Category Archives: Democrats

Democrats ask Nikki to come home soon, please

Mia Butler Garrick and James Smith urge Nikki Haley to come home. That blinding light is emanating from the direction of the governor's vacant office.

Alleging that she is now entering her third week of absence from the state for political purposes, Reps. James Smith and Mia Butler Garrick, both Richland County Democrats, stood outside Nikki Haley’s office this afternoon and asked her to return and do the job she was ostensibly elected to do.

Among the points the two representatives made about the gov:

The state’s unemployment rate is climbing.
Her trips have been purely political.
Her activities don’t even have anything to do with South Carolina politics, but are purely national.
She isn’t really benefiting Mitt Romney doing this, but merely herself.
They fully understand that a governor would go to her own convention, just as SC Democrats are now flocking to Charlotte — but she doesn’t have to spend the week attending theirs as well.
No other full-time state employee — a teacher, say, or a DHEC worker — would be able to take such a purely personal extended vacation, at least not without being fired.
It is unclear who is paying for her junkets.

I had not realized that the gov was planning on spending all of this week out of town as well. For that matter, I had not known she stayed in Tampa after her speech, but that would be par for the course.

It’s also far from unprecedented for a governor to visit the opposing party’s national convention, when it is in a neighboring state. I remember seeing Carroll Campbell at the DNC — the one Don Fowler ran — in Atlanta in 1988. (It was kind of a hoot because Campbell — or maybe his press guy Tucker Eskew; I forget — noted that he didn’t bring with him nearly the extensive security retinue that Lt. Gov. Nick Theodore had with him there all week, complete with a command post set up on the ground floor in the delegation’s hotel.)

It’s a very tacky partisan practice, this business of trying to spoil the other side’s celebration — I’ve thought so ever since I saw Campbell do it — but it’s certainly not unusual.

But, noted Mia and James, Nikki is spending the whole week up there for the “counter-convention,” doing various national media interviews, with her schedule for the week showing her having no scheduled events here.

That’s hardly fair to the governor, I pointed out. If practically the entire retinue of national political media — Nikki Haley’s constituency, the people who elected her — are just up the road in Charlotte, how could anyone expect her to stay down in Columbia? After all, anyone who voted for her expecting her to do anything other than just what she is doing at this moment was sadly deluded.

Precisely, said Rep. Smith.

Guess I’ll be watching this convention on TV, too

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I'm hoping the Democratic Convention will be more engaging than this was.

I was at the movies with my younger son Sunday afternoon watching “The Bourne Legacy” (which I’m sorry to say I found far less engaging than “The Bourne Identity”), and the character played by Rachel Weisz had just been introduced when my phone started buzzing.

It was E.J. Dionne. I stepped out into the corridor to see what was up. He was just driving down from Washington, taking the scenic route through the Shenandoah Valley, one of the most beautiful drives in America (I drove that way many times when my youngest daughter was studying at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet). But E.J.’s not the kind of guy who finds pleasant vistas enough occupation for his hyperactive mind, so he wanted to chat.

The first thing he asked was whether I would be crossing the border this week, and I had to think a second before realizing he meant heading up to Charlotte.

Nope. I’m not. Or at least, I don’t think so. Ever since the DNC venue was announced a year or so ago, I had had it in my mind that since it was just up the road, I might bop up for part of it. But since that didn’t require any preparation, I made none. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I emailed Amanda Alpert Loveday with the SC party to see about credentials. That’s the way I had arranged it the couple of times I went to conventions before — just contact the state party, since it’s the state delegation I’d be following. But she said, “Press credentials were required to be requested by April and they are done by the Convention staff.” April? Like I’m going to prepare for an impromptu drive up to Charlotte in April?

I could still go. After all, when I’ve covered conventions in the past, I may have entered the actual hall where the convention was going on a couple of times total. But then, having those credentials did help get me into other places as well. Add to that the fact that the events worth being there for tend to happen early in the morning or very late at night — delegation breakfasts, and after-session social gatherings — and it just seems really inconvenient to try to cover any of it from home.

So I’m going to stick to Columbia, and watch the speeches on the Tube, just as I did the one in Tampa.

What do I expect to see? Well, I’ll tell you what I hope to see.

I hope to see a party that’s reaching out to independents and undecideds — a party that emphasizes things that pull Americans together — rather than a party that’s firing up its base with its ginned-up “War on Women” and other Kulturkampf flashpoints. You say there are no undecideds? Well, E.J. and I were talking about that, and he referred me to this analysis by ABC showing a large number of “persuadable voters:”

One in four registered voters may be persuadable in the 2012 presidential election – rich pickings if either Barack Obama or newly minted GOP nominee Mitt Romney can win their support. But doing so may be a challenge, requiring both subtle and substantive political persuasion.

That’s because persuadable voters, as identified in this analysis for ABC News, are less apt to be ideologically committed ones, and more likely to take middle-ground rather than strongly held positions on issues such as Obama’s job performance, Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan and their own partisan views.

Good to hear that I’m not alone. OK, we’re out here — so persuade us.

Dick Harpootlian says Jim Clyburn’s role in speaking tonight is to “excite the troops.” That’s exactly the sort of garbage I don’t want to hear. Guys, you don’t have “troops.” You’re not in a war. You are in a marketplace of ideas, and you’d better have some that are compelling to people outside that convention hall.

Anyway, that’s what I’m looking for. How about y’all?

Enjoying reading about the last time I was this ticked off

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At my desk at The State, evincing one of those moods./file photo from 2007

Today, grumpily wondering whether I’ll find the Democratic Convention next week as vapid, monotonous, insulting and obnoxious as I did the sliver of the GOP convention I listened to last night, I was reminded of column I wrote four years ago.

If past is prologue, it would seem the answer to my dreary question is “yes.”

That column, which ran on Aug. 31, 2008, was headlined, “Yelling at the television.” If you go back and read it, it will tell you what the rest of this week and all of next week will be like, if you find the parties as disgusting as I do.

A favorite excerpt:

What sets me off? Oh, take your pick — the hyperbole, the self-importance, the us-against-them talk, the stuff that Huck Finn called “tears and flapdoodle.”

Take, for instance, this typical bit from Hillary Clinton’s speech:

My friends, it is time to take back the country we love. And whether you voted for me or you voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose. We are on the same team. And none of us can afford to sit on the sidelines. This is a fight for the future. And it’s a fight we must win together. I haven’t spent the past 35 years in the trenches… to see another Republican in the White House squander our promise…

Let’s deconstruct that a bit.

Take back the country? From whom? Did I miss something? Did the Russians roll right on through Gori and into Washington? No? You say Americans are still in charge, just the “wrong” Americans, of the wrong party? But your party controls Congress! Take it back from whom?

… a single party with a single purpose. Now there you’ve hit on the biggest lie propagated by each of the major parties, the conceit that there is something coherent and consistent about such loose confederations of often-incompatible interest groups. Did you not just spend the last few months playing with all the force you could muster upon those very differences, those very tensions — between feminists and black voters, between the working class and the wine and cheese set? What single purpose, aside from winning an election?

This is a fight… No, it isn’t, however much you love to say that. Again, I refer you to what the Russians are doing in Georgia — that’s a fight, albeit a one-sided one.

… that we must win together. Actually, that raises a particularly pertinent point, which is that the only “fights” that “must” be won are the ones in which “together” is defined as all Americans, or all freedom-loving peoples, whereas such divisive factions as your party and that other one that will meet in St. Paul militate against our being able to win such fights together.

I haven’t spent the past 35 years in the trenches… You’re absolutely right; you haven’t. So spare us the war metaphors.

… to see another Republican in the White House squander our promise… Like that’s what matters, the stupid party label. Like there isn’t more difference between you and Barack Obama in terms of philosophy and goals and experience and what you would bring to office than there is between John McCain and Joe Biden. Come on! Please!…

Sigh. Fume. Mutter.

Yep. I was thinking almost identical thoughts last night watching this convention.

I was pretty disgusted back then. Now, I enjoy reading about how disgusted I was. I always find that my writing improves with distance…

You know Joe Biden’s gone off the rails when even Sarah Palin can see it

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Enjoyed this blog post by Alexandra Petri over at the WashPost:

On Fox News, commenting on Joe Biden’s Danville “Put Y’all Back in Chains” gaffe, Sarah Palin observed: “If that’s not the nail in the coffin, really, the strategists there in the Obama campaign have got to look at a diplomatic way of replacing Joe Biden on the ticket with Hillary.”

It is seldom that you get such good quotes from the pot about the color of the kettle.

Then again, you know you’ve made a gaffe when Sarah Palin is suggesting you might have chosen your words more judiciously. That’s like Charlie Sheen suggesting you might have a substance problem.

But perhaps we should cut her some slack. Vice presidential candidates whose comments prompt everyone in the vicinity to wince uncontrollably for several minutes is a subject no one knows better than Palin. Maybe she and Biden were better matched than we thought.

After the selection of Paul Ryan to fill the VP slot on the ticket (prompting such exciting merchandise as this button!), it is hard not to think back to August 2008, when everyone was cheering Palin as a game-changer. And she was a game-changer, in the sense that Godzilla is a city-changer. Say what you will about Paul Ryan and the potential risks of having to engage in a Serious Mature Debate of his policies, everyone admits one thing about him: He’s no Sarah Palin. If anyone sets off the trademark “Mayday! Mayday! The Veep’s Saying Something” alarm this year, it’s Biden.

And yep, she oughta know. Onion Joe!

Any questions for Pub Politics tonight?

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Screenshot from my 7th Pub Politics appearance, in October 2011, with Phil (left) and Joel (right).

Just got this Tweet from Pub Politics:

@BradWarthen any questions for @joeldavidsawyer or Phil Bailey for tonights #E122QA? Let them shower you with knowledge and wisdom.

Nothing comes to mind immediately, but I thought I’d check with y’all.

As you probably know, @joeldavidsawyer is the former Mark Sanford press secretary (post-Will Folks) who helped run the SC campaign of Jon Huntsman before going to work as a consultant with Wesley Donehue, for whom he sometimes subs on Pub Politics.

Phil Bailey, of course, is the other regular co-host, who also works for the SC Senate Democrats. He is no longer known by his Twitter handle because of, you know, the “Sikh Jesus” thing.

So… any questions?

Playing the unemployment blame game

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On the national level, it’s the Republicans touting high unemployment and blaming it on President Obama.

On the state level, it’s the Democrats who eagerly greet each piece of bad employment news, only they blame it on the local Republicans:

Representative Leon Stavrinakis Statement on Spike in SC Jobless Rate

Charleston, SC – South Carolina’s jobless rate rose to 9.4% in June from 9.1% in May, while Charleston County’s unemployment rate rose significantly from 7.9% last month to 8.5% in June. Charleston State Representative Leon Stavrinakis released a statement in response:

“These unemployment numbers are troubling and unacceptable for the Charleston area and the state of South Carolina as a whole. As the nation’s unemployment rate continues to drop or hold steady, South Carolina’s rate is going in the wrong direction and at an alarmingly fast rate. Perhaps Governor Haley should stop her international travels and simply attending every press opportunity she can find so she can actually put real time and work into creating jobs in South Carolina. The last place potential businesses want to relocate is a state led by a Governor who is only interested in being a celebrity, cutting education, and refusing to invest in infrastructure. We can also be sure that Governor Haley’s recent budget attacks on existing South Carolina industry are not helping our ability to attract and recruit jobs to our state. It is time for Governor Haley to quit stalling and present the legislature with a comprehensive jobs plan. If she refuses to give us a plan, I suggest she take a look at the plan I released months ago, which to date she has not indicated she has even taken the time to read.”

###

Funny how things can look so different from Columbia (or Charleston) than they do from Washington.

Beth Bernstein touts 2nd quarter fund-raising

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Just got this from House candidate Beth Bernstein:

Beth Bernstein, House District 78 candidate, raises over $32,000 in second quarter

Has more than $54,000 on hand

Columbia, SC — Beth Bernstein, candidate for House District 78 against incumbent Rep. Joan Brady, filed her second quarter financial disclosure with over $32,000, bringing her overall fund raising total to just under $70,000.

Bernstein, an attorney and small business owner, released the following statement on her fund raising quarter:

“I am very excited that so many people have invested in my campaign,” Bernstein said. “As a small business owner, attorney, and mother, I decided to run because I was frustrated with the current leadership when nothing gets done. I want to bring back balance to the Statehouse and common sense solutions to state government. As I speak with voters across the District on a daily basis, I hear their frustrations and am motivated more than ever to work on the real issues affecting our everyday lives: education, job growth, and improving our quality of life. My message to the people of this District is: Help is on the way.”

Beth Bernstein, 42, chose to run for the House because of her concern about the direction of South Carolina under the current leadership. She grew up in the District and has chosen to raise her family there. She practices law in her family law firm, Bernstein and Bernstein, LLC, in Columbia. She and her husband, Rip Sanders, are proud parents of Caroline, 8, and Isabel, 3.

For more information, go to www.beth4house.com.

####

OK, so maybe you’re not all that impressed with that amount of money raised. But I take note because I’m interested in this race, as one of the very few seriously contested general election legislative races in this part of the state.

Watching from the outside, I expect this one will turn on how voters feel about Joan Brady and the other members of the House Ethics Committee dismissing charges against Nikki Haley not once, but twice. We’ll see.

Yes, “trackers” HAVE gone wild, and then some

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A shot from video footage taken outside the home of a candidate.

Earlier today, Politico posed the question on Twitter, “Democratic trackers gone wild?”

While most serious campaigns on both sides use campaign trackers — staffers whose job is to record on video every public appearance and statement by an opponent — House Democrats are taking it to another level. They’re now recording video of the homes of GOP congressmen and candidates and posting the raw footage on the Internet for all to see.

That ratcheting up of the video surveillance game is unnerving Republicans who insist that even by political standards, it’s a gross invasion of privacy. Worse, they say, it creates a safety risk for members of Congress and their families at a time when they are already on edge after a deranged gunman shot former Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords 18 months ago.

Wisconsin GOP Rep. Reid Ribble, who said he’s also been followed by a cameraman when shopping for groceries, said the home videos cross a line.

“I feel it’s totally inappropriate,” said Ribble, a freshman facing a competitive race for reelection. “It was disturbing to me that they would put that online. I don’t understand any political benefit that can be achieved with that.”…

Yes, indeed, say I. They’ve gone too far. But then, I think the whole phenomenon went overboard, across the spectrum, years ago. I have a low threshold with this kind of stuff.

There’s nothing illegal, certainly, about following one’s opponent around with a video camera. And everyone does it, right? One can even argue that a conscientious candidate should be fully aware of what his opponent has to say.

But in this era of saturation communication, stalking one’s opponent with a camera hoping for a slipup, a gotcha! moment, is not only unnecessary, there’s something low about it. And I confess that when I’m at a political event, and I spot the opposition’s tracker, I can’t help looking upon that person with something akin to disdain.

I don’t expect many people to agree with me on this. Certainly not many journalists today, since so much of their material comes from this sort of thing.

But I was always a different sort of journalist. I always wanted to know what a candidate has to say after he thinks for a minute, not what he says when he misspeaks. Some pop-Freudians believe the slip is the truth. Sometimes it is, sadly. But I’ve always valued more what the candidate says when you give him or her a chance to think a little harder about it. When a candidate says, “That’s not what I meant,” the gotcha folks snicker. Me, I start paying closer attention to find out what he or she did mean. And I flatter myself that I can tell, usually, if the further explanation is just blowing smoke.

Maybe I look for the second thought because that’s how I hope (idealist that I am) that they will govern — in a deliberative manner, with their ideas morphing and growing and getting better in a ferment with other ideas. I want to be governed by what people think upon further reflection, not the first thing that pops into their heads.

And even if they never achieve that, I want to give them every opportunity to do so. I want to hear the “yes, but…,” the second and third and fourth thoughts. I want depth of consideration. Deliberation, the thing upon which republican government relies.

But the “tracker” is a manifestation of a political culture that does not value further reflection. And therefore is a sign of a political culture in decline.

He don’t know me very well, do he?

New GOP meme: attacking Obamacare as a tax

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Recovering from the blow to their position on Obamacare, Republicans (except Mitt Romney, whose signature achievement as governor was just vindicated, although you won’t hear him say so in this bizarre political climate) have already shifted tactics.

They are genetically compelled to attack, attack, attack the president. So their new means of doing so is to seize upon the court’s assertion that Obamacare constitutes taxation, and attack it accordingly (all taxes being, according to their ideology, bad). Lindsey Graham, being the smartest Republican in Washington, was among the first to make this shift:

To our Democrat colleagues, stand by your tax increase or stand with us to Repeal and Replace Obamacare.

(Note the way he says “Democrat colleagues.” This is a subtle ruse on his part to hide from his base the fact that he is as smart as he is: Look at me! I don’t know the difference between a noun and an adjective any more than you do! But then, he hurts himself with that same base by calling the enemy “colleagues.”)

Democrats, being partisans, will probably not respond any more intelligently.

But here’s how I wish they would respond: By saying, OK, it’s a tax. So let’s stop fooling around. Let’s replace this with single-payer, which of course we would all support through our taxes.

I’d like to see that, but I’m not holding my breath. I’d done enough of that, waiting on the Supremes to make up their minds.

And those grapes were probably sour anyway…

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Dick Harpootlian is making the best of the fact that his preferred candidate lost the primary that he had fought and clawed to get him into, issuing the following statement last night:

I would like to congratulate Dr. Gloria Tinubu on winning the Democratic run-off election and becoming our nominee for the 7th Congressional District. She ran a great campaign. If Republican’s worked half as hard as Dr. Tinubu, state government wouldn’t be on the verge of a shutdown this week. The Republican runoff was a race between Nikki Haley and Andre Bauer and either way South Carolina loses. They spent the last week in the 7th demonstrating the petty, selfish politics voters have come to expect from Republicans. Dr. Tinubu demonstrated the alternative Democrats are offering: determined and hardworking. The Democratic Party looks forward to working with Dr. Tinubu to elect her as our first Congresswoman from the 7th Congressional District this November.

Aw, he didn’t want those grapes he couldn’t reach anyway…

ONE Democratic leader backs Tinubu

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Harry Ott broke with the establishment pack today:

Columbia, SC – House Minority Leader Harry Ott (D-Calhoun) endorsed Congressional candidate Gloria Bromell Tinubu in the race for South Carolina’s Seventh District on Monday. Tinubu faces Myrtle Beach lawyer Preston Brittain in a runoff on Tuesday. Ott released the following statement:

“I am proud to announce my support for Gloria Bromell Tinubu in Tuesday’s Democratic runoff. Mrs. Tinubu won the initial primary with over 52% of the vote and I believe it would be wrong to reverse her victory. The people of the seventh district have spoken, and they have chosen Gloria.”

“It is time for Democrats to come together and rally behind Gloria Tinubu as our nominee. It is critical to be unified as a party through November and to elect a Democrat who will fight for full employment, improve our public education system, protect medicare and social security, and advocate for investments in highway infrastructure.”

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So that’s Harry Ott and the AFL-CIO on one side, and John Spratt, Jim Hodges, Vincent Sheheen and John Land… and I suppose we should include Dick Harpootlian… on the other.

And tomorrow, we’ll see just how much pezzonovante endorsements are worth in the Democratic Party these days.

My very life is thine, my liege! But $3? I dunno…

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POTUS and I are so close, he knows he can ask me for anything. Even three whole dollars.

The leader of my country, the most powerful man in the world, needs my help! Right now! Time to mount my steed and prepare to lay down my life for the sake of God, country, the girl next door, and Mom’s incomparable apple pie!

Brad —

If you’re with me, then I need you right now.

We’re just days away from the mid-year fundraising deadline — this is the biggest test yet of our commitment to win in 2012. We can’t fall short on this one.

Donate $3 or more right now to elect a Democratic majority in Congress.

Thanks,

Barack

Schwinngg! goeth my sword as I withdraw it, and…

…wait a sec….

Three dollars? That’s what this is about? Three dollars? What kind of cheapskate country is this when our supreme leader himself sends up the Bat Signal to get my attention, and all he wants is three lousy semolians?

I mean, if he wanted a sawbuck, would he land Marine One on my lawn and approach my front door on his knees?

Of course, you’ve guessed by now that this message is not actually from Barack Obama, but from the anonymous [email protected], and this is another one of a certain type of political fund-raising message that is more about getting me (or, if I were some other person perhaps, keeping me) in the habit of giving. In other words, it’s not about the money, it’s about conditioning. Sort of like all those begging emails Joe Wilson sent out asking people to give him money to help defeat the existential threat of Phil Black in the primary earlier this month. It’s not that he needs the money; he just needs you to keep giving.

Yet another of democracies more bizarre aspects.

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.

Corey’s graphic novel about Alvin Greene

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I’m cleaning out my IN box, and I run across a 10-day-old message from Corey Hutchins saying that his graphic novel about Alvin Greene is available for iPhone and iPad — and probably on paper, by now (yes, it is!). This is from altweeklies.com:

Columbia Free Times staff writer Corey Hutchins and former alt-weekly writer David Axe released iPhone and iPad versions of a 100-page graphic novel that traces the stranger-than-fiction U.S Senate campaign of one of American’s most enigmatic political figures, Alvin Greene.

Readers can purchase iPhone and iPad versions of the book, The Accidental Candidate, for $4.99 prior to its release in hard copy.

“Some of my friends don’t read books,” said Hutchins, a political reporter who chronicled the story of Avlin Greene for Free Times. “But they’re on their iPhones all the time. We thought it was a way to reach an audience that’s not so much into the tree-slaying aspect of literature. Tweet that.”

If you’ll recall, Corey was the only reporter in the universe (to my knowledge, so I guess I should say, “in the known ‘verse”) who actually interviewed Greene prior to his becoming the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate.

Jeb lightly tips hat to Obama, seeks return favor

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Not to be outdone by Bill Clinton in the civility department, Jeb Bush has offered some light praise for President Obama:

The brother of the Mr. Obama’s predecessor noted that Mr. Obama had chosen the head of the Chicago public school system, Arne Duncan, as his education secretary and they had worked to focus more on school children and less on the adults running the schools.

“Any time an elected official in the world we’re in today that appears so dysfunctional challenges a core constituency not of their opponent but of their own political base, I think we should pause and give them credit,” Bush said.

The comments came after Rose pointed to comments Bush had made in April praising Duncan and saying the Obama administration had done “a pretty good job” on education policy…

The former politician, who flatly ruled out a run as Mitt Romney’s running mate in the interview, noted that he now has the luxury of being able to say what he thinks and is not constrained by political ambitions.

“I don’t have to play the game of being 100,000 percent against President Obama. I got a long list of things that I think he’s done wrong. And I, with civility and respect, I will point those out if I’m asked. But on the things that I think he’s done a good job on, I– I’m not gonna just say, ‘no, no,’ ” Bush said…

In his case, though, he’d like to see the compliment returned:

“I think it would help him politically. For example, when he was gracious at the unveiling of the portrait, you know, there’s no way not to be gracious I guess in that kind of setting,” Bush said, referring to a recent ceremony at the White House to unveil the official portrait of former President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush.

“But it helps,” he said, calling it “just a small acknowledgement that the guy that, you know, that you replaced isn’t the source of every problem that– and– and the excuse of why you’re not being successful I think would help him politically.”…

Actually, I think it would, too — among people like me. But he has to worry about his base.

Unfortunately, to those who are not retired from politics, the other side is the devil these days, and one is never allowed to give the devil his due.

I was not aware that she had a CHOICE in this

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I’ve been sort of puzzling over this press release since it came in yesterday:

Carol Tempel to Withdraw from House District 115 Race After Supreme Court Ruling

“It’s the right thing to do”

Carol Temple

Charleston, SC – Democrat Carol Tempel announced Wednesday that she will withdraw from seeking the Democratic nomination for House District 115 (James Island, Folly Beach, Kiawah) after Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling that very clearly stated that candidates must turn in their Statements of Economic Interests and Statements of Intention of Candidacy at the same time. Tempel acknowledged she had inadvertently filed electronically but did not submit a paper copy of her Statement of Economic Interest and thus will be forgoing a run for the nomination. Tempel released the following statement on Wednesday:

“The Supreme Court could not have been more clear in their ruling yesterday. If candidates did not file properly, they should not be on the ballot. I accept full responsibility and thus will forgo seeking the Democratic nomination for House District 115. While the opportunity of serving the people of Charleston County is still on the table, I had to respect yesterday’s ruling and uphold the rule of law. I call on other candidates in Charleston County to follow my lead and do the right thing. If you did not file properly, do not risk being held in contempt of court by stubbornly trying to remain on the ballot. I look forward to fellow James Island resident Paul Thurmond and all other candidates in Charleston County who did not file properly to respect the law and immediately withdraw from the race. “

Tempel is currently weighing the option of running as a petition candidate for House District 115.

#####

OK… but as far as I know, she had no choice in this. I mean, she was legally off the ballot. So I’m confused by the “It’s a far, far better thing I do” tone of this announcement, as though she were making some sacrifice, of her own volition, for the principle of the Rule of Law.

Or maybe I’m just misreading it…

Recall is never a good idea

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I didn’t agree with everything that E.J. Dionne said in his column about the failed Wisconsin recall effort, but I was pleased to read this part:

Perhaps the most significant exit poll finding was this one: Only about a quarter of those who went to the polls Tuesday said that a recall was appropriate for any reason. Roughly six in 10 said a recall should be used only in the case of official misconduct. And another tenth thought a recall was never appropriate. Most voters, in other words, rejected the very premise of the election in which they were casting ballots. This proved to be a hurdle too high for Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D), Walker’s opponent.

Voters should have to live with their bad decisions until the next election, to allow for some order in government — and to lessen the already toxic atmosphere of the perpetual campaign.

If an official does something really heinous, there’s impeachment. But this “make us mad and we’ll have another election” stuff is inimical to our system of representative democracy.

E.J.’s column was about what left and right should learn from Wisconsin. He suggests, although doesn’t say it overtly, that it would be wrong to think the left has a losing proposition with its support for public employee unions.

But it does. I found this piece, also in the WashPost today, more to the point:

“Anybody, anybody would have been better than Scott Walker,” said Gregory J. Junemann, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which represents workers in more than a dozen federal agencies. Junemann commutes weekly to Washington from Milwaukee, where his union member wife is a public school employee.

Like many political observers, Junemann can point to the tremendous funding advantage Walker had over Barrett, but the union leader isn’t satisfied with that as an excuse for the mayor’s defeat.

“The people of Wisconsin said that the attack by Scott Walker and his allies on public employes and their unions was acceptable,” Junemann said. “That’s what they said with their votes. This puts us in a very uphill battle for November.”

Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, has a different spin: “I do not believe the results of the Wisconsin election demonstrate strong support for anti-employee policies.” Instead, “the broader long-term message,” she said, is “working men and women, and their unions, will not stand idly by while reactionary forces attempt to roll back hard-won rights.”

They might not stand idly by, but they also might lose.

Hoping Obama won’t really run this way

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Maybe y’all have time to read this piece by John Heilemann in New York Magazine. I don’t, not today. If you do, please get back and tell me that things don’t really look as dark as they do at the beginning:

The contours of that contest are now plain to see—indeed, they have been for some time. Back in November, Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin, two fellows at the Center for American Progress, identified the prevailing dynamics: The presidential race would boil down to “demographics versus economics.” That the latter favor Mitt Romney is incontestable. From high unemployment and stagnant incomes to tepid GDP growth and a still-pervasive sense of anxiety bordering on pessimism in the body politic, every salient variable undermines the prospects of the incumbent. The subject line of an e-mail from the Romney press shop that hit my in-box last week summed up the challenger’s framing of the election concisely and precisely: “What’s This Campaign Going to Be About? The Obama Economy.”

The president begs to differ. In 2008, the junior senator from Illinois won in a landslide by fashioning a potent “coalition of the ascendant,” as Teixeira and Halpin call it, in which the components were minorities (especially Latinos), socially liberal college-educated whites (especially women), and young voters. This time around, Obama will seek to do the same thing again, only more so. The growth of those segments of the electorate and the president’s strength with them have his team brimming with confidence that demographics will trump economics in November—and in the process create a template for Democratic dominance at the presidential level for years to come…

Y’all know how I feel about Identity Politics. I want leaders who want to lead all of us, not this or that arbitrarily selected subset. Obama, to me, is the guy who inspired a victorious crowd in Columbia to chant, on the night of the 2008 South Carolina primary, “Race doesn’t matter!” Amen, said I. The atmosphere that night — when voters rejected the continued partisan strife that the Clinton campaign seemed to offer — was one in which we put our divisions behind us, and work toward building a better country together, as one people.

And if there’s anything more distressing in my book than Identity Politics, it’s Kulturkampf. Those couple of paragraphs are enough to push me toward political despair on that count. The next two grafs are worse:

But if the Obama 2012 strategy in this regard is all about the amplification of 2008, in terms of message it will represent a striking deviation. Though the Obamans certainly hit John McCain hard four years ago—running more negative ads than any campaign in history—what they intend to do to Romney is more savage. They will pummel him for being a vulture-vampire capitalist at Bain Capital. They will pound him for being a miserable failure as the governor of Massachusetts. They will mash him for being a water-carrier for Paul Ryan’s Social Darwinist fiscal program. They will maul him for being a combination of Jerry Falwell, Joe Arpaio, and John Galt on a range of issues that strike deep chords with the Obama coalition. “We’re gonna say, ‘Let’s be clear what he would do as president,’ ” Plouffe explains. “Potentially abortion will be criminalized. Women will be denied contraceptive services. He’s far right on immigration. He supports efforts to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage.”

The Obama effort at disqualifying Romney will go beyond painting him as excessively conservative, however. It will aim to cast him as an avatar of revanchism. “He’s the fifties, he is retro, he is backward, and we are forward—that’s the basic construct,” says a top Obama strategist. “If you’re a woman, you’re Hispanic, you’re young, or you’ve gotten left out, you look at Romney and say, ‘This [f*@#ing] guy is gonna take us back to the way it always was, and guess what? I’ve never been part of that.’ ”

Yeah, that’s all we need. A campaign that sees itself as an army of indignant minorities, feminists, gays and young people up against a coalition of self-interested white males, Ayn Randers, birthers and nativists, with both sides convinced that it is at war with the other. And each subset being motivated not by what’s good for the country, but by what it sees as advantageous to itself as a group.

So much for the United States.

All that’s left to me at this point is to hope the campaign plays out differently from the way this writer envisions it.

Sympathy for the Devil: Clinton defends Romney