Category Archives: Parties

The affluent populist PAC that assumes melanin makes people think just alike

I thought this release interesting:

PAC+ Launches the New American Majority PAC 3-21-12

PAC+, a new national network of leaders focused on democratizing money and politics to give voice to America’s New Majority, launched today at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Recognizing that People of Color and progressive Whites are the New American Majority of people in the United States, PAC+ will combine the resources of its members and direct them to strategic races in states where the demographic revolution can change the political balance of power. In 2012, PAC+ is focusing on six strategic states — Texas, Arizona, Georgia, New Mexico, Ohio, and California.

Led by the team that in 2007 created Vote Hope, the country’s first Democratic SuperPAC, PAC+ is an innovative approach to politics that weaves together demographic developments, technological tools, and network theory into a powerful force for change. “Currently a handful of billionaires are hijacking our democracy and advancing policies that are harmful to the majority of the American people. PAC+ is piloting a new model of SuperPAC that is focused on many donors, not mega-donors,” said Steve Phillips, Chairman of PAC+.

PAC+ is being launched by a National Board of over 70 community and political leaders in 16 states and is “powered by” PowerPAC.org, a social justice advocacy organization that coordinated the country’s first independent expenditure for Obama in 2007 and conducted a $10 million, 18 state electoral program targeting African American and Latino voters in key states. “Democrats spend tens of millions of dollars pursuing a strategy based on an outdated and inaccurate picture of the American electorate,” said Dr. Julie Martínez Ortega, President of PAC+. “The census data make clear that People of Color and progressive Whites are a majority of the U.S. population now, and our strategies need to shift accordingly,” added Dr. Martínez Ortega.

There are twelve million U.S. households of People of Color and progressive Whites with a household income of more than $100,000, and PAC+ is targeting less than 1% of that market, 100,000 people. “Many of us who benefited from the struggles that opened up the doors of higher education and corporate America are now in a position to give back,” said Maria Echaveste, Executive Committee member of the Democratic National Committee and the former Deputy Chief of Staff to President Clinton.

“Rather than get into a battle with the billionaires on the Right, major donors on the Left should invest their money in institutions and organizations that can unleash the power of the country’s demographic revolution, and PAC+ is just such an organization” said Susan Sandler, a philanthropist and private investor.

PAC+ will pool money from members across the country and direct those resources to strategic races in its six 2012 priority states. PAC+ is a federal political action committee and SuperPAC incubated by PowerPAC, a nonprofit advocacy and political organization. PowerPAC was organized to champion democracy and social justice in states and communities across the country and conducted the 2008 Obama independent expenditure campaign and a successful 2010 independent effort to help Kamala Harris win election as California’s Attorney General.

I found it interesting for its assumptions. First, the big one — that the portion of the electorate it claims as its own is indeed the New American Majority.

But it gets worse the more you dig into it. The most offensive is the assumption (or should I say “presumption”) that, in this group’s stilted phrase, “People of Color” are a group in which all the individuals want the same things, believe the same things and have the same interests. Apparently, melanin eliminates individuals’ ability to think for themselves. It gets worse when in presumes that those in this group who make six figures will, or at least should, feel they owe something specifically to other “People of Color,” simply for having succeeded in life.

That emphasis on affluence highlights the fact that this group assumes that mere dark skin alone — and nothing having to do with income or education or other indications of social class — predestines one to think a certain way.

At least with the whites who are shanghaied into this coalition, there is an ideological qualification — that they be “progressive,” however this group defines that. The whites are allowed to make up their own minds, to a limited extent (you know the contempt in which I hold the notion that people on the “left” or “right” can actually have identical positions on all issues — the notion upon which most political rhetoric in this country is based, tragically). But not the “People of Color.” Their attitudes are assigned, and they have no choice.

I do have to admit to being intrigued by this group’s combination of populism and affluence. That seems like a new wrinkle.

But we really don’t need any more efforts to herd groups of people together and assume they all think alike. The Democrats and Republicans are doing all they can on that score already.

A very UnParty press release from Rep. Taylor

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Still catching up on releases sent to me via email, I ran across this rather remarkable one from Rep. Bill Taylor, a Republican from Aiken:

Unanimous Agreement !

Passage of a

Bi-Partisan State Budget

Dear Friends:

In Washington D.C. partisan bickering seems to rule. In South Carolina elected officials know how to work together for better and more efficient government. Democrat and Republican legislators joined

Unanimous

together in the House of Representatives to unanimously pass a state budget this week.

Be assured there were disagreements and much debate on how to wisely spend your tax money, but both sides came together to pass a balanced budget that falls well within the proposed cap on spending. It focuses on the core functions of government – education, infrastructure and law enforcement – all of which are vital to our state’s growing economy.

The spending plan also provides tax relief, pays off debt and replenishes the state’s ‘rainy day’ reserve accounts.

Headlines from the $6 billion General Fund appropriations:

$152 million in additional funds for K-12 used in the classroom and not for educational bureaucracy.

$180 million set aside to pay for SC’s share of the deepening of the Charleston Port, the major economic driver for SC.

$77 million in tax relief to employers of all sizes to assist them with some relief from the high unemployment insurance costs caused by the recession.

$549 million in tax relief; 88% of which is property tax relief that must be granted annually if the relief is to remain.

Nearly $400 million to the Constitutional and Statutory Reserves – those funds go into our savings account for the next economic downturn – “The Rainy Day Fund’.

While the General Fund budget grows by 4.56%, this plan calls for far less spending as compared to the beginning of the recession. The increase is aimed at patching the severe cuts that have occurred in recent years in law enforcement and education. It is a fiscally conservative spending plan designed to make SC more competitive.

The Governor’s Criticism: In Governor Haley’s fly-around-the-state tour this week she promoted her idea for a one-year only tax cut benefiting major corporations. The House budget plan cuts taxes for every single SC employer, hopefully, that will stimulate hiring.

The Governor also took aim on House Republican’s 7 point comprehensive tax reform plan introduced this week. She called it “disingenuous” even though she and her staff worked with our tax reform committee over the past eight months and the legislation included everything she asked for and much more. (Read the Aiken Standard’s story on this topic.)

What’s Next for the Budget? The proposed budget heads to the Senate. If past years are any indication, senators will bloat the budget with additional spending. Please let your senator know that’s not acceptable.

Wow. First we have all the Senate Democrats voting for John Courson. Now we have a Republican — a House Republican (the most partisan kind), no less — bragging to his constituents that the budget just passed was bipartisan. Instead of the usual business of giving all the credit to the GOP and mentioning Democrats only as obstacles, if at all.

Oh never fear — the zampolits are probably rushing to censure these folks for such UnParty sentiments, denouncing them as double-plus ungood. But for now, I’m enjoying this little Prague Spring.

Darrell Jackson’s right; Dick Harpootlian’s wrong. Period.

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Have you seen this offensive nonsense?

Democratic chairman criticizes one of his own for endorsing a Republican

A Democratic state senator, who has endorsed an incumbent Republican state senator over his Democratic challenger, earned the wrath Monday of the state party’s chairman, Dick Harpootlian.

State Sen. Darrell Jackson, a Democrat, has endorsed state Sen. John Courson, a Republican, for re-election, The State newspaper reported Saturday. Jackson and Courson both represent Richland County, and Courson recently was elected the new leader of the Senate, largely on the support of Senate Democrats, including Jackson…

In an email Monday, Harpootlian urged Democrats to call Jackson’s office and “ask him to behave like the Democrat he claims to be.”

“I’m building a party here. It’s tough when, every time I put up a couple of bricks, one of my own party wants to take one down,” Harpootlian told The State…

Of course Sen. Jackson is supporting John Courson’s re-election. He and every other Democrat in the Senate just voted for him for Senate president pro tempore. You can’t be pro tem if you’re not a senator, so by implication, every Democrat just endorsed him as a senator.

They supported him over the partisan Republican option, Harvey Peeler, because Sen. Courson has served the Democrats of his Shandon district just as faithfully and ably as he has the (relatively few) Republicans. He has earned the trust of Sen. Jackson and his other Democratic colleagues.

Dick Harpootlian should butt out with his pointless partisanship. His attitude is what’s wrong with out politics today.

But I think voters should call Sen. Jackson’s office, as Dick suggests — and thank him for being a statesman.

Statement from “Lt. Governor McConnell” (might as well get used to hearing that, if you can)

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This came in a few minutes ago:

Statement by Lt. Governor McConnell

(COLUMBIA) In response to questions that have been raised about whether Lt. Governor Glenn McConnell might offer as a candidate for re-election to the South Carolina Senate, Lt. Governor McConnell issued the following statement:

“My heart has been touched by the hundreds of citizens in the Charleston area, from all walks of life, who have urged me to launch a campaign to regain my seat in the State Senate. I have dedicated the last thirty-one years of my life to serving as a Senator. Selfishly speaking, I would love to return to that position of honor. And no mere words can express how deeply grateful I am to the good people from my District for the trust they have placed in me.

However, I cannot in good conscience offer for re-election to the Senate this year. The timing of this constitutional succession makes it impossible for me to consider any other course.

On Tuesday, I took an oath of office to discharge the duties of Lt. Governor. The task of executing an orderly transition in that office and making certain its duties and responsibilities are properly organized requires a major effort over a considerable period of time. To regain my seat in the Senate, I would have to file for re-election literally within a few days and launch a campaign immediately. I cannot do that.

It is vitally important for those of us engaged in public service to keep our promises, uphold the rule of law, and honor the oaths we take. I vacated my Senate seat because the oath I took as President Pro Tempore required me to do so, Now I believe the oath I took as Lt. Governor requires me to make a good faith effort for a reasonable period of time to fulfill the duties of that office. Therefore, I will not offer as a candidate for election for Senate District 41 this year.

I know not what the future holds. All I can say for sure is that I have loved serving the people of Senate District 41. It is an honor that has occupied most of my adult life. With all my heart, I thank my neighbors for allowing me to represent them in the South Carolina Senate. And beginning immediately, I will do all I can to serve the people of South Carolina well as their new Lt. Governor.”

###

So even though it means giving up the chance to “return” to a “position of honor,” he’s now committed to making the most of the Gov Lite post. I suppose we’ll now see what can be done with that position by someone who knows how.

But I just can’t get over seeing his name after that title…

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

###

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.

Let’s all be Fascist Anarchists. Or whatever. Doesn’t really matter, as long as everybody’s in.

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Ferris wouldn't care if we were fascist anarchists. It still wouldn't change the fact that he doesn't own a car.

Corey Hutchins sends out a link to his ‘splainer on Ken Ard. In a nod to the cultural references of us old people, the headline begins, “An Ard Rain’s Gonna Fall…”

Corey and the Free Times are of course feeling validated by how this story came out. Or if they aren’t, they at least have reason to, as The New York Times notes:

A grand jury had been investigating Mr. Ard since July. He has already paid more than $72,000 in fines and other costs after an ethics commission found he improperly spent funds after winning election. His violation of campaign laws was first reported by The Free Times in Columbia.

But I had to take exception to a sidenote that Corey included in the email in which he shared the link. He wrote, “This story details the rise and fall of South Carolina’s first-term GOP lieutenant governor, Ken Ard, who resigned today amid a campaign finance scandal. It might serve as a caution for the idea of a one-party state…”

I responded:

Oh, I think a one-party state would be wonderful. Everyone just go ahead and say they’re Republicans, or Democrats, or Federalists, or Fascist Anarchists. It doesn’t matter what we call it (the names usually end up being meaningless as soon as parties grow large enough to win elections, anyway), as long as everybody’s in.

Then the voters will have to choose candidates based on their individual characters and qualifications, rather than according to which letter they have after their names.

One-party means NO party. Because you have to have two for the idiocy of partisanship.

Here’s what you say when you don’t like hearing good news

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Just now got to this Joe Wilson release from yesterday. The headline, “Wilson Reacts to February Jobs Report,” made me curious to see how Joe would try to make good employment news sound bad, and of course make it the fault of those awful liberal Democrats. Here’s how:

West Columbia, SC – Congressman Joe Wilson (SC-02) released the following statement regarding the latest unemployment report issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning:

“For the past three years, our nation’s unemployment has remained above eight percent. Almost one million Americans have lost their jobs since the President was sworn into office. According to recent Congressional Budget Office study, when considering every American who is currently without a job, our actual unemployment rate is 15.2 percent. The President promised that with the passage of his failed stimulus package in February 2009, the unemployment rate would not exceed eight percent. It is clear that the President’s failed policies and broken promises are not helping Americans find employment, but simply growing our national debt.

“Over the past year, House Republicans have passed dozens of job creating bills, most with bipartisan support. A majority of these pieces of legislation remain stalled in the Senate. Just yesterday, the House passed the JOBS Act, a collection of legislation that will help small business startups grow and expand, which will lead to job creation. It is my hope that the liberal-controlled Senate will take immediate action on the pending legislation in efforts to spur economic growth. It is past the time for Congress to work together to offset the failed policies the President has implemented and help put Americans back to work.”

There’s an art to this. A crude, lumpish sort of art, but an art nevertheless, with conventions to be followed. For instance, do you notice how he pointedly avoids the fact that President Obama supports the JOBS Act that he praises? That’s standard procedure in this genre. The president can only be mentioned in terms of “failed policies.” One must never, ever acknowledge that he supports the same policy that you do, because then you can’t paint politics in terms of a black-and-white battle between pure good and pure evil, and you don’t get to whip up your contributors as to how horrible the opposition is, so that they keep writing checks.

One grows so tired of this sort of thing.

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:

He’s had to give up arguably the most powerful position in our government.
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.

‘… and two if by sea’ — now, for something completely different in SC campaigning

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I thought this was rather novel:

State Senator Chip Campsen will host a two day Town Hall Cruise aboard his 100′ charter vessel, Spirit of the Lowcountry. The Cruise is scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, March 13 – 14. Senator Campsen will be joined by Congressman Tim Scott as they conduct floating town hall meetings at various marinas in Beaufort, Colleton and Charleston Counties. Citizens are welcome aboard for a town hall meeting at each marina.

The Town Hall Cruise is an opportunity for Campsen and Scott to cruise their new coastal legislative districts while greeting and listening to citizens along the way. They will also embark on land-based excursions to significant sites in their districts.

Senator Campsen and Congressman Scott’s new districts encompass vast portions of South Carolina’s coast as a result of the redistricting plan passed by the General Assembly last year. Campsen’s district spans 80 miles of coastline from Bulls Bay in Charleston County to Port Royal Sound in Beaufort. Scott’s district extends 115 miles from the Santee River in Charleston County to Beaufort’s Calibogue Sound. They will run for re-election in the new districts this year.

Senator Campsen said, “As a mariner and avid outdoorsman, I have spent a lifetime in the woods and coastal waters of Charleston, Colleton and Beaufort Counties. From the pristine Cape Romain Wildlife Refuge in the north, to the heart of the ACE Basin in the south, my district encompasses the most spectacular coastal resources in the nation. A cruise is the perfect way to see it. I am excited about representing it’s people and places.”

Congressman Scott said, “I look forward to representing the beautiful South Carolina coast running south from Charleston through Colleton and Beaufort Counties. When Chip suggested the Town Hall Cruise, I thought it was a great way to tour the district and hear from directly from its constituents.”…

This was from a release apparently sent by the cruise line that owns the boat. I tried to link to “Campsen for State Senate,” which the release said was paying for the release, but found nothing. The senator needs to work on his SEO. Maybe ADCO could help him with that…

This is my rifle, this is my gun… The Laurens County GOP purity test

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The thing that got me about the Laurens County GOP “Purity” pledge wasn’t the general idea about having politicians behave themselves on the sexual front. I’m for that. Mainly because I get sick of hearing about their failures in that department, when there are a lot of other things we should be talking about.

If you can find a candidate who never did anything wrong on that front and never will, I’m all for it. And I’m particularly sympathetic to the Laurens County folks, because they’ve endured such aggravation on that front:

The 28-point pledge passed last week appeared to be at least in part a response to an extramarital affair had by the county sheriff, who was also accused in a lawsuit of driving his mistress to get an abortion in a county-owned vehicle, leading to an inter-party squabble when the local group’s leader called for the sheriff to resign.

So I’ve got no beef with that. Nor am I bothered by the impracticality of, for instance, living in the United States in 2012 and not being exposed to pornography. You couldn’t, for instance, be on Twitter. The Twitter folks do an awesome job, I think, of keeping it clean. I’m surprised by how quickly new followers who are really just come-ons for porn sites disappear.

But still, there are those brief moments, before they get booted off as spam, when you innocently go, “Let’s see who’s following me now,” as I did this morning, and you make the mistake of clicking on the avatar, as I did this morning, and bang, you’re looking at a wet, naked girl in a bathtub. And I mean “girl,” as in so young you feel like the dirtiest man in the world for having glimpsed her even for a second. You see something like that, and the first thought in your head, if you’re a normal, red-blooded American male, is, “Now I can never run for office in Laurens County!” (By the way, lest any of you perves go to my Twitter feed and click on my followers trying to find the picture — I’ve already reported that account for spam, and it’s gone.)

But that’s not my biggest problem with the pledge, either. My biggest problem is that the “purity pledge” is… adulterated… with unrelated material:

The pledge is full of traditional Republican talking points in a conservative state – balancing budgets, opposing gun control laws and abortion, supporting school choice and a statement that marriage is “fundamental to the stability, betterment and perpetuation of our society.”

Nothing against balanced budgets, but what does that have to do with porn? And opposing gun control? Really? So you’re saying, you can’t touch a woman until you’re married to her, and you’re not to touch, um, porn ever, but you’re encouraged to sit there caressing and oiling up your Smith and Wesson?

Nothing against guns, either, but really — what does that have to do with purity?

Wow. Can you get more simplistic than this?

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The eagerness of both ends of the political spectrum to demagogue on gasoline prices is a powerful force. But I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite as simplistic as this before:

Gas prices are too high, and we need President Obama to listen.

With an 8% gas price spike last month and prices expected to rise further this summer, it’s time to solve our energy problems, provide real energy solutions for the American people, and get our economy focused on creating jobs. The president’s energy policy isn’t helping and begs the question: is the president even listening? We need the entire Keystone XL pipeline built, we need to drill domestically, and we need to stop depending on foreign oil. If we can lower gas prices, we also can grow our economy and create jobs for the American people.

Welcome to my new Rally page – where you can rally behind my pro-jobs, pro-growth campaign. Leave comments, donate, and support the campaign.

Let’s get this economy back on track.

What precisely does that mean — “President Obama: Will you listen?” What are we to suppose the president hasn’t heard? That there’s an uptick in gas prices? Hasn’t the predicted advent of $4-a-gallon gas been done to death over the last couple of weeks — even before it arrives?

And what, pray tell, is it that we’re to assume the president should do about the global market forces and geopolitics that are causing this momentary uptick?

And do you really believe that lower gas prices are in the long-term interests of the United States?

I was momentarily encouraged two weeks ago when I saw this headline on a release from Joe Wilson: “Wilson Supports All-Of-The-Above Energy Bill.” I thought maybe Joe was moving toward an Energy Party stance. But then I saw it was just more pandering about the gasoline prices that he and others are always so eager to exploit.

Yep, people don’t like paying more for gas; it’s true. I don’t. Present gas prices are hard for me to pay already. But I also know that Joe’s right when he says we need to “stop depending on foreign oil,” and that keeping prices low is the OPPOSITE of a policy that would encourage that.

A true, all-of-the-above energy policy would include, among other things:

Further development of domestic sources of fossil fuels.
A crash research and development program to get us OFF fossil fuels as soon as possible.
A gasoline tax increase that not only pays for research, but discourages overuse of the resource.
Conservation.
Public transit.
Expedited construction of nuclear power plants.

There was a bill, awhile back, that moved in the right direction. Unfortunately, Lindsey Graham withdrew his support for it when Republicans of Joe Wilson’s ilk persecuted him for the “sin” of working with a Democrat.

A rational policy aimed at energy independence would include elements that Republicans hate, and others that Democrats hate — and would require some general sacrifice. Don’t hold your breath waiting for Joe Wilson to push for anything like that. He’d rather pander to us.

My theory about the end of the draft and its relationship to political polarization

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On a previous post, we got into a discussion of the importance of character in political candidates. (I have come over time to believe that it is paramount, to the point of paying far less attention to policy proposals by comparison. And of course, as you know, I am positively inimical to ideologies.)

We had a good discussion, and achieved some degree of synthesis. Along the way to that, Phillip happened to mention the fact that many in politics use military service or the lack thereof as a shorthand marker for character. This is certainly true. But as we discussed the relationship of such service to character, I went on a tangent… and decided it would be worth a separate post, as follows…

I believe that our politics started becoming dysfunctional, in the ways that I decry (hyperpartisanship, adamant refusal to listen to, much less work with, the “other side”), when we ended the draft.

Before that, you didn’t find many men (most officeholders today are men, and it was more true then) who had not spent at least a portion of their youth in the military. That certainly exposed them to having to work with all sorts of people from different backgrounds (as Phillip noted here), but it did something else: it forged them into something larger than those differences.

The WWII generation in particular may have had its political differences, but those guys understood that as a country, we all share interests. They may have been (in fact, were) liberals or conservatives or Northerners or Southerners or what have you, but they understood that they were Americans first. For those who served after the war, when the military was on the cutting edge of integration, it helped give black and white a sense of shared identity as well. (Indeed the shared experience of the war, even though it was in segregated units, helped lay the groundwork for the next generation’s gains toward social justice.)

As the first wave of young men who had NOT served (starting with those who were of an age to have served, but had not, such as Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich) arrived in the top echelons of political power in the country, they brought with them a phenomenon that we hadn’t seen among their elders… a tendency to see fellow Americans who disagreed with them politically as the OTHER, even as “the enemy,” and a practically dehumanized enemy — one that must be opposed at all costs.

That said, Bill Clinton does deserve credit for rising above that new partisanship in many cases (welfare reform, deficit reduction) in order to accomplish things. And Newt Gingrich often worked with him to accomplish such goals.

But below them, among the young guys coming up in politics — the ones hustling around statehouses and working in campaigns — there was a generation rising that really could not think of the OTHER SIDE as someone to be communicated with, much less worked with.

I really believe that if those young guys had had the experience of being thrown together, outside of their communities, their cliques and their comfort zones, their heads shaved and put into uniforms, and required to work together in a disciplined manner toward common goals — THEY would be different, and consequently our politics would be different.

Mind you, I’m not saying we should reinstitute the draft in order to make our politics more civil (although there may be other reasons to have one). But I am saying that I believe today’s extreme polarization is in part an unintended function of that development in our history.

Maybe you consider the end of the draft to have been a good thing. What I’m asking you to do is consider that even good things can have unintended ill effects. The opposite is true as well. Y’all know how deeply opposed I am to abortion on demand. But it seems reasonable that it would have the effect claimed in Freakonomics of reducing crime over time (by instituting a sort of pre-emptive capital punishment of unwanted children, who are more likely than the wanted to become criminals). Just as it has had the undesirable effect in parts of Asia of drastically reducing the number of females in society.

Good actions have good and bad consequences; so do bad ones. It’s a complicated world.

Speaking of Mitt Romney cartoons…

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… I particularly got a kick out of Robert Ariail’s latest.

Little wonder that Robert won the Verner Award. Or all those other national and international awards, for that matter.

Let’s hear it for the flip-floppers — compared to the rigid ideologues, they are a breath of fresh air

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My friend Bill Day in Memphis sent out this cartoon, which depicts the main rap on Mitt Romney — that he changes his mind.

To me, that’s the man’s saving grace, to the extent that he has one. It’s what made me able to settle for him after Jon Huntsman dropped out of the SC primary — I believe he’s free of slavish devotion to any man’s ideology. That makes him anathema to the extremists in his party, but that’s not the only think I like about this trait.

Whatever else you can say about a man who changes his mind, at least it proves that he’s thinking. Even if all he’s thinking is, “I need to change on this to get elected,” he’s at least thinking.

Here’s my take on Romney: He simply doesn’t care deeply about the kinds of things that left and right tend to get angriest about, such as the Kulturkampf issues that I wish would stay out of our elections. Basically, he sees himself as a manager — he wants to run the United States as he has run other enterprises in the past, no matter what burning issues happen to be at the fore when he’s in office. He believes his executive experience makes him better able to run the country than Barack Obama.

Set aside whether I believe he’s right, I appreciate that that’s the way he seems to approach this.

To some extent, this is akin to what appealed to me about “No-Drama Obama.” I saw him as essentially a pragmatist, particularly on the thing that matters most in picking a Commander in Chief — international affairs and security. His adoring supporters heard something that they liked in what he said on the stump about war and peace and international relations, but I listened a bit more closely than many of them did — it was (as always) the first thing I asked him about when he was sitting next to me in the editorial board room, and I was satisfied with his answers. And I was not surprised when he embraced continuity once in office (although I was surprised when he became even more aggressive than George Bush in prosecuting the War on Terror).

I get a certain amount of that same vibe from Romney, and that’s what reassures me when I think of the possibility (not a very strong possibility at this point, but still a possibility) that he could replace Obama. I don’t think we’d see any dangerous shifts in the policies that matter. And when faced with an unforeseen crisis, I think he’d approach it with sober deliberation.

I am not, however, convinced at this point that he would do a better job than the incumbent. But I’m still watching.

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