Category Archives: Leadership

Sheheen proposes joint gov/gov lite ticket

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This just came in from Vincent Sheheen, the most consistent and insistent advocate for government restructuring in the Senate (a body not exactly overrun with such) in recent years:

Sheheen Calls For Joint Governor-Lt. Governor Ticket

Columbia, SC  – State Senator Vincent Sheheen (D-Camden) today called for change in the way SC elects its Lieutenant Governor. Under legislation that is pending in the state Senate, Governors and Lieutenant Governors would run on a ticket.

Senator Sheheen made the following comments:

“Recent events have demonstrated the critical need to modernize our government. The instability of government during the Sanford and Haley eras has highlighted the chaos that can be caused by bad leaders under our current system. Let’s put this legislation on the fast track and get it passed this year.  The people deserve it.”

H. 3152 –  http://scstatehouse.gov/billsearch.php?billnumbers=3152&session=&summary=B

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It’s certainly been proposed many times before. Maybe, given recent events, the idea’s time has arrived.

Senate couldn’t have made a better choice for president pro tempore than John Courson

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Here you have a very fine Southern gentleman. And Courson's OK, too. Photo by Kelly Payne

Good job, gentlemen — picking John Courson to replace Glenn McConnell as president pro tempore of the Senate.

I can think of no one I’d prefer for that honor — certainly among those who would have had a realistic chance of being elected. If you’ll recall, Sen. Courson made my official, off-the-top-of-my-head list of top ten senators. And if I had made it a Top Five list, in true Nick Hornby fashion, he’d have made that, too. Some others among my faves — such as Joel Lourie and Vincent Sheheen — wouldn’t ever have been seriously considered, being both Democrats and too junior.

Why do I like Sen. Courson so much? First, he’s a Southern gentleman — the real article. There are all sorts of people who dress themselves up and strut about impersonating gentlemen, but he’s genuine. His courtliness is unfeigned, and incorporates all the best attributes of the type (as opposed to all the negatives with which cynical postmodernists would burden it). Combine that with his distinctive booming, heavily accented voice, and he’s an original character in a time when his party tends to run more to clones. (If I want to do a Courson impression, the first thing I do is think of him saying “militerih BANnuh” the way he did so many times during the debates over the Confederate flag.)

His credentials as a conservative Republican, from back before it was cool in SC, are impeccable. He speaks of Ronald Reagan and Strom Thurmond (and the Marine Corps — he flies that particular military banner in front of his house) as though reciting the pantheon of his gods. And yet he has been repeatedly returned to office by his Shandon constituency, largely the same one that keeps re-electing James Smith. He accomplishes this by faithfully serving all of his constituents, and by dealing with everyone in the State House, regardless of party, with the same scrupulous fairness and courtesy.

It’s no accident, then, that the Democrats in the Senate voted for him 18-0 yesterday, while a large majority of Republican votes went to Harvey Peeler. Nothing against Harvey — he’s an awesome Tweeter — but as the head of the GOP caucus, he has come to represent the partisanship that has infected the Senate since it first started taking note of party lines about a decade ago. As evidenced by this.

Here’s what John had to say after his election:

“I feel very honored,” said Courson, who has been a member of the Senate since 1985 and is an insurance executive at Keenan Suggs Insurance in Columbia. “This position is elected by senators themselves so it is a real honor to have my fellow senators support me. But I’m also pleased that I received bipartisan support.”

When’s the last time you heard a Republican in SC say that? Or even have occasion to?

You might say that John Courson is about as close as you can get to an actual UnParty elected official. Of course, that invites attacks on him from the RINO hunters, but such people are beneath contempt. As if they would have the right to judge Courson’s suitability as a Republican. And that’s the contradictory thing about John — he’s very UnParty, and yet it’s hard to think of anybody who’s been a more loyal Republican as he has, or for as long as he has.

Finally, if McConnell does run for his old seat and vacate the job of lieutenant governor — well, I would feel better about that particular office than I have in a long time, with John Courson in it. Although he would be missed in the Senate.

Full disclosure — about three years ago, right after I got laid off at the paper, a bulky envelope arrived in the mail at my home. It was from John Courson, and it contained a new Legislative Manual. I don’t know why he sent it to me — maybe he supposed that being unemployed, I couldn’t afford my own. But I appreciated it. It was like John was going out of his way to keep me in the loop, letting me know I was someone still worth doing this for. (I am not in his district, by the way, or even close.) Each year since then, he has sent me the new manual. The ironic thing about this is that I used to assign Cindi Scoppe to supply me with up-to-date manuals, and she hated running that errand, and used to put it off, sometimes neglecting it for a full year. So I’m better-supplied with manuals than I was at the paper.

Well, he’s got THAT much right…

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Slate brings my attention to the following:

House Speaker John Boehner spoke with theWall Street Journal’‘s Peggy Noonan and implied there are some members of Congress who should not be in leadership positions. “We got some of the smartest people in the country who serve here, and some of the dumbest,” Boehner said. “We got some of the best people you’d ever meet, and some of the raunchiest.”

Well, he’s got part of it right, anyway.

Glenn McConnell’s full statement

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Trying to catch up with my e-mail, I see that Wesley Donehue sent me this yesterday. I quoted McConnell’s statement in part earlier (or rather, quoted The State quoting it), but here is the whole thing. Hope you can read it OK:

As I said, he’s a guy taking a bullet for principle. He’s not enjoying himself.

A Gov. McConnell might be a GOOD thing for SC

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Now I’m going to get WAY out ahead of events, and do some real blue-sky speculating.

Glenn McConnell is now, to his great chagrin, our lieutenant governor. That means two things:

  1. He’s had to give up arguably the most powerful position in our government.
  2. If the governor leaves office precipitously, he will be our governor.

Several people have already speculated that, knowing Nikki Haley as we do, they would not be surprised if she suddenly left office, and not in the way she may fantasize about doing. What might be the final straw for her? I have no idea. But after the stuff we’ve seen around here the last few years, I’m not sure anything would surprise me any more. None of us who knew him thought Mark Sanford would be off in Argentina cheating on his wife. (Although, of course, he weathered that.)

Some have even speculated that McConnell is privy to information that could lead to such an eventuality. I don’t believe that.

But let’s just say it did happen. And it wouldn’t have to involve scandal. Say, for instance, Jim Demint were named Romney’s running mate (shudder) and she appointed herself in his place.

Then, we’d have a Gov. Glenn McConnell. Which is something I have never had cause to contemplate before. I couldn’t imagine him ever lowering himself (by his lights) to seek the office. But now we have at least the possibility that at some point it could drop into his lap.

So I’m thinking about it.

And what I’m thinking is that it could turn out to be a positive thing for South Carolina.

Oh, he’d often be pretty maddening, because of his ideological idiosyncrasies. But he would take the job of governing well seriously — just as he has always taken the job of senator — and would have a better idea of what that means than anyone who has held the office since Carroll Campbell, or even Dick Riley.

The last person even to run for governor who had as clear an understanding of how government works in South Carolina was when Joe Riley ran in 1994. Of course, Joe would have been a wonderful governor, far better than McConnell, because he also has a deep understanding of the state’s needs, and no ideological objections to using the power of government to address them. And for that matter, knowledge of the system isn’t everything. Take Vincent Sheheen. Vincent has more understanding of the system than most senators (which is why he has been a thoughtful reformer), just not as much (I think) as McConnell. But Vincent would be far more interested in using the bully pulpit of the governor to help our state catch up to the rest of the country economically and in other ways.

But while McConnell would be more reactive, and much more parsimonious in the exercise of power, when he did act, it would be with a sense of responsibility and wisdom, which are things that have been in short supply in that office.

You may not realize that about him. People tend to caricature him as the guy who likes to dress up and play war, and spend money on Hunley.

But while I’ve given him grief over the years for resisting reform (at least, when it involves empowering the executive branch), I know that he has been a significant reformer in his own right. He is responsible for tremendous improvements, for instance, in our judicial selection process, making it much more merit-based. It’s not the reform that I would want — I want the governor to appoint, and the senate confirm, making the political branches co-equal partners in shaping the third branch. But as a defender of the legislative prerogative, he nevertheless saw the need to inject merit into the system, and reduce the influence of mere political popularity and horse-trading. He succeeded in doing that, which was a considerable achievement, and we reap the benefits today.

I think he would do things like that as governor. He wouldn’t want to change things, but when he saw the need for action, he would act to the best of his ability.

And the best of his ability, as the most skilled parliamentarian of his generation, would greatly exceed the skill we’ve seen in such a position in many a year. Once he made up his mind to reform something, it would flat get reformed.

Sometimes — perhaps all of the time — in politics, the best candidate for an office is the person who would never, ever seek it. In a Gov. McConnell, were such to come about, we just might see the truth in that.

Sen. Glenn McConnell takes a bullet for SC, accepts the useless, nothing job of being Gov Lite

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As I said earlier today, the only way Glenn McConnell would give up power to be lieutenant governor would be if he felt that his personal honor as a gentleman was at stake. And it appears that that is just what has happened:

Stepping into the role is McConnell, who is giving up one of the most powerful positions in all of state government for a mostly ceremonial role whose only duties are to preside over the Senate and run the state Office on Aging.

Speaking with reporters after a closed-door meeting in his State House office, McConnell said becoming lieutenant governor is “a personal sacrifice” but his reading of the state constitution makes it clear that the Senate President Pro Tem has a duty to become lieutanant governor when the post is permanently vacated.

“After much thought, prayer and discussion, I have decided that I have a moral obligation to my oath of office and to the constitution of this state,” McConnell said in a prepared statement. “It is an obligation that compels me to do the right thing no matter how difficult it may be to me personally.”

McConnell said he expects be sworn in on Tuesday. McConnell would not say who his preference was to replace him as the leader of the Senate, and he did not rule out the possibility of running for his state Senate seat again in four years.

Wow. What a weird, back-handed way for the mighty to fall.

This is the one really significant thing to have happened in all of this. Whether Ken Ard had continued to be lieutenant governor or not was of no consequence (which is why you never caught me paying much attention to the matter one way or the other). It doesn’t matter who the Gov Lite is, unless the governor dies or leaves office suddenly. But the most powerful man in the Senate, who has done more than anyone else to set the course for the General Assembly for the last couple of decades, has just walked away from power (for now).

That’s really something.

Whatever happens next, I must say — my hat’s off to you, senator.

Fall from grace says something about being Ken Ard, but almost nothing about being Republican

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The State tried this morning to foreshadow the Ard resignation with two stories. One speculated on how Glenn McConnell will dodge the unthinkable fate of being demoted to the useless, meaningless job of lieutenant governor. The other dealt with the phenomenon we’ve seen plenty of over the last couple of years — the state Democratic Party’s Sisyphean efforts to somehow turn recent scandals to its advantage. An excerpt from the second one:

An agriculture commissioner indicted for cockfighting. A state treasurer indicted for cocaine use. A married governor caught lying about an international affair. A lieutenant governor spending campaign contributions on iPads. A state House member indicted on tax-evasion charges. Another state House member arrested on harassment charges.

What do all of those politicians have in common? They are all SC Republicans…

A brief comment on that (which I had on my mind before the Ard development): I’ve heard that litany over and over from SC Dems over the last couple of years, and it hasn’t gotten traction yet. Perhaps this latest development will give it a boost, but probably not. Nor should it.

There’s a simple reason why so many scandals affect Republicans: Most state officeholders are Republicans. If the Democrats dominated the way the Repubs do, most scandals would involved Democrats. There is nothing inherent in being a Republican that makes a person more likely to be a crook (or whatever), and it’s disingenuous of Democrats to pretend that there is.

Of course, they’re counting on the way voters have been fooled into thinking about politics to help them. Far too many people today believe what the parties, interest groups and tell them — that something that happens involving one member of a party somehow reflects on all member of that party. This is an absurd proposition, but like sleep-teaching in Brave New World, it has been repeated so often — with no competing views being heard — that most people accept it implicitly.

There is only one sense in which there might be an actual cause-and-effect relationship between being Republican in SC and being a the sort who would do something unsavory: People who are attracted to politics for the wrong reasons are more likely to pick the dominant party, to ease their path into office. People who choose the hapless, minority party are generally True Believers and less likely to be hustlers. Right now the Republicans are the dominant party. To suggest that Democrats would be more virtuous if they had all the power strains belief.

But  my ultimate point is this: Each person who behaves badly in office does so in his own way, and for his own reasons — not as a logical, direct result of his party affiliation. And its silly to pretend otherwise.

Ken Ard to resign; Alan Wilson to hold presser

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Lt. Gov. Ken Ard says he’s resigning this morning. His statement:

“I want to thank the great people of South Carolina for the incredible opportunity to serve as their Lieutenant Governor. It truly has been an honor and an experience I will never forget. The love and support you have shown my entire family has been humbling and something I will always remember.

“I also want to thank my family, especially my wife, Tammy, and my three children, Jesse, Mason, and Libby. You have lived this experience with me. There were challenges and setbacks, but you were steadfast in your support and were there for me at every turn.

“To those who volunteered and worked on our campaign, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You were always there and never expected anything in return.

“To my staff, I have nothing but praise. Your professionalism and work ethic have been exemplary from day one. You have remained focused on carrying out the duties of our office in spite of other distractions.

“To all of the above and more, I owe a great apology. During my campaign, it was my responsibility to make sure things were done correctly. I did not do that. There are no excuses nor is there need to share blame. It is my fault that the events of the past year have taken place.

“I regret the distraction this has caused for the people of this state, my family, my staff, and other elected officials in South Carolina. It is because of these mistakes that I must take full ownership and resign from the Office of Lieutenant Governor. Once again, I am deeply sorry and take full responsibility for the entire situation.”

Meanwhile, there’s this as well:

State Attorney General Alan Wilson will hold a 1 p.m. news conference today at the State House along with State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel.

The media event follows the announcement this morning from embattled Lt. Gov. Ken Ard’s office that he will step down from his second-in-command post in the Senate.

Ard, a Florence Republican, is the focus of a state Grand Jury investigation related to his spending of campaign cash.

The assumption is being made (and perhaps confirmed off the record; I don’t know) that the AG’s presser deals with Ard. Maybe it does; maybe it doesn’t. Could be something else. We’ll see.

Midlands mayors speak optimistically of burgeoning community unity

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The panel laughs after moderator Bob Bouyea asked what should be done about traffic on I-126 and other paths into Columbia, and Steve Benjamin replied, "Everybody could live downtown."

This morning — very early this morning — I attended the latest “Power Breakfast” sponsored by the Columbia Regional Business Report. So did a lot of other people, packed into a ballroom at Embassy Suites.

I’d like particularly to thank the friends who joined us at the ADCO table, right up front:

We were there to listen to four mayors — Steve Benjamin of Columbia, Randy Halfacre of Lexington, Elise Partin of Cayce, and Hardy King of Irmo — talk about metro issues.

Here was the dominant theme: Regional cooperation.

You may note that that was the main theme at last year’s panel. You’d be right. But last year it was more about something to be grasped at. This year there was more of a sense of something achieved.

A lot of this arose from the experience of landing Amazon. One hears that a lot among folks who work in local government, and economic development, in the Midlands. Which is interesting. It started out as such a divisive controversy, in the Legislature, with the governor not helping a bit and lawmakers at each other’s throats. I had my own ambivalence about the deal at the time, but those who are dedicated to bringing jobs to the community were undivided in their minds, and undivided in the collective sense.

It seems to have been a rallying, bonding experience that carries over into many other areas.

Time and again this morning, we heard expressions of comradeship, a sense of all being in this together, that swept aside the political boundaries that have been an excuse to get nothing done in the past. We heard it a little less from Hardy King, who tended to answer questions entirely from an Irmo perspective, but he’s new, and hasn’t been through the same bonding experiences as the other.

Last year, the mayors were still stinging over the failure to come together effectively over the Southwest Airlines matter. This year, there was more reason to celebrate — and not just Amazon, but Nephron and other economic development wins for the whole community.

A lot of other issues were discussed — Ms. Partin mentioned the 12,000-year history park in her city, Mr. Benjamin said with regard to mass transit that “It’s hard to get Southerners out of their cars,” Mr. King spoke of his town’s 0 percent property tax rate, and Mr. Halfacre told us about what his citizens ask about almost as much as they ask for traffic relief: sidewalks.

But I’ve been away from home 12 hours now, and I hear my dinner calling.

Forget Ferris Bueller. Zais was absent 29 days

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Edward R. Rooney would forget Ferris and his measly nine absences if he had Supt. Mick Zais in his school, according to this report over at Palmetto Public Record:

South Carolina Superintendent of Education Mick Zais took twice as much personal time during 2011 as the average state employee is allowed, according to an exclusive look at the schools chief’s schedule.
Zais’ personal calendar, which was made available to Sen. Phil Leventis (D-Sumter) through an open records request in November and later obtained by Palmetto Public Record, shows that Zais took 234 hours of personal time (the equivalent of 29 full workdays) between Jan. 12 and Nov. 17, when the schedule was turned over to Leventis. That number doesn’t include medical leave, of which Zais took the equivalent of six workdays during the same period. The schedule also doesn’t include the final five weeks of 2011, when Zais may have taken even more personal time for the Christmas holidays.

In sharp contrast to Zais’ considerable number of absences, a state employee with 10 or fewer years of experience is allowed 15 days of personal leave per year — about half of what Zais took during the 44 weeks covered in his schedule.

Education Department spokesman Jay Ragley said the state superintendent, as a constitutional officer, is held to a different standard than regular employees. “Because of their unique status in state government, constitutional officers are presumed to be on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and are not allotted sick days or annual leave time as standard state employees accrue,” he said…

Democrats are making a big thing of this. I got this link from an advisory from Phil Bailey with the Senate Dems (under the headline, “Senators to Discuss Zais’ Truancy”), telling me that Sens. Leventis and Brad Hutto are having a press conference to talk about it at 3 today at the State House. No, I don’t know why Sen. Leventis didn’t bring it up in November, when he got the info.

Just in case you weren’t quite totally fed up with Congress yet

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The Washington Post has done an analysis of congressional earmarks, and found the following:

Thirty-three members of Congress have steered more than $300 million in earmarks and other spending provisions to dozens of public projects that are next to or near the lawmakers’ own property, according to a Washington Post investigation. Under the ethics rules Congress has written for itself, this is both legal and undisclosed.

In the first review of its kind, The Post analyzed public records on the holdings of all 535 members and compared them with earmarks members had sought for pet projects, most of them since 2008. The process uncovered appropriations for work in close proximity to commercial and residential real estate owned by the lawmakers or their family members. The review also found 16 lawmakers who sent tax dollars to companies, colleges or community programs where their spouses, children or parents work as salaried employees or serve on boards.

None of the 33 were from South Carolina, although when you first look at the map, it appears that there is a mug shot looming over our state. But it’s just some guy named Jack Kingston from Georgia.

Not that the Post claims to have caught all the potential conflicts. It invites readers to help:

What do you know?

Help us disclose the undisclosed.

Do you have any specific information about earmarks in which current members of Congress may have had a personal financial interest? Or do you have any tips on undisclosed financial conflicts that could help us create a more complete financial portrait of Congress?

Please submit your info in the box below; all replies will be handled with confidentiality.

Now that I’ve reported this, what do I think about it? I think… I’m still ambivalent about earmarks. I can occasionally get stirred up about them. Unlike members of Congress, I’d prefer that with rare exceptions, projects be prioritized by disinterested bureaucrats, based on criteria that are as objective as possible. But it also seems within the legitimate constitutional purview of Congress to direct spending as specifically as it likes, and sometimes a specific local project actually does have national importance. Charleston harbor, for instance. The Hoover Dam.

As for the cases reported here… well, they get into that fuzzy area that I’ve always had a problem with. The area where “ethics” is defined in terms of appearances, rather than right or wrong.

It occurs to me that, since members of Congress are certainly most likely to advocate projects in their own districts — something that is not inherently wrong, even though it has enormous potential for skewing national priorities — that a certain percentage of such projects will be “near” their own property. What percentage? Well…

If 33 have been caught doing so (and as I said, there are likely to be more), that means just over 6 percent of the 535 members of Congress may have considered self-interest in seeking these earmarks. I say “may” because this is very fuzzy territory. I expect that some element of venality entered the decision-making processes of some of these members. But all, or even most, of the accused 6 percent? I don’t know, but I doubt it.

Take that Jack Kingston guy. He sought beach renourishment money, and he owns a beach house about 900 feet from the beach. Set aside whether you think federal money should be spent pumping sand onto beaches. Is it unusual for members of Congress to help local officials get financing for such projects, whether they own beach property or not? No, it isn’t.

And that brings us to the problem of earmarks overall. Most of the time, it’s a highly flawed way to set spending priorities. But do I think this story is a major “gotcha” on Congress? No. But it will play that way. What’s Congress approval rating down to now? 13 percent? It may go a fractional bit lower, as a result of this story.

Not that it should. 84 percent disapproval seems like enough calumny heaped about these elected heads.

Mr. Speaker, that’s not tax reform. That’s legislative business as usual in South Carolina…

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SC House Speaker Bobby Harrell addresses the Columbia Rotary Club Monday. At far left is Joel Sawyer, who introduced him. It struck me as ironic for Mark Sanford's former press secretary to introduce the former governor's nemesis.

Trying to remember how long I’ve been pushing for comprehensive tax reform in South Carolina. It’s at least two decades. Maybe a year or two past that.

The eerie thing about it is that almost every politician I’ve talked to during that period, especially those running for office, have earnestly assured me that they’re all for it. But somehow, it never happens.

Many, many committees and blue-ribbon panels have been set to coming up with a plan that will be rational, equitable, and adequate to meeting the state’s revenue needs. And all have either wandered off into a swamp somewhere, never to be heard from, or have filed plans that have promptly been dumped in the trash. And whenever enough of a hue and cry arises — such as the one from business leaders over the execrable Act 388 — lawmakers have sworn to deal with it, and appointed another panel to study the matter yet again, etc.

Speaker Bobby Harrell has apparently decided to end the farce by abandoning the concept of comprehensive tax reform altogether.

That’s the gist of what he told us at Rotary yesterday.

He said that when you try to get rid of all the irrational bits of our tax code — such as the $300 ceiling on the automobile sales tax, or the tangle of other exemptions that lead us to exempt more in sales tax than is actually paid — then everybody comes out of the woodwork and opposes you, and you fail.

So he proposes to pass bits and pieces of reform. On the grounds that that’s doable.

Which means, in South Carolina, business as usual. Because that’s what our lawmakers always do — pass a new law affecting some small piece (or for that matter, large piece) of our overall tax system, with little regard for how it affects other parts. So we get, for instance, multiple “reforms” that essentially remove the burden of supporting public school operations entirely from the backs of homeowners (that is to say, on the home that they live in), which means that businesses — including owners of rental property — are forced to pay much more in property taxes to make up the difference.

At least on the most recent such massive shift, some of the burden was put on the sales tax — which is now too high, really, especially considering that we don’t tax everything, or even close to everything, meaning that the things we do tax are taxes disproportionately. Which is not fair; nor is it a sustainable way to finance government.

So here’s what’s going to happen, based on knowing the guys who have been running the General Assembly (and especially the House) since I’ve been watching them (and no, Doug, term limits are not the answer, because if anything newer members have a greater propensity to do this, in my experience — largely because of their greater ignorance of the effects of what they do)…

We’ll see bills to cut more taxes, narrowly defined aimed at whichever categories of taxpayers are hollering the loudest at a given moment. And most likely, nothing will be done elsewhere in the tax code to offset that hole in the general fund. Or if something is done, it won’t be sustainable, and/or will create a new injustice that will later be addressed by more piecemeal “reform.”

What should happen instead? The following:

  1. Lawmakers should figure out, from scratch, what state government needs to do (build roads, run schools, enforce laws, keep air and water clean, etc.).
  2. They should then determine what it will cost to do those things.
  3. They should devise a tax system for raising that amount that is rational, fair, and sustainable. One that places no more restriction on economic activity than absolutely necessary, with the burden spread as widely as possible, and yet raises the needed amount reliably, with a minimum of peaks and valleys.

That’s what should happen. It is lawmakers’ duty to make those things happen. Because snipping here and putting on a patch there has never worked.

How many times have I written that now? I don’t know. Lots and lots…

SC Tweet of the Day, from Harvey Peeler

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As you know, the best Tweeter in the SC House is Nathan Ballentine. His counterpart in the Senate is Harvey Peeler. And while it might be a stretch to call anything coming out of our General Assembly avant garde, Harvey’s Tweets at least strain at the bounds of the usual prosaic expressions one expects from a Republican legislative leader.

Kudos to him for this offering this morning:

I think the saying “at the end of the day” has reached the end of the day !

Thank you, senator, for reminding us that we no longer have the perpetrator of that particular verbal tic to kick around any more!

And now, it’s a great day in South Carolina!

Ghosts of SOTU speeches past

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An outfit called Bankrupting America sent out this video last night before the State of the Union address. I didn’t get around to seeing it until today. As the release promises, “The video highlights 3 decades of State of the Union presidential promises on fiscal discipline.”

There’s also a fact sheet that goes with it.

I find being part of a long, ongoing tradition to be very reassuring, don’t you? See, it doesn’t matter whether they’re Democrats or Republicans — presidents are all pretty much alike. People don’t change. Makes us feel… solid,  grounded.

I would say, though, that one of those presidents actually did something about it: Bill Clinton. The video doesn’t mention that. But the fact sheet dismisses it this way: “Despite two years of on-budget surpluses, deficit spending in other years added to the debt.”

Oh, the video also assumes that the only way to reduce the deficit, and the debt, is by reducing spending. Raising taxes, and simply growing the economy to increase revenues, are not considered. In case you didn’t notice that.

Translate, please: Is that some sort of threat?

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Gingrich’s reaction is pure Newt:

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

The State’s endorsement of 2nd choice Romney

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I think history was made today. In my memory, anyway, The State has never had occasion to endorse a second choice, in a second editorial, before the actual vote. That’s because an endorsed candidate has never dropped out between the endorsement and the vote.

(We had one or two occasions over the years when a state primary candidate didn’t make it into a runoff, but that was very rare, and in any case is entirely different, since that happened after a public vote.)

Fortunately for The State, the second editorial was easier to arrive at, since the editors had already clearly said in their Jon Huntsman endorsement that Mitt Romney was their second choice — in fact, the only other choice to be seriously considered.

And so it was that the paper endorsed Gov. Romney today. Here’s the critical point in the piece:

But we take comfort in the fact that Mr. Romney always has been less interested in philosophy than in problem-solving. As The Washington Post summarized the views of his friends: “obeisance to ideology would impose a rigidity that would inhibit Romney’s real talent, which is forging new ways to fix old problems.”

In other words, the thing that makes the most extreme Republicans despise him is the one characteristic the editorial board values most.

The endorsement went on to express the hope that Romney would start acting more like that on the campaign trail sooner, rather than waiting for the fall campaign. The paper’s main beef with him, and the reason it preferred Huntsman, was his penchant for stooping to conquer and pandering to ideology.

My favorite part of the endorsement, though, wasn’t the endorsement. It was Cindi’s accompanying column. In it, she did something I’ve done a lot over the years — provide insight into how endorsements are arrived at. While questions about some burning issues of the day are asked, they are only sometimes the core of the process. The really critical questions tend to be the ones meant to discern how the candidate understands the job, and would approach decision-making. You can pick up on that in the column.

But here’s my favorite passage:

Finally, I got this: “It’s not a change, but there are positions I have that are not popular with the conservative base in our party. The most obvious is the health-care plan in Massachusetts. Many advisors told me I needed to abandon my conviction that it was the right thing … and that I should say it was a mistake. … Like you, I’m willing to change my mind if presented with facts that show I’m wrong, but with regard to the health-care plan, I’m steadfast.”

I’d like to hear him stand fast behind what he did for healthcare a bit more boldly. To me, it’s his main relevant accomplishment. His work at Bain, and salvaging a sporting event, seem far less relevant to me.

Too bad that the portion of the electorate that he’s trying hardest to appeal to hates Obamacare too much. It prevents him from putting his best foot forward.

In an interesting parallel, Tom Davis backs Ron Paul

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Tom Davis signs on with Ron Paul.

Earlier this evening, Sen. Tom Davis put out this release:

SENATOR TOM DAVIS ENSORSES RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT“It’s easy to campaign on lower taxes, less spending and fewer regulations – it’s another thing entirely to stand up for these limited government principles when the entire Washington establishment is aligned against you. Yet for more than three decades Ron Paul has cast thousands of lonely votes in our nation’s capital based on the constitutional principles that this country was founded on – and that the Republican Party has promised to protect. Yet while generations of politicians – including far too many Republicans – were losing their way or caving to the status quo, Ron Paul was standing as a Tea Party of one against a towering wave of red ink.”
“2012 marks the fifth consecutive year in which the federal government is going to spend well over $1 trillion in money it doesn’t have. Each and every American taxpayer is now on the hook for $135,000 worth of federal debt – and last year’s debt deal adds another $7 trillion in deficit spending over the coming decade. Meanwhile the U.S. Senate hasn’t passed a budget in nearly 1,000 days.”

“I’m endorsing Ron Paul because enough is enough. Despite this wave of unprecedented government spending, our unemployment rate has remained above 8 percent for the last 34 months and 146.4 million Americans – one out of every two people in this country – are now classified as poor or low-income.”

“Government activism and government intervention clearly hasn’t fixed our economy – which is why the Republican Party needs a nominee who isn’t wedded to that failed approach. We won’t chart a path to fiscal solvency or victory in November by running toward the failed ideas of the left – we will achieve those victories by returning to the principles that the Republican Party once stood for.”

“That is why I am proud to endorse Ron Paul for president.”

“Ron Paul’s record matches his rhetoric, his fiscal plan matches the fiscal challenges that our nation is facing and his movement represents the taxpayers whose interests have been ignored in the political process for far too long.”

“I’m also endorsing him because unlike what the pundits have led you to believe, he is the candidate who gives the Republican Party the best chance to beat Barack Obama in November.”

“We have a choice: We can keep electing candidates who talk about change only during political campaigns as a way to get elected, or we can finally elect a candidate who will walk the walk and make that change a reality – restoring our bottom line, our individual liberties and our national pride in the process.”

To learn more about Senator Tom Davis visit www.senatortomdavis.com

My first thought was “Wow.” I’ve always liked Tom and have a lot of respect for him, and even though he worked for Mark Sanford all those years and was so close to him, I never regarded him as being nearly as much of a radical libertarian as the former governor. But with this move, he has exceeded his friend in that regard.

But you know what? In his own way, he has done much the same thing that The State did in endorsing Jon Huntsman. Yes, in one regard he did the polar opposite — Ron Paul is the last of the GOP candidates that The State, or I, would endorse. As Cindi Scoppe wrote:

Like any libertarian, Ron Paul embraces the worst positions of the far right and the far left: no social safety net, unregulated markets, an isolationist foreign policy and no moral standards. He is the candidate for those who refuse to accept that they are part of a society and can’t see how much their vision of a crippled government would hurt all of us, themselves included.

But in another sense, the two endorsements were alike.

Surely Tom knows that Ron Paul will never be the Republican nominee for president just as well as The State knew that this was not to be for Huntsman this year. But he went with the candidate he thought it should be, rather than the candidate that it would be. So good for him.

Oh, and lucky Tom. As hopeless as his candidate’s cause is, at least he won’t embarrass Tom by suddenly pulling out. Ron Paul’s candidacy is forever.

All in the family now.

Huntsman, the best man for the job, drops out

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I was accustomed over the years to being interviewed by national media on the Sunday morning when a presidential endorsement came out in the paper. Today was no different, as a reporter with NBC called to ask me about The State and and its endorsement, prior to interviewing Jon Huntsman today.

I was happy to explain the Huntsman endorsement within the context of the ongoing consensus of the editorial board. I could well have written many of the words that appeared in the paper today. And I told her to remember the one thing I have said, more often than anything else, in explaining what an endorsement is not, and what it is: It’s about who should win, not who’s going to win. We all knew Huntsman wasn’t going to win, just as we knew Joe Lieberman wasn’t going to be the Democratic nominee in 2004. But he should have been.

And Huntsman was the man who should have won the Republican nomination, as well expressed in the editorial:

We need a president who can work within our poisonous political environment to solve our nation’s problems, not simply score partisan points. Someone who understands that negotiation is essential in a representative democracy, and that there are good ideas across the political spectrum. Someone who has a well-defined set of core values but is not so rigid that he ignores new information and new conditions. Someone who has shown himself to be honest and trustworthy. And competent. Someone whose positions are well-reasoned and based on the world as it is rather than as he pretends it to be. Someone with the temperament and judgment and experience to be taken seriously as the commander in chief and leader of the free world.

We think Mr. Romney could demonstrate those characteristics. Mr. Huntsman already does. And we are proud to endorse him for the Republican nomination for president of the United States.

Exactly. And Cindi’s accompanying column (Nina Brook years ago dubbed this sort of pairing “steak and steak”) went on to explain why none of the other candidates would do. All well reasoned.

And The State‘s reward for having done the right thing, and having clearly stated why, will be catcalls from detractors delighted that its chosen candidate quit only hours after the endorsement was published. (This will particularly thrill the ones who truly hate the newspaper, and maintain that its endorsement is the “kiss of death.” So seldom does anything happen to support their erroneous thesis — the newspaper’s chosen candidates win about 75 percent of the time in general elections — that I suppose we must indulge them in having their fun, eh?)

Have you seen the news? It just broke a few minutes ago:

Huntsman Says He’s Quitting G.O.P. Race

By JIM RUTENBERG, JEFF ZELENY AND MICHAEL D. SHEAR

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Jon M. Huntsman Jr. informed his advisers on Sunday that he intends to drop out of the Republican presidential race, ending his candidacy a week before he had hoped to revive his campaign in the South Carolina primary.

Mr. Huntsman, who had struggled to live up to the soaring expectations of his candidacy, made plans to make an announcement as early as Monday. He had been set to participate in an evening debate in Myrtle Beach.

Matt David, campaign manager to Mr. Huntsman, confirmed the decision in an interview Sunday evening. “The governor and his family, at this point in the race, decided it was time for Republicans to rally around a candidate who could beat Barack Obama and turn around the economy,” Mr. David said. “That candidate is Gov. Mitt Romney.”

Huntsman was right to back Romney, thereby seconding The State’s point that he would be the second choice.

But the nation is worse off for not having Huntsman as an option.

The legislative agenda? Same as it ever was

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My ex-colleagues at The State did their annual laundry list of what the SC General Assembly should do in the session that convenes tomorrow, and as Cindi Scoppe acknowledged in her accompanying column, there wasn’t much new to see:

IF THE HEADLINE on today’s editorial provokes in you a sense of deja vu, that’s because it’s the same one we used last year to greet the annual return of the General Assembly. And it’s no different in substance from the year before that. In fact, the need to overhaul our tax code and spending policies and restructure our government have been among the top five issues confronting the Legislature for as far back as I can recall.

I’m not particularly fond of writing the same editorials year after year, but what choice is there? Our overarching problems are unchanged because the Legislature keeps tinkering around the edges or, worse, fixating on red-meat issues that satiate cable-news-engorged constituents but do nothing to nurture a state starved for a government that actually works. A government that provides the services that our state needs, in at least a moderately efficient way, and that pays for those services through a tax system that does not unnecessarily burden our citizens or undermine our values or give special favors to favored constituencies.

Yep, our state’s needs don’t change much from year to year. And neither do our lawmakers’ penchant for ignoring those needs.

If you’ll recall, my very last column at The State (“South Carolina’s Unfinished Business,” March 22, 2009) pretty much covered the same ground. That was almost three years ago. And after all that time, I would only need to reword one short passage:

Raise our lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax by a dollar, bringing us (almost) to the national average, and saving thousands of young lives.

Actually, you wouldn’t even have to reword it — you would just have to add a parenthetical acknowledging that our state has taken a tiny baby step in that direction. Other than that, the column could pretty much run as-is.

Little wonder that I don’t get too excited with the new session rolls around each year…

Here’s what I would have done with regard to Occupy Columbia, had I been the governor of SC

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Apparently — and surprisingly — the Occupy Columbia folks haven’t been getting enough attention from our governor. This came in an hour ago:

ACTION ALERT!

Tent March to the Governor’s Mansion at 4pm Tomorrow

ACTION ALERT: We are calling on all Occupiers and supporters to join us tomorrow for a march with our tents from the State House to the Governor’s Mansion. Once there, will deliver a special present to Governor Nikki Haley.

Please join us at 4:00pm at the State House and bring your tents!
With solidarity,

Occupy Columbia
www.OccupyColumbiaSC.org

I have no idea what this “special present” is, or why they’re taking their tents. Not knowing that, my mind turns to other, vaguely related, matters…

You know what I would have done over the last few weeks had I been governor? I’ve been thinking about this since the Budget and Control Board meeting the other day. I would have ignored Occupy Columbia.

Well, not ignored, as such. I think I might have gone out of my office and strolled around and chatted with them from time to time, totally low-key, in a nonconfrontational manner. I would have adopted a sort of traditional Hawaiian attitude — Burl should appreciate this. I would say things like, “Ain’t no big thing, bruddah,” and “We get ’em later…”

Beyond that, I would have left the situation alone, either until the Occupiers got tired of their shtick or until the Legislature came back. And if the Legislature wanted to pass legislation affecting the use of the State House grounds, they could do so.

Because the Legislature — the source of all power in South Carolina — has made it pretty clear that it is jealous of its authority over the State House and its environs. Witness its decision back in the 90s to make flying the Confederate flag — first on the dome, then starting in 2000, behind the monument — a matter of law, to make sure that no governor took action on the matter.

Even in a state where the Legislature doesn’t dominate as this one does, I would have understood that I couldn’t simply make up rules as I went along, enforcing “laws” never passed by a legislative body.

If lawmakers, such as Harvey Peeler, didn’t like the Occupiers, I would let them pass a law, and I would, within whatever executive authority allowed me, enforce it. If the solons wanted me to act more independently, then they could grant me power to do so in the future.

In the meantime, I would just be cool, and not go all Dean Wormer on the kids.

That’s what I would do.