by his acting like a rational human being is what really provokes despair.

Here’s hoping that when all is said and done, this kind of doomsday thinking about SC is wrong. But recent history is not reassuring.

Let’s just say it over and over:

This is nothing but wild speculation from an outsider… This is nothing but wild speculation from an outsider…This is nothing but wild speculation from an outsider…This is nothing but wild speculation from an outsider…This is nothing but…

SC GOP having absolute cow over Pelosi’s $2k

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You may have noticed something about South Carolina Republicans this year — even the ones who have good sense, like Henry McMaster: They’re all about national politics, and not at all about South Carolina.

So it is that you have Henry’s ridiculous “Vultures” ad. And with Nikki Haley, it pretty much seeps into everything she does. For instance, a routine release from her campaign yesterday began:

Friends,

Across this country, we’re seeing people waking up and taking their government back. We certainly saw it in South Carolina last month …

Now let’s set aside the ridiculous demagogic “taking their government back” construction, which makes zero sense. I mean, really — give us some examples of these instances you refer to, because I’d like to see what this business of “taking back government” looks like, how it plays out in the actual world, what sorts of results it produces.

No, my point is that the frame of reference, the point from which the release begins, is national politics — specifically, a national ideological movement. From this point of view, what happens in and to South Carolina only makes sense within the framework of the latest national ideological fad.

But things like that actually almost make sense set against the paroxysms that have been engendered by a campaign contribution made to a South Carolina congressional candidate by Nancy Pelosi. Various Republicans have today gone wild over this. They just can’t believe their good fortune. Instead of having to play their usual game of pretending that South Carolinians like Vincent Sheheen and John Spratt are liberals in the modern meaning of the term, they actually have an actual liberal touching South Carolina politics. So of course they are jumping up and down with joy and making mighty mountains out of Nancy’s molehill. They are ecstatic, and like many people who are beside themselves with happiness, they have gotten rather silly about it. For instance:

Under the headline, “MATCH PELOSI: Let Her Know She Can’t Buy America,” Joe Wilson says, “Nancy Pelosi gave $2,000 to Rob Miller, so we’re asking you to help Joe raise $2,000 today and every day until August 1. Send a strong message to Nancy Pelosi that we’re going to protect conservative leaders and TAKE BACK CONGRESS!” There’s that “take back” construction again (which sort of makes you want to ask, “What did you do with it when you had it last, Joe?”). Then there’s the utter overkill of it. Nancy gives 2 Gs, so the natural response is to raise that much every single day! Somebody needs to take a chill pill.
On a special, rather comical-looking Web page called “Washington Liberals” and in a related release, State GOP Chair Karen Floyd exults: “Nancy Pelosi is building a team of like-minded liberals and pouring millions of dollars into South Carolina,” continuing, “You’re next up to bat. Will you let Nancy Pelosi buy South Carolina or will you knock her plan out of the park?”
Then, on Twitter, the Blogosphere’s own Wesley Donehue put out Tweet after Tweet pumping the Wilson effort, with items such as “Will you help us raise $2,000 today to match Nancy Pelosi’s donation to Rob Miller?” followed by “Dang! Already half way there after just 20 minutes. Help us hit just $2k for @congjoewilson.”

Which means people are actually giving actual dollars in response to this utter nonsense. What kind of a sap do you have to be to fall for this flapdoodle?

Now as y’all know, I have no truck with folks interfering in the politics of other people’s states. When folks from here get worked up about elections elsewhere that are none of their business, I call them on it. So for the record, I’d greatly prefer that Nancy Pelosi stay the hell out of our South Carolina elections. Of course, there are levels of egregiousness in outside interference. Speaker Pelosi acting in a fairly modest way upon her desire to keep a majority so that she can keep her job is unseemly. Howard Rich pouring a fortune into South Carolina, not for a national issue, but in an effort to impose his ideology upon the South Carolina Legislature, is an outrage. That distinction made, we can do without your involvement, Nancy.

But the really interesting thing here is the way Republicans overreact when they finally, finally get the smallest excuse to make a South Carolina contest about national politics. Since they have no ideas for helping South Carolina move forward, they invariably fall back on the Washington boogey man. And when a prominent Democrat actually plays along with their narrative, they are absolutely thrilled.

Alvin Greene’s speech — full video, via CNN

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Back on an earlier post Bud asked:

Did anyone see the Alvin Greene speech? I missed it but the accounts I’ve read suggest it was pretty disturbing.

This prompted me to go find the video for you. I first watched The State‘s version, which had a slightly better angle, but which did not offer the imbedding option (which is short-sighted, if you ask me, but hey, sometimes newspapers are short-sighted; ahem). So you’re getting the CNN version, and you’re grateful for it, aren’t you?

And yes, Bud. It is indeed disturbing.

‘Finish Him Off’: Things getting rough in the 2nd District

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Whoa! Not to be outdone by the “You Lie!” guy, his opponent in the 2nd Congressional District is getting a bit overwrought in his rhetoric. I just got a fund-raising release from the Rob Miller campaign urging supporters to help “finish him off” — referring to Joe Wilson. In fact, that was the headline on the e-mail: “Finish Him Off.”

Totally aside from the implied violence of the phrase, there’s the additional problem of inaccuracy. It invokes a picture of Joe lying on the ground at death’s door awaiting the coup de grace. But near as I can tell, Mr. Wilson is poised to do what he usually does — get re-elected.

The Tea Party and racism

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Was struck by this letter in The State this morning:

Francee Levin (“State right to fly USC flag,” Monday), the NAACP and others who mischaracterize the Tea Party movement need to stop listening to the liberal media and maybe attend a Tea Party rally for themselves. I’ve attended several at the State House, and the group includes people from all ethnic groups and walks of life who cannot sit by and witness the destruction of our great country by the present administration.

The movement is made up of millions of everyday Americans who love their country and want to see it restored to what the Founding Fathers created, and never have been documented to have said or done anything racist or violent.

Violent? No, thank goodness. Not yet, anyway. But racist? Depends on what you mean.

When I was at the Tea Party rally where I shot the video of Sheri Few tearing into that “socialist” Anton Gunn, she went on a long tale about how far back to the foundation of the country her kinfolk go, and it was so much like a my-family-came-over-on-the-Mayflower speech, only with an anti-government political flavor, that it both bored me and made me feel a tad uncomfortable. You know, like “I’m a REAL American, and have the pedigree to prove it.” I’ll see if I caught any of that on video… And at that same rally there was also some vituperation toward illegal immigrants — which many of you will hasten to explain was because they’re illegal, not because they are brown people who speak Spanish.

So no — I haven’t heard anything from Tea Party speakers that sounded like anything like what Ben Tillman might have said in advocating lynching. So pat yourselves on the backs there, if you’re so inclined. But I’ve heard plenty of stuff along the lines of what nativists say when they have their party manners on.

And then there was this report that I saw today:

A day after leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, met to pass a resolution that condemns the Tea Party, a grass-roots anti-tax political movement, for tolerating racism among its members, CNN contributor Roland Martin invited a Tea Party Express spokesman onto The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer. Mark Williams, “asked to tell racists ‘you’re not welcome’ in the tea party,” the Huffington Post reported, “replied ‘Racists have their own movement. It’s called the NAACP.'” On the show, which aired Wednesday night, Williams accused Martin of driving racist people to Tea Party events by talking about the issue consistently on the air, by convincing them that Tea Party events are where they will “find a happy home.” “You’re not going to lie on CNN. I never said that,” Martin responded. “I have said consistently, the Tea Party people have an absolute right to assemble, to protest. But what I have said, there is no room in that movement for racists. And what I’ve said is, you should come out and say you’re not welcome here.” That’s when Williams broke in to call the NAACP a racist organization, adding that members are “a bunch of old fossils looking to make a buck off skin color.” “That’s nonsense,” Martin responded before Blitzer broke in to end the heated debate. The Huffington Post has video of the exchange on its Web site.

Make of that what you will.

Nikki’s business meeting in Greenville

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Still haven’t heard from anyone who attended Nikki’s meeting today to shore up her business relations, but The Greenville News took a stab at finding out what happened at a similar meeting up their way.

An excerpt:

Republican gubernatorial nominee Nikki Haley has met privately at least twice with Greenville business leaders and assured them she would seek a better relationship with lawmakers than Gov. Mark Sanford, her political ally, and would champion economic development more fully than he has.

Haley arranged the meetings – including one here Tuesday and a similar one in Columbia today – at a time when some business leaders, long disappointed with Sanford, are considering whether to take a cue from the state Chamber of Commerce and rally behind Haley’s Democratic opponent, state Sen. Vincent Sheheen.

The first question for Haley at Tuesday’s meeting at The Loft at Soby’s was whether she would govern as Sanford has, said Lewis Gossett, president of the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance.

Haley “basically made the point that she would be her own person,” said Gossett, who lives and works in Columbia but stopped by the meeting while in Greenville for a personal appointment.

Gossett said members of the manufacturers’ alliance have been “frustrated” with Sanford and “want to know are we going to see a spirit of cooperation in Columbia?” He said some of the alliance’s members support Haley and some Sheheen.

Trav Robertson, spokesman for the Sheheen campaign, said Haley would indeed govern like Sanford, who Robertson said tried to derail plans for Clemson University’s International Center for Automotive Research when he first took office in 2003.

“Who carried Sanford’s water in the Legislature? It was Nikki Haley,” Robertson said. “Who was the first person Nikki Haley thanked when she won the nomination? Mark Sanford. So make no mistake. It’s one and the same.”

Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey said business people in the Upstate were interested in meeting Haley and it was natural for her to meet with them.

On the one hand, I’m almost inclined to excuse these secret meetings on the grounds that a lot of business people won’t show and say what they really think in a public forum.

But then I think, NAAAHHHH. No way should Ms. Transparency get away with this, and here’s why: According to this story, she’s telling these business people how normal and cooperative and constructive she’ll be in working with lawmakers, unlike her mentor Mark Sanford. She’s saying things sufficiently reassuring that some are coming away deciding to back her.

For her to say things that would be persuasive to sensible, pragmatic business people (who are fed up with that ideological firebrand Gov. Sangfroid), it seems to me that she would have to say things that are pretty different from what she says in front of her Tea Party fans. With them, she definitely doesn’t say, “No way I’ll be like Mark Sanford.”

But doing it in private allows her to get away with that.

Did anybody go to Nikki’s meeting?

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Since I got uninvited from the meeting at which Nikki Haley was to woo business support today, I’m wondering… Did it even happen, or did it get canceled or postponed? Who showed up? What was said? Did she make any progress against Vincent Sheheen’s Chamber support?

I drove past the Wilbur Smith building a little after noon, and about all I can report is that they certainly weren’t spilling out onto the sidewalk. But then, I wouldn’t really expect them to. It’s a big building.

Anyway, if you were one of the Elect who attended, drop me a line at [email protected]. I’d love to hear how it went.

Steve Benjamin’s fast start

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It may look like the mayor is deeply involved in some problem facing the city, but actually he's "taking orders" from his wife./photo by Brad Warthen

Steve Benjamin wants to get a lot done as Columbia’s new mayor, and his first city council meeting is testimony to that: Right off the bat, he’s moving on getting Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott to take over the city’s troubled police department.

That’s real action, and of the sort that the city needs more of.

I dropped by the new mayor’s office yesterday to see how he’s getting along — which was a new experience for me, actually. I never visited Mayor Bob in his office before. (When I was at the paper, I didn’t get out much, and when I did it was usually to the State House, not local gummint offices.) Of course, it was a different office. There was nothing particularly remarkable about this one. It’s bigger than my office at ADCO, but not as well air-conditioned. It’s not as nice as the corner office I had at The State (which had formerly been the publisher’s office). Somewhere in the middle — a Mama Bear office. It had nowhere near the impressive drama of Joe Riley’s office in Charleston. There, the visitor can hardly see The Mayor seated behind his desk and gloriously backlit by a huge cathedral window, letting the visitor know he is in The Presence — which is perfectly appropriate, since I think Mayor Joe is America’s best mayor. Steve had a window behind him, but that was about it.

I mention those details because when I had lunch with ex-Mayor Bob yesterday he referred to an Adam Beam story that Bob felt implied Steve was being grandiose in taking the city manager’s office for himself — but I think Bob was being extra touchy on Steve’s behalf there. I thought Adam’s reference was sort of neutral. In any case, there’s nothing grand about the office.

Anyway, during my visit Steve touched on a number of things he wants to move on, from small to large:

He showed me mockups of highway signs that are to go at all the entrances to Columbia, saying “Welcome to Columbia, Home of the 2010 NCAA College Baseball National Champion University of South Carolina Gamecocks.”
As for his idea about getting the USC Law School to move into the office space formerly occupied by SCANA, “That’s something that I want so bad that I can taste it.” Ideally, a private 3rd party would buy the building and lease it to the university so that it stays on the tax rolls, but if that doesn’t happen it’s not a deal-breaker. He’s working on the USC trustees one at a time, and is finding some support for the move. There are some who still want to build a new building, but the Main Street idea is far more practical, and would do so much to further the continued revitalization of that corridor.
Speaking of which, he wants to get the streetscaping of Main Street finished. He thinks it’s an oversight that that didn’t get into the mix of projects that would be funded by the sales tax increase for transportation that will be on the ballot in November. Beyond that, he has a number of ideas about further enhancing the city center, including — this would be down the line, probably with federal dollars — a restoration of City Hall and a revamp of the space between it and the county courthouse, getting rid of the parking lot and tying the buildings together better.
Trolleys. He wants to bring them back at some point, not as part of the overall transportation strategy, but merely as an aid to tourism. With the convention center up and running and busy and the new convention hotel and the Vista still booming and Main Street coming back, he sees much more potential for the trolleys than was there when the used to ride around empty.
An industrial park. He sees Columbia as badly needing a place to put large businesses if it manages to recruit them. He sees the city as needing something — probably on the south end of town — like the space that the aforementioned SCANA moved to across the river.
Speaking of across the river — he continues to be all about regional cooperation, from the airport to the convention center (which is in need of expansion — we’re losing a lot of conventions for which it is too small, from what I hear). And he doesn’t see that running one way. He wants the city more involved in helping to promote the Lake Murray area and other parts of the Midlands.

He’s restless and ready to get moving. Which is promising.

Hey, I missed that amendment…

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Man, I’ve just got to do a better job of keeping up with new wrinkles in the U.S. Constitution. Apparently there’s a provision now that requires that governors to vote on U.S. Supreme Court nominees.

Who knew?

That’s the only way I can explain this development, brought to my attention by an alert reader…

It’s an advisory about the same unveiling, in Columbia on Thursday, of the campaign I mentioned back here, but there’s a new wrinkle: It says in part that Nikki Haley is expected to attend. The event will be put on by “the nation’s leading grassroots military-support organization, Move America Forward” along with “the Judicial Action Group and Tea Party Express” to call on Sens. DeMint and Graham to opposed the nomination of Elena Kagan.

And why will Nikki, a candidate for governor of South Carolina, be there? To “give her reasons for opposing a Kagan nomination.”

Really.

This is a new one on me.

Anyway, this event will apparently be at 10 a.m., which leaves Nikki two hours before her secret meeting with business folk. I’m sure the business people will be thrilled to hear that she went out of her way to express herself about the Kagan issue — because, you know, that’s such a huge factor in improving the business climate in South Carolina…

Nikki’s secret meeting to try to woo business

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Well, this is ironic…

When I was typing this post back here about how Nikki Haley is trying to compensate for the fact that the Chamber backs Vincent Sheheen, I got a call from Henry McMaster. Actually, first I got an e-mail from Trey Walker asking for my phone number, then I got a call from Henry.

What was Henry calling about? Well, let me back up a day…

At the end of Monday’s Columbia Rotary Club meeting, I ran into Henry (he and I are both members) on my way toward the door. It was the first time I had run into him since he lost the primary, and we chatted for a minute about that. He said something about wishing he could roll time back a couple of months, which prompted me to ask him what he would do differently, to which he responded that there really wasn’t anything he could have done to achieve a different result. Too much tumbled Nikki’s way in quick succession — the ReformSC ad, the Sarah Palin endorsement, the wave of sympathy arising from the Will Folks stuff — not to mention having Jenny Sanford out there working for her.

I sensed that Henry was, at least in spirit, not entirely thrilled with his new role as supporter of the GOP nominee. But he’s a good soldier, and he quickly roused himself to do his duty. As I was about to walk away and Crawford Clarkson was approaching, he grabbed my arm and said hey, he wanted to invite me and Crawford to a special meeting on Thursday at noon at the Wilbur Smith building.

He said it was a chance for business people to get answers to the questions they have about Nikki Haley. Nikki will be there to answer them. “And you’re a business man now, right?” he said to me. You betcha, I said.

Questions? At the Wilbur Smith building? Questions like, what did Nikki do for Wilbur Smith for that 40 grand, aside from having “good contacts”? Well… actually, all sorts of questions, Henry said, such as about her position on this bill or that one… I didn’t press him further, because I figured I’d find out Thursday, right?

And the best part? Henry said the media wasn’t being invited. So as a business guy, I’d have a scoop. Nice being a businessman, huh?

That was yesterday.

Today, Henry called me rather flustered. He said it was a “totally closed, no-press event.” That meant somebody like me, who would turn around and write about it (and I would, too), was NOT invited. “They’re right emphatic about it,” he said.

He told me how embarrassed he was, and I knew he was. I thanked him for calling — after asking if our former Rotary president, and president of ADCO, Lanier Jones could go instead of me. Lanier’s a businessman, and he doesn’t blog.

Henry said the meeting was getting really crowded, and he didn’t know, but he’d check.

I feel bad for Henry.

Show us transparency, Nikki: Release the e-mails

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Did you see the strong editorial in The State Sunday, challenging Nikki “Transparency” Haley for hiding behind a loophole in FOI specifically carved out to protect legislators, and legislators alone, from transparency in order to keep her state-issued e-mail secret?

I was very glad to see it. As the edit pointed out, this isn’t about Will Folks or disgusting sex allegations. Neither The State‘s editorial board nor I expect to find anything about that if we ever see those e-mails. But the fact that this started with such accusations creates a smoke screen that lets Nikki get away with a flagrant flouting of the principles she lets on to hold most dear. From the heart of the editorial:

Ms. Haley, after all, is not just someone who thinks government transparency is a nice thing. Her one claim to fame as a legislator is her crusade to bring sunlight to a legislative process that for too long has protected lawmakers from accountability rather than giving the voters information they deserve. Her entire campaign for governor is built on that push for openness, for letting the public in on the Legislature’s secrets, for eliminating the special perks and privileges legislators give themselves and their friends.

Does that apply only to the direct expenditure of public money?

Does it apply only to other people?

Imagine if the blogger had claimed that he helped Rep. Haley secretly funnel millions of tax dollars into a green-bean museum and steer tens of millions more in cushy no-bid contracts to her campaign donors, and that messages on her government e-mail account would back up his claim. Is there anyone who would not be demanding that she make the correspondence public?

What is she hiding? Why doesn’t she want us to see the messages she has been sending as she juggled her campaign for governor with doing her job as a legislator?

It is not Ms. Haley’s job to disprove unsubstantiated allegations. It is, however, her job to prove that her commitment to ushering in government transparency and ushering out special legislative privileges is sincere — even more since it has been called into question before. She still hasn’t explained what she did to earn more than $40,000 in consulting fees from a government contractor that hired her for her “good contacts.”

If Ms. Haley were governor, we already would have seen her e-mails, because what governors write on their government e-mail accounts is public record. In fact, Gov. Mark Sanford’s attorney saw fit to turn over some e-mails from his personal account, because she determined that he was using it to discuss public business.

If Ms. Haley were the president of the University of South Carolina, we already would have seen her e-mails. Ditto if she were a $30,000-a-year clerk in the bowels of the bureaucracy, because what nearly all state employees write on their government e-mail accounts is public record.

The only reason her public e-mail correspondence has remained hidden is that she is a legislator, and legislators have written themselves a special exemption to the Freedom of Information Act.

This exemption is the very epitome of the secrecy that Ms. Haley vows to eliminate.

I’m glad to see this now. Because at some point, someone was going to point out this obvious inconsistency and raise a stink about it. My concern has been that it would happen in late October, thereby engendering another tidal wave of protective emotion that would sweep Rep. Haley to victory.

The time to address this is now, when there’s time to be calm. Time to see that she cannot possibly have any legitimate excuse not to share these state-sponsored communications.

What is she hiding, indeed? For all I know, absolutely nothing. But then I don’t know, because she’s hiding it, in a stunning display of contempt for the ideals she says she stands for.

Greene media juggernaut cranks up (snicker!)

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Two things to share…

First, this photo, which may or may not be legitimate; I have no idea. It was brought to my attention by Scott English, Mark Sanford’s chief of staff, via Twitter. He got it from the Washington Examiner. PhotoShop or reality? Either way, it’s a primo example of the current rage in political comedy, the item that allows us all to sneer at Alvin Greene. (Speaking of PhotoShop: I not only cropped the picture before posting it here; I also lightened it up and increased the contrast. We have standards here at bradwarthen.com.) The knee-slapping cutline that came with the picture:

This sign is from US 521, near Greene’s hometown, and hotbed of support, in Manning, SC. No signs for Republican Sen. Jim DeMint were spotted anywhere near the area, suggesting that Greene has opened an imposing lead in the early-advertising race.

Yuk, yuk, chortle, snort.

Which brings me to my second point: At what point does mocking Alvin Greene simply becoming mocking a man for being poor, black and unemployed and from a small town in South Carolina? At what point do the Republicans who are LOVING this, or the mortified Democrats who hide their faces in shame that THIS is their nominee, or smart-ass bloggers who post satirical photos (real or fake; irresponsible bloggers just don’t care, do they?) get called on the carpet for the so-far socially acceptable practice of running down Alvin Greene?

Food for thought, there…

Ron Paul inching toward another run?

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We all have our little cheap tricks for driving traffic to our blogs. One local blogger posts cheesecake pictures and claims to have had sex with a candidate for governor. I occasionally put “Ron Paul” in a headline. The Paulistas come running in droves from across the country, for items such as this:

Last month’s trip to Iowa was his third to the state since November 2009, so it begs the question: Is Paul trying to lay the groundwork for a 2012 White House run?

“I am very serious about thinking about it all the time,” Paul said about his possible presidential aspirations. “My answer is always the same thing: You know I haven’t ruled it out, but I have no plans to do it.”

For now, Paul will continue to travel the country to promote his philosophy, while his 2008 presidential campaign operation has morphed into the Campaign for Liberty, a 500,000-member organization that promotes libertarian views.

Apparently he’s thinking of running as a Republican again this time. Don’t know why he doesn’t go back to running as a Libertarian. It was a closer fit (despite the GOP’s moves in that direction), and his chances would have been just as good. If I were a Libertarian, I’d feel abandoned — soon as the guy gets some notoriety, he leaves. Perhaps the emergence of Sanfordistas such as Nikki Haley encourages him that he’s making progress. Of course, I wouldn’t call it progress, but he would.

“It’s not a joke,” says Greene of his “GI Alvin” plan

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Lest you be dismissive of the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, first check out his plan for bringing jobs back to South Carolina, as reported by The Guardian (which, last time I checked, was not part of the SC MSM that should be covering this election):

“Another thing we can do for jobs is make toys of me, especially for the holidays. Little dolls. Me. Like maybe little action dolls. Me in an army uniform, air force uniform, and me in my suit. They can make toys of me and my vehicle, especially for the holidays and Christmas for the kids. That’s something that would create jobs. So you see I think out of the box like that. It’s not something a typical person would bring up. That’s something that could happen, that makes sense. It’s not a joke.”

No, I’m not making this up. It’s not a joke. A new twist on GI Joe. That’s his plan. You know, as a guy who was unemployed for a really long time, I’m resenting the picture he’s presenting to the world of guys like us. And for the record, I have NOT shown any dirty pictures to co-eds.

But as a Mad Man, I think I smell a tagline in the making. He could build his whole campaign around it: “It’s not a joke!”

And you know what, it isn’t. Not a funny one, anyway.

Backup tagline: “It’s not something a typical person would bring up.”

And as I could tell the client in all honesty, there are plenty more where those two came from…

Maybe Nikki will teach Democrats a lesson

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Thought I’d start a separate discussion based on a subthread back on the post about Nikki Haley on the cover of Newsweek.

Phillip, reaching for the bright side of the national MSM’s superficial coronation of Nikki because she’s an Indian-American woman, wrote:

Maybe this is all for a larger good. Even if I disagree with almost everything Haley or Tim Scott stand for, if this means the GOP is now abandoning the “Southern Strategy” of the Helms-Thurmond-Atwater variety, that can only be a healthy thing, for the party and for the country (and region).

Another way of putting it is that soon, racists and bigots in the South will have no one to vote for. That can only mean there’s fewer and fewer of them, and that, electorally speaking, they matter less and less.

And Kathryn chimed in, “Nice thought, Phillip–from your mouth to our ears!”

This little burst of liberal feelgoodism set me off in a way that again illustrates how impatient I am with both liberals and conservatives, even when they are respected friends such as Phillip and Kathryn:

Nice thought, but it hardly makes up for the hard reality. I’m moved to quote the last line of The Sun Also Rises: “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

You want to hear a dark spin on Phillip’s rosy scenario? It’s all well and good for racism to have nowhere to go, and it’s fine for you to moralize about those awful racist Republicans becoming better. But here’s the other side of that: Maybe after she’s elected and we have another four, if not eight, years of Mark Sanford largely because the national media couldn’t see past being thrilled over an Indian-American woman, liberals in South Carolina (liberals elsewhere won’t notice because they don’t give a damn about SC, except as a source of their occasional amusement) will think, “Maybe this identity politics thing isn’t such a wonderful thing after all.”

Now that would be tremendous. But you know what? I’ve waited through too many 4-year chunks of wasted time in South Carolina to go through another such period just so that Republicans can be more ideologically correct and Democrats can wise up a little. It’s not worth it. Change these things about the parties, and other objectionable idiosyncrasies will simply expand to take their places, because parties are schools for foolishness.

This positive name recognition in Newsweek and elsewhere, which doesn’t go more than a micrometer deep (an Indian-American woman! in the South! Swoon. End of story) is going to make her unstoppable — until the narrative changes in some way.

If the South Carolina MSM will do its job and ask the hard questions (OK, Ms. Transparency, where are those PUBLIC e-mails, which you are hiding behind a special exemption from FOI laws that lawmakers carved out for themselves? Any more $40,000 deals to buy your “good contacts” that you haven’t seen fit to disclose?), maybe the national media, the media that people in SC are much more pervasively exposed to, will notice. Maybe. Maybe. Isn’t it pretty to think so?

Blast from the newspaper past

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Bob Ford shared this old newspaper page with me over the weekend. How old? So old that it’s from before I even worked at any newspaper, much less The State. My career starting in 1974 as a copy boy at The Commercial Appeal. But this is from Nov. 3 1972 — the Friday before I voted for the first time.

And yet — there are several people pictured here whom I would later work with, or at least come to know in the community after I arrived at The State in 1987 — Levona Page, Kent Krell, Margaret O’Shea and others. In fact, when I became governmental affairs editor in ’87, one of them was still on the beat and working for me: that hepcat Lee Bandy (dig the hair!).

This ad boasts of the resources devoted to covering politics, and indeed, back then newspapers had reporters spilling out the windows, and newshole to burn. It was still that way when I started covering politics myself in ’78. But then the long decline began, and finally newspaper finances went over the cliff this past decade.

One might also reflect on how different the SC political scene was in those days. First of all, there were no Republicans, except Strom Thurmond and Floyd Spence. So the Democratic primary was usually the election. Then there was the fact that the color barrier had just been broken in the Legislature, with a handful of black House members (but none in the Senate yet). This was two whole years before the legendary Pug Ravenel campaign, which idealistic then-young Democrats speak of today as though it occurred in the misty time of Camelot, or of King Elendil who wielded the sword Narsil before it was broken.

Anyway, I thought some of y’all would enjoy looking at it, too.