Category Archives: Midlands

J. Jonah Jameson was right! (Of course he was — he was the editor!)

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"I'll prove that wall-crawler's a menace if it's the last thing I ever do!"

Forgot to post this yesterday when I saw the news:

Peter Parker isn’t the only man trying to hide his identity by donning a Spider-Man mask.

A robber wearing the web slinger’s mask was spotted in two robberies June 11 in the Midlands.

In the first incident, the masked man and an accomplice swung into Computer MD in the 4400 block of St. Andrews Road, swiped four laptops and ran out the front door, Lexington County deputies say.

The store’s owner tried to chase them but couldn’t catch the men before they made off for the woods…

This, of course, vindicates J. Jonah Jameson, who’s been telling the world that webhead is a crook for years.

We editor types always know what’s really going on.

Turnout was so low (11.85%), not even I voted

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I’m embarrassed to admit that, because I don’t think it’s happened since the first time I was eligible to vote in 1972. But I was not in town Tuesday, and when I tried to determine last week what I would be missing so that I could vote absentee, I was frustrated.

I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss anything, beyond the opportunity to register a symbolic  protest vote against Joe Wilson. I guess I could have voted for my neighbor Bill Banning for county treasurer. But you know, I haven’t the slightest idea whether he or incumbent Jim Eckstrom (who won easily) would have been better in the post. Which is the main reason why the position should not be elective.

Oh, as for my bid to find out what I was missing — I went to the project Vote Smart site to check and see what would be on the ballot in my precinct, and ran into two problems: There were no county races listed, and I think the state House district was wrong. At least, Kenny Bingham recently told me that I  had been drawn into his district, and Vote Smart still had me in Rick Quinn’s. So I don’t know. In any case, neither had serious opposition that I heard about.

Add to that the mess with all the challengers thrown off the ballot, and I was pretty sure (and still am) that I was missing no significant opportunities.

Still, I feel bad about it. And I’m not consoled by knowing that almost no one else voted (turnout was a record-low 11.85 percent of eligible citizens). I’ve never considered myself to be in the same category as voting slackers. I suppose next I’m going to take up watching reality TV 10 hours a day.

Anyway, a few brief observations about what did happen:

  • After all the coverage she got, Kara Gormley Meador’s bid to become a newsmaker came to nothing. The few voters who showed agreed with The State and stuck with Ronnie Cromer.
  • Aside from that, there are indications that if all those people hadn’t been thrown off the ballot, some of them would have won. As The State noted, “Just nine senators and 14 House members faced primary challengers – including the four House members vying for two seats – in a year when all 170 legislative seats are up for election.” But of those 23 with opposition, six lost. That indicates the mood was right for some change.
  • All those Democratic bigwigs who endorsed Preston Brittain were utterly ignored by the almost solidly black Democratic primary electorate of the new 7th congressional district. To put it in brutally frank terms, Andre Bauer or whoever wins the runoff is probably going to be happy to run against a candidate named Tinubu who was distinguished in the primary as being the one endorsed by the AFL-CIO. But what there still is of the Democratic “establishment” in SC may be pinning its hopes on a challenge to the result. Oddly, they’re not saying Brittain had the votes; they’re saying that if Vick’s votes had been counted, he’d be in a runoff (remember Vick, who self-destructed?). So. Stay tuned.
  • One good bit of news: Gwen Kennedy will not be on Richland County Council any more.

Y’all have any other thoughts to share? Let’s have ’em.

Even superheroes slip up now and then

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I met a superhero over the weekend.

Not the kind in “The Avengers,” as enjoyable as that entertainment was (I actually saw it that first huge weekend, which is unusual for me). More like…  did you see “Unbreakable,” about a very ordinary guy who gradually comes to  realize he is invulnerable (except to water) and far stronger than a normal man?

More like that.

We had an eventful weekend. My little grandson had to go into the hospital on Friday night. He had a virus that his sister and cousins had been passing around, with fever, and because he was only three weeks old, they put him in Children’s Hospital and did a spinal tap on him. I would have thought that excessive, except his father, my elder son, actually had meningitis when he was only two weeks old, and it was caught just in time.

The good news, the wonderful news, is that he’s OK (except for a temp slightly over normal) and is home  now.

Anyway, Saturday, we were visiting him, and when we got out to the car, it had a flat. I got out all the gear to change it, including one of those ridiculous little dogleg tire irons that never work. And true to form, this one did not. Oh, I got three of the lug nuts off, by standing on it to loosen them. But by then the too-soft metal at the fitting had bent, and it wouldn’t grip the remaining nuts.

So we called the roadside assist number on our insurance card, and waited.

After awhile a man parked next to us in a plain dark-blue pickup. No markings, and certainly not the wrecker we had expected. Very unassuming vehicle — a secret identity pickup truck, if you will.

Out of it got an ordinary, unassuming man in regular streetclothes. He looked sort of like Reginald VelJohnson, the actor known from “Family Matters” (the guy whose life Steve Urkel made miserable) and the first “Die Hard.” No uniform or coveralls or anything. It was when we saw him open his tailgate and start putting on kneepads — serious kneepads, like the ones that the Delta team wore in “Black Hack Down” — that we asked, “Are you here for us?”

Yes, as it happens, he was.

We showed him the tire. I showed him the useless, bent tire iron.

He reached into his unassuming pickup, and revealed his super power. It was … having exactly the right tool for the given situation!

He pulled out a heavy, 25-inch socket wrench with a 3/4-inch drive mounted on its rotating 1/2-inch drive. It gripped the nut tightly enough, and provided sufficient leverage, that it was easy to remove the nuts even one-handed. Like butter. Or like Superman, depending on your preferred metaphor. (I went out the next day and purchased one exactly like it. I works beautifully. Why, oh why, don’t cars come with these, instead of those useless little junior crowbars?)

Oh, but you say, any ordinary mortal could  have the right tool once, in a given situation. But he went on to show that this was no fluke. We were wondering how we were going to get that tire repaired over the weekend, when the man said he could do it right there.

He opened his hood, and used jumper cables to power a small air compressor he had in the truck bed. He had the hole from a broken-off screw plugged in a couple of minutes, and slapped the tire back on. Then, he drove off into the streets of Columbia as quickly as he’d come.

The perfect wrench was one thing. The MacGyver-like rig to repair the tire was something else. I resolved that I wanted to be this guy when I grew up.

This is the kind of superhero the world needs, and I was glad to have met him.

Unfortunately, there is a postscript.

With the baby getting out of the hospital this morning, we headed to the beach. At a stop to walk the dog, my wife noticed a bubble popping out of the side of that same tire.

I checked it with a gauge, and it had 40 pounds of pressure in it, instead of the usual 30 or so. I let some air out, and we drove to a tire place (fortunately, in my iPhone I have a computer of comparable power to the one Superman had in the Fortress of Solitude, and found the biggest tire place in Aynor was 1.4 miles away). We had a new tire in about 40 minutes.

Superheroes aren’t perfect. Sometimes, in the midst of struggling against supervillains, or merely life’s pedestrian vicissitudes, they forget a key step. In this case, checking the pressure before putting the tire back on.

As Uncle Ben put it so well: With great power comes great responsibility.

THIS is required reading? Seriously?

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Having been required to leave the house because there’s a bridal shower going on there for a family friend, I came by Barnes & Noble and got some coffee, since I hadn’t made any at breakfast.

OK, technically, I got the coffee at the Starbucks about 50 yards away (yes, I’ve become that sort of coffee snob), and came in here to browse books while I drink it. I’m looking for ideas for Father’s Day — both for my Dad, and to see what there is in paperback that I might want to ask for. I’ve found one of each…

Anyway, I passed by the “Required School Reading” table, and of course it was filled with excellent, worthwhile books, many of which were required when I was in school, plus a few more recent classics. I like browsing the school reading table. It feels so substantial and worthwhile, as well as evoking pleasurable memories, because some of these came to be favorites of mine.

Note that you can see Flowers for Algernon, which I mentioned just yesterday in a comment. There were Catch-22, and Utopia, and Emma, and  A Tale of Two Cities, and other usual suspects. Then there were more recent entries, such as Freakonomics and the book that the film “The Social Network” was based on. All things that help kids think, and appreciate language, and understand their world a little better.

Then, I noticed that there were two more “Required School Reading” tables. There I found very different fare. It was all commercial, recent, crank-’em-out-on-an-assembly line “young adult” offerings. You can see them in the picture at the top of this post.

At least a plurality of them were about vampires. Teenage vampires, of course. Filled with all of the usual teenage angst, such as worrying about one’s place in society, finding true love, and of course bloodlust.

I really, really hope this was a case of the wrong sign being placed on a table. I thought of asking one of the employees, “Are these really required reading in school? If so, which school?”

But I was afraid of the answer I might get.

Report: Myers says JAKE left the Scotch in his car

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Image from videotape, at WISTV.com.

At least, that was his first story, according to this report from WIS. Then, he blamed it on “that lady”:

LEXINGTON COUNTY, SC (WIS) – Eleventh Circuit Solicitor Donnie Myers finds himself facing new alcohol charges after a South Carolina Highway Patrolman stopped the elected official last month on suspicions of driving under the influence…

“When you pulled out in front of me over here on before we got to Old Cherokee, you were swerve — you were driving down the middle of the road,” Alveshire told Myers.

“You know why?” Myers asks the trooper, “Because I was listening to the Carolina game and it’s good stuff,” Myers said.

“You had anything to drink?” the trooper asks. “Yeah, I had a few,” Myers responds.

The trooper tells Myers to walk to the back of his car when he spots a cup inside the car. Alveshire asks the solicitor what’s in the cup, and Myers responds that it’s some scotch that state Sen. Jake Knotts left in the car.

“Hang on a second,” the trooper tells Myers as he pulls out his radio and calls for backup. “Can I get one of y’all down here to Old Cherokee and Old Chapin?”…

Myers spends several minutes leaning on the back of his car as the trooper sits inside his vehicle working on the case. Myers changes his story as to whom the open container of alcohol belongs to. “That was her drink,” Myers yells to the trooper, referring to a woman who pulls up behind the trooper out of view of the camera…

Sounds a bit like that old Maxwell Smart routine: “No? Well, would you believe…?”

I assume there will be “film at 11.” Or videotape, anyway.

The duel that wasn’t (so far as we know)

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It looked like the sort of facetious thing that people say on Twitter and which are quickly forgotten. Yet Katrina Shealy seems to be pinning her hopes for unseating Jake Knotts on the substance of Tweet sent in 2010.

The Tweet in question is reproduced above.

Perhaps there’s more to it, but one couldn’t find it in either the story in The State this morning, or the post by Will Folks that apparently prompted it. (The story in The State seemed to be of that new variety we’re becoming accustomed to — one that the MSM would never have reported in the past without having nailed down all the facts first, but publishes now so as not to appear out of the loop. Neither Jake nor Ms. Shealy was reached before publishing the story, which speaks of a sense of hurry.)

Here are some of the questions that the story raises in my mind:

  • Did Knotts ever say anything to Haddon?
  • Did he actually challenge him to a duel? (Duels, of course, properly constituted, require that both parties be gentlemen. I don’t know Haddon, but Jake has never seemed the dueling sort to me. He’s more of the pick-you-up-and-throw-you-across-the-room kind of guy. Ask Dick Harpootlian.)
  • Is that Tweet Mr. Haddon’s response to the challenge? If so, it is both unclear, and doesn’t seem to follow the accepted forms. It takes more the form of barroom bluster than a formal reply. Perhaps if he would identify his seconds, we could ask them.
  • Has either Mr. Knotts or Mr. Haddon been “out” before (which in the age of dueling meant something different from what it means today)? Who would have the upper hand?
  • If there’s any substance to this, will Jake be barred in the future from conducting classes for those who wish to carry concealed weapons? He has taught such classes in the past. One hopes those classes have not involved standing back-to-back, or pacing off distances.
  • Does Ms. Shealy in any way have standing to be taking legal action in this matter? She thinks she does, because her aim is to bar Sen. Knotts from office. But how does that give her any more standing than any other constituent? It seems that only parties to the alleged duel would have standing. And of course, the Code would (I assume) bar a challenged gentleman from resorting to the courts in order to avoid the Field of Honor.

I, along with you, await answers to all of the above.

City council’s strong-mayor debacle

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It’s a great shame that Columbia city council voted not even to ask voters whether they would like to inject accountability into city government by moving to a strong-mayor form of government.

But it was predictable that they would do so. I feared that outcome when I saw that the council planned to vote right after a public hearing.

The proposal would have a chance put before the electorate — particularly in the fall, when a much more representative swath of the city’s voters will turn out, as compared to actual city elections.

But the kinds of people who turn up at hearings before council happens to be much the same set of people who passionately oppose such a change — even to the point, apparently, of not wanting their neighbors to have a chance to vote on it.

This is always the way. The people who are most opposed to a reform — or, to use more neutral language, a change of any kind — in the form of government are the very people most invested in the current form. And people who regularly go to council meetings tend to be people who have become comfortable with and accustomed to the current form. They’ve learned to make the existing system stand up and do what they want, so they don’t want it replaced.

I saw this on a much larger scale when we first started pressing for changing the form of state government in the early 90s. We were pushing for a more accountable system in which the will of the electorate would be more likely to be expressed in the way the executive branch of state government was run. We were seeking to replace a bewildering set of mixed-up governing arrangements that varied greatly from agency to agency (and still exists over most of state government).

The system was (and remains) far too complex and fragmented for the average citizen to understand or engage effectively. But what that meant was that the people who DID know how to make it work — experienced lawmakers, skilled bureaucrats, interest-group advocates and lobbyists — had a tremendous advantage in dealing with it. And consequently did not want it to change.

With city government, it’s more likely to be people who are very active in neighborhood associations who oppose a change that would make city administration accountable directly to one person elected citywide, rather than a hodgepodge of at-large and district representatives (with the district people having the majority).

Anyway… Columbia has missed yet another opportunity, and continues to be in the grip of a decades-long rear-guard action against progress.

A postscript… I was quite indignant that council did not wait for new members to join, since I knew that both Cameron Runyan and Moe Baddourah favored strong mayor. It seemed that anti-change incumbents were forcing a vote now to avoid losing.

But then I read in Clif LeBlanc’s report this morning, “Baddourah, who replaces Gergel, said he’s had a change of heart and would not support holding a vote this fall.”

Which really blew my mind, because I saw him on local TV news, either last night or the night before, stating his unequivocal support for strong mayor.

Clif needs to do a full, exhaustive, separate story on what in the world just happened there…

You can go your own way: Walid Hakim is not your everyday Lexington County politician

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As you may know, Walid Hakim is running for SC House District 88. It is currently held by Mac Toole, who is pretty much a standard-issue Lexington County Republican.

Walid has a different approach.

First, he sent out this release yesterday:

Hakim Wins Endorsement from
SC AFL-CIO

We recently received a letter from Donna S. Dewitt, the President of the SC AFL-CIO, informing us of their decision to endorse Walid Hakim for State House:

Dear Walid:

The SC AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education (COPE) met April 10th and voted to endorse your candidacy for SC HD 88.

We will be informing our affiliates in the districts with Primary opposition of our endorsement and encouraging them to assist your campaign in any way possible. We will assign key members to work with you and your staff.

While our monetary resources are limited and will be focused on our candidates with opposition, we want to assure you that we will be mobilizing our members around the issues that are important to the working men and women of South Carolina. They will know that you are the candidate the COPE Endorsement Committee has decided best represents those issues.

###

Then, he released the video above.

In it, he calls for a general strike.

On May Day.

On Al Jazeera.

I guess it’s Walid doing this because Mac Toole didn’t think of it, right? Right…

Walid is definitely going his own way, and staying true to his roots.

Maybe this rhetorical approach is a GIRL thing…

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Something struck me when I was reading this release just now from Mia Butler Garrick:

Friends,

Today, we are just 43 days away from the Primary Election on June 12th and I need your help.  Right now in South Carolina, hundreds of special interest groups lobby the good ole boy network here at the State House to vigorously maintain control of the failed status quo that continues to plague our state.  They use their influence to ensure that SC remains at the bottom-of-the-best list by continuing to enact policies that wreak havoc on public education, hinder economic development and job creation and foster an environment of partisanship, nepotism and corruption at all levels of government.

I’m proud of the fact that the folks of District 79 always stand firmly against the good ole boys.  We stand boldly for jobs, for small businesses, for public education, for better infrastructure and safe schools and communities.  But more importantly, we stand firmly and boldly, together.  My campaign has never been about me.  It’s about what we can accomplish together for the future of South Carolina!

That’s why today, I’m asking all of you to step up just as you did two years ago, and show your support by volunteering now.

Election Day is Tuesday, June 12th.

Did it strike you that that sounded very much like the way the Nikki Haley presents herself to voters? As the lone beacon of transparency and virtue in a squall of self-dealing “good ol’ boys”?

Of course, the difference between them might be that Mia actually means it when she says those things. But the similarity in the general line of expression struck me…

District 3 voters: What motivated you to vote as you did?

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I’m asking because I was somewhat surprised at how easily Moe Baddourah won the runoff yesterday. Nothing against Moe — I wish him all the best, and hope he’s a very successful council member — but that’s not the way I thought it would end up. I thought Daniel Coble would win, although not run away with it. I saw a Baddourah win as possible, but again, I figured it would be close.

My reasoning was as follows. I thought:

  • Moe had pretty much received all of his potential support in the first go-round. I had seen him as the pro-business, suspicious-of-government candidate in the race, and that he got all of those voters on April 3.
  • All voters who were attracted to Jenny Isgett’s theme that since the district had been represented by a woman for 30 years, it should go for her, seemed more likely to go for Coble in the runoff.
  • Coble’s support was more visible, and seemed more enthusiastic. I really felt for Moe at that neighborhood association meeting where Brett shot the video. At one point he mentioned that the small crowd seemed to be 90 percent for Coble, and I think he was right.
  • Everybody who I knew had declared for a candidate had declared for Coble. I can’t think of anybody who publicly endorsed Moe in the last couple of weeks. That doesn’t mean no one did, but the news didn’t get to me. (Yes, someone will inevitably say that personal endorsements are meaningless, as someone always does but they’ll be wrong. In fact, in an election with no reported polling, they’re about all you have to go by. And even if they didn’t mean much individually, they ALL seemed to go to Coble, which had to be indicative of something.)

But all that reasoning added up to nothing, which leaves me speculating as to the reason it went the other way:

  • Moe and Jenny were actually the anti-establishment vote, or the anti-Coble (as in Bob) vote, if you will.  Jenny voters only had one non-Coble candidate left, and so they went for him.
  • Voters reacted against Coble’s youth.
  • Every one of those public endorsements — Belinda Gergel, James Smith, Steve Morrison, Kit Smith and to a lesser extent Mike Miller — counted against Coble with an electorate that was in an anti-establishment mood. Coble was definitely the Shandonista candidate, and maybe voters in other areas (and perhaps in Shandon itself) reacted against that.
  • One of the few issues on which there was a noticeable difference between the candidates — the water/sewer money, funding the bus system — meant more to voters in those neighborhoods than I could tell as an outsider. (But this explanation seems unlikely, because the differences between them were mere matters of degree, not fundamental values.)
  • There’s more dissatisfaction with the current city council than I had thought (and voting for Baddourah was more of a vote for “change”). I had heard a lot less general grumbling since Benjamin, Plaugh, Gergel and Newman had been elected, but maybe the honeymoon is truly over.
  • Moe had told me he had learned a lot from losing to Seth Rose two years ago. And remember, Seth was an anti-establishment candidate, because he also beat Kit Smith’s chosen successor (a fellow Bennettsville boy). Part of that was a lot of knocking on doors. Of course, Coble did that, too. But maybe there were some organizational things I couldn’t see that really helped Moe turn out his identified supporters — which is everything in such a tiny-turnout election. (But I knew Moe didn’t do everything that Seth did, because Seth advertised on this blog. Ahem.)

As far as tactics are concerned, I could just ask Moe. And I will when I see him. But I’m more interested in why the tactics worked — that is to say, I’m more curious about what the voters themselves were thinking. And since there was no exit polling, I’m asking now.

So how about it, District 3 voters? Whether you backed Baddourah or Coble, why did you do so? Your answers may bear significantly on the future course of Columbia.

District 3 folks, be sure to vote in runoff today

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Well, today’s the day for folks in Rosewood, Shandon, Melrose and other nearby parts of Columbia. Get out there and exercise your franchise.

I liked Alex Postic‘s (that is to say, Mr. Shop Tart‘s) take on the election on Facebook this morning:

Don’t forget to vote today Columbia. Either way, I think Columbia wins – and we get a neighbor on City Council.

Which is no exaggeration. Moe told me he’s like next door from the Tart — which puts him across the street from the house I lived in when I was 4 years old — and Daniel’s very close by as well.

This is the kind of politics you get when you stretch subsidiarity to the max (not the max that Paul Ryan would take it to, which would be the individual, but the max the way I’ve always understood the concept — buy I digress).

Here’s hoping that when it’s over, Columbia does indeed win.

The videos we did for the Coble campaign

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Here are the three videos ADCO created for the Daniel Coble runoff campaign. I like the way they came out.

I think you’ll find they’re a little different from what you usually see from a political campaign.

There are no “gotchas” here. We haven’t edited the truth to try to embarrass the opponent or make him look bad. Our purpose was more journalistic, to provide the voter with information they weren’t getting from news media, to help them make up their minds. Yes, we thought Daniel looked a little better than Moe in these clips. But the clips weren’t just chosen on that basis — in fact, we thought Daniel came across better throughout the debate, although Moe handled himself well, too. They were chosen because they struck a nice balance between complete answers, more than you’d get on TV news, without being so lengthy that the viewer wouldn’t lose interest and go away. (For instance, there were some really pertinent passages when the candidates discussed an important issue at some length — such as when Coble explained his position on water and sewer funds being used in the general fund, and did a good job with it — but we felt they were too long for this purpose.)

At the end of this forum, before the Melrose Neighborhood Association on Monday night, Moe Baddourah thanked the group and praised the format. He liked it because he wasn’t limited to 30-second answers as in some such gatherings. I think he was right, and you should be able to see some of what he liked about the format in these clips, even though we didn’t use some of the longer answers.

Each of the answers you see is mostly complete and unedited. I say “mostly” because in several cases, we trimmed the beginning of an answer and started the clip at the point when the candidate settled down to really answering the question — to the extent that he actually did answer it, which didn’t always happen.

You might watch these and decide you prefer Moe to Daniel, although I think most people will not. In any case, you can get a pretty good sense from watching them which of them approaches issues, and public service, in the way that you would prefer an elected representative to do.

I could elaborate here on the three clips and why we chose them, but I’d rather that those of you who are interested (particularly those who live in Columbia’s third district) would look at them with a fresh eye first, and after I see your reaction, I’ll elaborate.

Enjoy.

Here’s what a Coble endorsement looks like

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Some readers seemed confused earlier as to what an “endorsement” of a candidate looked like. It looks like this, in The State today:

COLUMBIA City Council District 3 runoff opponents Moe Baddourah and Daniel Coble are solid candidates who share common priorities, from focusing on district needs to improving public safety and providing long-term funding for the public bus system.

They also share a common drawback: We fear their strong focus on constituent and district needs could lead them to put those interests ahead of more important citywide issues.

While the two men are pretty even in many ways, Mr. Coble does distinguish himself as the better candidate. His knowledge and understanding of city issues and how government works stood out among all candidates in the just-concluded council races….

Now I can’t say it’s a ringing, unequivocal endorsement. Daniel is The State‘s second choice for the seat. My old colleagues initially endorsed Jenny Isgett, who did not make it into the runoff.

Now if I did endorse someone, it would be Daniel. It so happens that the candidate ADCO is doing work for is the one I would choose were I endorsing. But wait, you say! Isn’t my saying that an endorsement?

Not to me. I’ve spent many years of my life doing endorsements, and I have a very clear idea of what one is. To me, an endorsement involves setting forth a series of arguments as to why someone is the better candidate. As I’ve said thousands of times over the years, the value in an endorsement is the reasons why, not the mere who.

That goes to the core of why newspapers do endorsements (and should do endorsements). It doesn’t matter whether a reader ultimately agrees with the endorsement or not. It is valuable to have considered the arguments, whether you accept them in the end or not. For having spent that time reading a carefully constructed case for a candidate, your own ultimate decision will have been better-considered.

The endorsement in The State today is pretty good. It’s not exactly what I would have written, and were I still the editor I’d have made some changes in the piece, but I generally agree with the points made.

Interesting speaker this week..

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Carl Evans over at USC brings this to my attention:

Friends,

Sheryl WuDunn, the first Asian-Amerian reporter to win a Pulitzer Prize, will be speaking in Gambrell Hall this Wednesday, April 11, at 6:00 p.m.  If you care about social justice and especially about issues facing women around the globe you will be interested in WuDunn’s talk.

WuDunn is the author of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, co-written with her husband Nicholas Kristoff, a New York Times op-ed writer.

There is also a related colloquium at Columbia College this evening, April 9, from 6-7 p.m.  Please read the attachment for additional details about both the lecture and the colloquium.

Regards,

Carl

Personally, I’m not familiar with her work, but I’m a great admirer of her husband’s, and I sense that she’s been a strong influence on him.

Because of his work, I would not expect this lecture to be a string of feminist cliches. I expect that her critique is reality-based, like Kristof’s, based on what she’s actually seen in the world.

That’s one of the things I really appreciate about Kristof. He’s the kind of liberal who routinely flies in the face of the left’s (and anyone else’s) orthodoxy, based on his first-hand knowledge of real conditions. For instance, he’s the guy who persuaded me of how indefensible the Democratic position was on the Colombia Free Trade agreement several years back.

As for the plight of women, there’s little room for argument over the outrages he exposes in the parts of the world where “war on women” wouldn’t actually be true and not absurd hyperbole. I wouldn’t be surprised if his wife has a similarly compelling message. Perhaps even more so.

And the runoff begins…

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Got this this morning from Daniel Coble:

In Tuesday’s District 3 City Council three-way race, I came within 60 votes of catching front-runner Moe Baddourah and leading the District. In less than two weeks, I face him again in a run-off election for the City Council seat. I am very gratified for the support of friends and neighbors within the District and around Columbia for getting me to this point!! A lot rides on this election. And with your help, we will win Tuesday, April 17.

The contrast between Mr. Baddourah’s priorities and my own for serving Columbia could not be more stark. While Baddourah has run his campaign solely on the interests of businesses, I am committed to a more balanced approach that protects neighborhoods while growing our businesses and keeping them prosperous. The result of Baddourah’s narrowly focused campaign would block progress for our City and put at risk the capacity of the City to fully fund essential services like law enforcement. He hasn’t answered how he would replace lost revenue. And he hasn’t said what services should be cut.

My focus on protecting our City’s essential services like public safety and neighborhood protection is highlighted by the endorsement of our campaign by local leaders such as Sheriff Leon Lott and current District 3 City Council Representative Dr. Belinda Gergel. I want to maintain the City’s capacity to help District 3 residents, small businesses, and our economy. And know that I will represent your interests and all other important issues in our District to continue to strengthen our great city! I would be honored to represent District 3 and to carry forward the important priorities of our community that are the backbone of our campaign:

  • Protecting our Neighborhoods
  • Public Safety and Crime Reduction
  • Environmental Protection and Sustainability Programs
  • Economic and Local Business Development
  • Development of our Cultural and Arts Communities
  • Improved Public Transportation
  • Important Historic Preservation
  • Meeting the Needs of District 3 and Columbia Residents!

I am putting together a plan of action to win on April 17. But I need your help to make it possible. Would you support my candidacy by making a donation NOW to support this larger effort? Your gift of $1000, $500, $250, $100, $50 or whatever you choose or are able to give (donations of any size are greatly appreciated and will be well used), would help me communicate and get out supporters for the run-off election.

In order to help, you can give online here or mail your donations to:

Coble for Council
PO Box 50524
Columbia, SC 29250

Our city is a breathing, vibrant and growing community. Every new generation of Columbia has been tasked with the job of re-inventing our community anew. This is the work before us. And with your help now, we will make this new vision a reality.

I haven’t received anything from Moe Baddourah. I need to give him a call and make sure I’m on his email list…

I should have known it would be Moe

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If there’s one thing an INTP should know, it’s to go with his gut.

Which I did not do yesterday.

From the start of the campaign for the District 3 seat on Columbia City Council, I had thought Moe Baddourah was the guy to beat. Yes, partly that was because of all the yard signs. Months ago (way early in terms of conventional yard sign theory), I saw about 10 on one block of Wheat Street. Everywhere you went in the district: “Moe!”

Beyond that, there was his convincing assurance that he had learned a lot from Seth Rose in losing to him two years ago, and was applying the lessons.

So until very recently, I was sure that it would be Moe and someone else in a runoff. Either Daniel Coble or Jenny Isgett.

But then, in the last days of the campaign, I heard that there were polling data out there indicating that Jenny Isgett would come in either first or second, with Daniel Coble being in a runoff with her. It was counterintuitive, but then I thought, “Hey, we’re talking small number of voters here, so tiny fluctuations can make a difference and overwhelm the factors that you’re seeing out there.” That caused me to overthink what I was seeing. I started thinking, “Moe peaked too soon.” (Of course, I was aware that with such a small number of voters, even the best polling data could be negated by relatively small shifts on Election Day — which was why I hedged my prediction.)

Well, we saw what happened. My gut was right all along.

As it usually is. I should have known better than to be so influenced by one hearsay data point.

Always trust the gut, without overwhelming evidence to the contrary…

Anyway, now it’s Moe and Daniel in a tight runoff. Right now, either of them could win. My gut is telling me that Coble should be able to win over more Isgett voters than Baddourah, but it’s also telling me it isn’t sure yet. It’s still collecting cosmic waves, or whatever. And it has fresh reason not to count Moe out.

When it’s sure, I may tell you. Then again, I may not. This latest experience is reminding my why I avoided making predictions for so many years.

Runyan calls turnout ‘extremely low’

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This came in from Cameron Runyan while I was at lunch:

Friends —

I wanted to give you a quick Election Day update from the field.

We’re just under halfway through voting and our poll greeters report that turnout is EXTREMELY LOW across the city. I’ve been out speaking with voters at voting locations all day and have observed the same thing.

What does that mean? It means that your vote in today’s Columbia City Council At-Large election could make the difference.

So if you haven’t voted yet, please be sure to do so before polls close at 7 p.m. There is too much at stake for the future of our great city to not vote today.

And please share this message with your family, friends and neighbors and encourage them to vote Cameron Runyan for City Council in today’s election.

CLICK HERE TO FORWARD THIS MESSAGE

If you need a ride to vote, please call  803-348-4571 . Someone will pick you up and take you to the polls. If you’re not sure where to vote, you can find out here.

After voting ends at 7 p.m. this evening, please stop by 701 Whaley Street for our Election Night Celebration. We’ll have the election results as they come in.

As always, I thank you for your support, your friendship and all you are doing to help me build a better Columbia.

In service,

Cameron Runyan

For my readers who live in Columbia: Have you voted? And what was it like at your precinct?

Here’s what’s going to happen today

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Since I’m not endorsing anybody in this Columbia city election, I need to have something to say about it. So I’ll do the most indiscreet, foolish thing anyone can do — make predictions.

Here’s what’s going to happen:

  • Brian DeQuincey Newman will be re-elected in District 2.
  • Cameron Runyan will be elected to the at-large seat, possibly even without a runoff (although it’s extra hard to make a prediction like that with turnout as low as it appears to be).
  • Daniel Coble will be in a runoff with Jenny Isgett in District 3. The runoff will break roughly along standard Coble/Gergel/Shandonista vs. Finlay/Rickenmann/Tomlin lines (except for Shandonista women who just vote for a woman), offering a re-run of the battle four years ago between Belinda Gergel and Brian Boyer.

And yeah, the only one I’m going out on a limb on is District 3. For all I know, Moe Baddourah could be the eventual winner. But I don’t think so.

All of it is hard to call because turnout is so light, making small fluctuations mean more than they otherwise would. I was talking thismorning with Sam Davis, who mentioned how light voting was so far. I said that was to be expected, and he didn’t agree. But he offered a possible explanation for it that would be good for him and the other incumbents — that city voters are pleased with the current direction of the council.

Maybe. We’ll see.

Some last-minute filings (and one non-filing)

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First, this is not an inclusive list. I did not go down to the election office today to see who had filed to run in state races as of today’s deadline. (I say “election office,” but I don’t know where reporters went to get those lists that they brought back to us editors. Don’t care where they went, as long as the info was right. They’re professionals, or used to be. What, you want me to hold their hands and wipe their noses?)

No, this is just a list of Midlands filings that the candidates chose to bring to my attention over the last few days — it’s an update of this list. If I see any other interesting ones in the paper tomorrow, I’ll write about those, too.

First, Boyd Summers, who had been considering running for the seat Rep. Jim Harrison is vacating, decided not to, telling me in an email, “I am not going to file for HD 75 today.  Timing not right for my family. Be happy  to speak with you.” I’ll ask him more about it at Rotary Monday. But that means that Joe McCulloch is the only Democrat I know of running, which (if that turns out to be accurate) means he will face one of two Republicans in the fall. You know about Kirkman Finlay III. Finlay has competition in the GOP primary from attorney Jim Corbett, who filed Thursday after floating the idea among acquaintances in the district. “The response was extremely positive and encouraging. Serving District 75 as a Legislator would be an honor and fit my experience and interests.”

Kara Gormley Meador says she did file today, and sent me the above photo of her doing so. She didn’t specify in her note, but I assume that means she filed to run in the June primary against Sen. Ronnie Cromer and not Jake Knotts. I’m sure if my assumption is wrong, she’ll let me know… Wait… yes, it is Cromer she’s going after. She has a website now and everything, and it mentions District 18.

Twenty-one-year-old Chris Sullivan made it official that he is challenging veteran Rep. Joe McEachern in House District 77. Chris is young, but he must be pretty savvy — as evidenced by the fact that he is the first legislative candidate this year to purchase an ad on this blog. Hint, hint.

Finally, Walid Hakim — a recurring character on this blog recently — has filed to run against Rep. Mac Toole in District 88. The release does not specify whether Walid intends to challenge him in the GOP primary or in the general — party affiliation is not mentioned in his release. But striking an “Occupy” tone, he did say, “I’ve seen our state struggling to recover from hard times that fell harder on us than most states. Representative Toole, following the lead of Governor Haley, continuously stood in the way of help for those who need it the most.”

Since Walid is back in the news, I’m responding to a request from “Silence,” who asked for a close-up of the trend-setting footwear Mr. Hakim wore to the announcement yesterday at Belinda Gergel’s house:

The Coble endorsements, at the Gergel home

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Belinda Gergel is at the lectern, with Daniel Coble to her right. That's Mike Miller in the khaki suit to your right, and behind him to his right is Kathryn Fenner. Steve Morrison is the tall guy in the dark suit at the back, and Walid Hakim is on the viewer's far left, with the walking stick.

OK, so I made it over to Chez Gergel for the announcement previously mentioned. Not much new to report, except to say that this was a major boost for Daniel Coble. If next Tuesday’s voting follows a logical course, he should at least make it into a runoff now.

In addition to the aforementioned big endorsements, Kit Smith was there (with a new grandchild). So was our own Kathryn Fenner, and Walid Hakim, last seen being an unleader of the Occupy Columbia movement. And of course Bud and Julia Ferillo.

There was such a frenzy of endorsing going on that I almost got swept up in it, through no fault of my own. A nice lady wearing a Coble sticker came up to me while I was speaking to Walid, and, gesturing with a camera, said she would need me in a moment. I paused to say “What for?” She said she needed my picture with Daniel. I explained that unlike all the neighborhood folk there, I was not there to endorse Daniel, but to cover the event. I was pretty emphatic about it, since Daniel had just taken out an ad on the blog, and I didn’t want anyone to get confused and think that meant I was on board.

The lady seemed surprised at my words. I found out why a few minutes later. She thought I was Mike Miller. This has happened before, back  in our newsroom days. Yes, I sort of generally look vaguely like Mike, particularly if our hair is cut the same and I’m wearing my wirerims (which you seldom see, although that’s what I was wearing in that Ariail caricature I referred to recently). And Mike had been wearing a khaki suit during the formal announcement, but had taken it off, and I had on a khaki suit coat.

Anyway…

Later in the day, I may post video. Now, to lunch…