Category Archives: Republicans

On the other hand, these are NOT the kinds of ads you want to see from one who would be governor

10 Replies

Yesterday, I praised Henry McMaster for his latest campaign ad. Yeah, the praise was pretty damned faint, and I disagreed strongly with a great deal of what he was saying, but at least it was done with a tone and attitude that made you feel good about South Carolina — or at least got the impression that Henry felt good about South Carolina. And that’s too rare these days from our friends in the GOP.

Take, for instance, the pair of videos unveiled today by the Nikki Haley and Gresham Barrett campaigns.

We have Nikki labeling her rivals with the GOP cusswords “Bailouts,” “Stimulus spending” and “Career politicians” — about as neat a job of giving opponents short shrift as I’ve ever seen (as if those terms sum up the totality of who these men are) — before going on to say, in that hagiographic way she has, that SHE is the one true “conservative.” Whatever the hell that word means anymore. (It certainly doesn’t mean what it did when I was coming up.)

Then we have Gresham Barrett promising to be the meanest of all to illegal immigrants (the scoundrels!), and pass “a common-sense Arizona law.”

Sorry, folks, but neither of these glimpses of your values or your attitudes toward the world in general make me feel good about the idea of you being my governor. Not that you’re trying to please me, I realize; but that’s all I have to go by…

Yes, Henry, THAT’s the way you do it…

4 Replies

… you play the guitar on the M-T-V…

Oops, got off track there. Wrong video.

What I meant to do was applaud Henry McMaster for a positive campaign ad, which helps remove the bad taste from some of his Obama-and-his-allies-are-dangerous-radicals approach of late.

I don’t agree with everything Henry’s saying in this ad, titled “It’s time to show the world what South Carolina can do”:

I have a plan to put South Carolina back on the Path to Prosperity. We’ll grow small business with lower taxes and less regulation. Encourage innovation and recruit high paying jobs in emerging industries. Expand our ports and open our economic door to the world. Improve education with choice, accountability and higher standards. It’s time to show the world what South Carolina can do!

… especially the idea that “choice” is the very first thing our schools need. Or that “lower taxes and less regulation,” while laudable in themselves, will substitute for building the workforce that businesses want and providing the basic societal infrastructure they need. But what I like here is that Henry’s talking about SC presenting a positive face to the world (for a change), instead of making us look like the wacky extremists that too many think we are already.

He’s talking about what he’s FOR, rather than trying to resonate with negative people about what they’re against.

Good one, Henry!

What’s the difference between ugly good ol’ boy populism and Palin/Haley populism? Lipstick.

78 Replies

Sorry not to be forthcoming with a post on the Sarah Palin/Nikki Haley event last evening. I’ve been too busy — my baby granddaughter spent the night with us last night, my youngest daughter came home from Charlotte and my wife and I had a lot of errands to run this morning (including, alas, taking her car in for several hundred dollars worth of repairs).

So I was living life instead of blogging. But I should add that I was glad I couldn’t post right away, because I’ve been… depressed… since that event. As I’ve turned over what to say about it in my minds (I almost corrected that to the singular after typing the S, but then realized that plural is correct; I am of several minds on all this), I’ve been unable to think of anything constructive to say. And even when I’m going to be scathingly critical of something, I want it to be for a purpose. I want there to be a constructive point in mind, something to add to a conversation that would help us all move forward somehow.

But I haven’t arrived. Instead, I’m feeling a level of alienation that would make Benjamin Braddock and Holden Caulfield seem happy and well-adjusted.

Part of it, but just a small part, is this problem I’ve been wrestling with of my increased sense of alienation from Republicans in general. I don’t like it; it runs against my grain. To react with constant negativity to Republicans and all their works suggest partisanship, an affinity for Democrats, to most people. Not to me — Lord knows, I still find the Democrats off-putting enough, and am still pleased not to identify with them either — but to other people. And when you write a blog, how you are perceived by others matters. But I can’t help it. While the Dems are merely no more irritating than usual these days, the Republicans have so aggressively, actively offended my sense of propriety and my intelligence as they have flailed about since the 2008 election, that even tiny things set me off now. I no longer have to see one of those maddening TV commercials — like the two I saw last night, Andre Bauer talking first and foremost about the need for smaller government (as if THAT were the main problem facing a state that’s laying off teachers left and right) and Henry McMaster talking about the “radicals” running Washington (as if that were any less crazy than the claims of the birthers). Now, just small things send me deeper into my funk. This morning I saw a sign for a candidate who had only one thing to say about himself, that he was a “Rock Solid… Republican” — as though that identification were sufficient, that reassurance that I am not one of them; I’m one of us. The sheer, obnoxious, impervious smugness of it…

(If I were a Democrat, I wouldn’t worry about this. They can console themselves with the fantasy that all they have to do is win the election, and their troubles are over. I’m always conscious of the fact that as many as 40 percent of voters would still be Republicans — just as between 30 and 40 percent are Democrats now, even with a Republican governing majority — and you’d still have to deal with them and reason with them if you really want to move our state forward. Especially in our Legislative State, you sort of have to build consensus to get things done. So when either party seems to be trying to drift beyond reason — say, when Dems were in the grips of Bush Derangement Syndrome — that worries me.)

But the alienation I’m feeling standing in that crowd of Haley and Palin supporters is different. Partly because these women aren’t positioning themselves as Republicans. On the contrary, they are relishing their animosity toward the people in their party who already hold a majority of public offices in this state. They are proud to antagonize and run against those Republicans with greater experience and understanding than they have. They turn their inexperience and lack up understanding of issues from a weakness into a virtue. Their fans cheer loudest when they hold up their naivete as a battle flag.

A little over a year ago, Nikki Haley was just an idealistic sophomore legislator who was touchingly frustrated that her seniors in her party didn’t roll over and do what she wanted them to do when she wanted them to do it. It didn’t really worry me when I would try to explain to her how inadequate such bumper sticker nostrums as “run government like a business” were (based in a lack of understanding of the essential natures not only of government, but of business, the thing she professes to know so well), and she would shake her head and smile and be unmoved. That was OK. Time and experience would take care of that, I thought. She was very young, and had experienced little. Understanding would come, and I felt that on the whole she was still a young lawmaker with potential.

I reckoned without this — this impatient, populist, drive for power BASED in the appeal of simplistic, demagogic opposition to experience itself. It’s an ugly thing, this sort of anti-intellectualism of which Sarah Palin has become a national symbol. This attitude that causes her to smile a condescending, confident smile (after all, the crowd there is on HER side) at protesters — protesters I didn’t even notice until she called attention to them — and tell them that they should stick around and maybe they would learn something. If a 65-year-old male intellectual with a distinguished public career said that to a crowd, everyone would understand it was ugly and contemptuous. But Sarah is so charming about it, so disarming! How could it be ugly?

Her evocations — echoed by Nikki — of traditional, plain values (and complementary exhibition of contempt for anyone who disagrees) seem so positive and good and right to the crowd that cheers such lines as Nikki’s about how good it is that traditional politicians are “afraid” (which, coming from different lips, would send a chill down spines). They don’t see the ugliness. After all, see how lovely the package is! See how they smile!

The thing is, I probably agree with these people about so much that they are FOR — traditional moral values, hard work, family, patriotism. And mine isn’t your left-handed liberal kind of patriotism (you know, as in “I oppose the war and criticize my country because I’m a REAL patriot,” etc.). No, in fact, my own kind of patriotism is probably even more martial and militaristic than that of these folks, if that’s possible, given my background. And I would never take a back seat to any of them in my belief in American exceptionalism. I may not like the smug way they talk about these things, but the values are there.

It’s the stuff that they’re AGAINST that leaves me cold. Paying taxes. Government itself. Moderation. Patience with people who disagree. Experience. Deep understanding of issues. They are hostile  to these things.

And their certainty, their smugness, is off-putting in the extreme.

But as I stood there in that crowd and listened to the cheers at almost every questionable statement those smiling ladies muttered, I despaired of ever being able to explain any of this to these folks, of ever having a meeting of the minds. It’s THEIR alienation that makes me feel so alienated…

And that’s what has me down. I hope it will pass. But it wasn’t a good way to spend a Friday evening.

My bad, Rob

6 Replies

Just now saw this e-mail from Rob Godfrey with the McMaster campaign:

Brad,

I realize you may not be in the loop, on top of the news or very well informed about the gubernatorial race these days, and that’s why I always hesitate to respond to anything that shows up on your blog. But I did want to point out that the Boiling Springs Tea Party endorsement of Henry was released both by the organization itself and our campaign before anyone knew anything about Sarah Palin’s trip to South Carolina. Thanks.

Rob Godfrey
McMaster for Governor

I immediately suppressed the irritation one would naturally feel at a complaint worded that way. I decided not to take his opening words as being deliberately insulting or anything like that.

Instead, I immediately acknowledged his point and promised to pass it on to my readers here on the blog. (Golly, I’m grown up — don’t you think?) Since I was seeing it all on Friday, I had failed to notice that the item on the campaign Web site and the Tweet that drew me to it were both dated the 13th — the same day as Nikki Haley’s announcement that Sarah Palin was coming to endorse her. I was certain, there for a moment, that he was wrong, because I was sure that when I saw that Tweet it was only one or two down on his Twitter account — but I guess they don’t post that often, because sure enough, it was the 13th.

So, sorry about that. Of course, it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve known for some time that Nikki has been pulling out all the stops to be THE Tea Party candidate.  Nor does it change my long-standing disappointment with Henry for refusing to distance himself from his party’s recent drift to the fringes — for, instead, pursuing them with his outrageous rhetoric about those “radicals” in Washington destroying our American way of life. And I realize that this would be most irritating to one in the trenches trying to get Henry elected. If I were on his campaign, I would be really ticked at someone like me. I would see that person as “out of the loop” to the extent that he was unrealistic about what it takes to get nominated in a Republican primary. I mean, doesn’t that washed-up, clueless Brad Warthen understand that Henry is the best of the Republicans, that he’s really a Graham Republican instead of a DeMint Republican, even if he dare not come out and say so right now?

Thinking about it, imagining that point of view, I almost get mad at myself.

In fact, I AM mad at myself for getting the sequence of events  wrong, and attaching importance to it. And I’m truly sorry.

Ah, Jeez, Edith! Now it’s a competition…

5 Replies

No sooner does Nikki Haley announce that she’s sewn up the backing of the goddess of the Tea Party movement than Henry McMaster has to weigh in with a “Me, too!”…

McMaster earns Upstate Tea Party endorsement

May 13th, 2010
Conservative group says attorney general is candidate Tea Party can trust
COLUMBIA, S.C. – One of South Carolina’s largest conservative grassroots organizations, the Boiling Springs Tea Party, today endorsed Henry McMaster for Governor. The Boiling Springs Tea Party has organized a network of thousands of Upstate conservatives since its founding last year and will encourage them to turn out voters for Henry McMaster in the June 8 Republican gubernatorial primary.

In a press release, the group praised McMaster’s “outstanding character, judgment, experience, Christian conservative values, understanding of the state’s needs and proven dedication to accountable public service.”

Boiling Springs Tea Party organizer Maria Brady said in part, “Our search for a gubernatorial candidate with conservative Christian values grounded in the Constitution led us toward Henry because he embodies the ideals of our Founding Fathers. [H]e is clearly a candidate Tea Party patriots can trust to fight President Obama” and “stop bailout-peddling Washington politicians…”

Oh, but get this next part:

Attorney General McMaster thanked the group for the endorsement. “Washington radicals threaten our very way of life,” he said. [boldface emphasis mine]

And to thing I was wringing my hands over whether I was engaging in extreme rhetoric. Guess I can relax, huh? I’m the very soul of self-restraint, by comparison.

Ah, Henry, we hardly knew ye…

Sarah Palin coming to SC to back Nikki Haley

22 Replies

OK, just in case you didn’t have enough reasons to worry about Nikki Haley — the Sanford endorsement, all that Sanford cabal money buying ads in her behalf, and so forth, here’s one more for ya, courtesy of our ol’ buddy Peter Hamby:

(CNN) – Sarah Palin will be in Columbia, South Carolina on Friday to endorse state Rep. Nikki Haley for governor.

This will mark the former Alaska governor’s first political visit to the early primary state. Jenny Sanford, ex-wife of current Republican Gov. Mark Sanford, will also campaign with Haley on Friday…

“It is a tremendous honor to receive Governor Palin’s endorsement,” Haley said Thursday in a statement. “Sarah Palin has energized the conservative movement like few others in our generation.”Palin’s endorsement of Haley puts her at odds with her running mate in the 2008 presidential election, Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona.

McCain has backed McMaster in the primary. McMaster chaired McCain’s South Carolina campaign in 2008.

Man-oh-man … like we didn’t have enough Crazy in South Carolina, we need to start importing it…

Hey, all that pandering to the Tea Party crowd Nikki’s been doing has paid off, huh?

Folks, I have a feeling that the GOP contest for the gubernatorial nomination just became an ideological knife fight. This is NOT going to be pretty.

On the bright side, this should be a settler for those ugly nativists who tried to trash Nikki in her first election — from whom I defended her, back in the days before she started going after the nativist vote (the only conclusion I can draw from her embrace of the TPs). Now they’ll have to face that she MUST be a “real American” — or else the self-appointed final arbiter of such things wouldn’t be coming to endorse her.

Senate easily overrides on cigarette tax

1 Reply

While I was at a long lunch for the Azerbaijani journalists sponsored by the Columbia World Affairs Council, I got the following two e-mails in quick succession:

SC Senate GOP scsenategop

Senate overrides cig tax veto. about 3 hours ago via TweetDeck

PhilBaileySC

33 to 13. Cig Tax Veto overridden about 3 hours ago via UberTwitter

That good news was coming from the spokesman for the Republicans in the Senate and his Democratic counterpart. And while they passed it on without comment, it was an occasion for rejoicing across party barriers.

This is a rare moment when the SC Legislature actually overcomes barriers and its own inertia to do the right thing. It happens so seldom that we should celebrate it.

Sure, there are plenty of ways to denigrate this accomplishment, and I’m familiar with all of them. A few:

It took only what, a decade? In spite of the fact that we’ve known for years that three-fourths of South Carolinians favored it?

In fact, 70 percent have indicated in polls that they would have gone all the way to the national average — an increase of twice this much — but the Legislature never even seriously considered doing that at any time.

Far too much of the discussion over the years has been over how to spend the money, even though that was irrelevant to whether the tax should be raised. The point in raising it was to price cigarettes beyond the reach of teen, and experience in other states has indicated that raising the price via taxes is a very effective way of accomplishing that.

Probably more than a few legislators voted this way, in defiance of their own inclinations, just for the pleasure of stuffing it down Mark Sanford’s throat.

But let’s set all that aside. The fact is that we no longer have the shameful distinction of being the one state that does the most to make sure kids have access to cheap cigarettes. And some lawmakers understood the importance of this opportunity to do the right thing for once. For instance, I share this other Tweet from Phil Bailey:

PhilBaileySC

Sen. John Matthews just arrived. Been out with a back injury for a month. Cig Tax vote is that important to him. about 3 hours ago via TweetDeck

Let’s savor that accomplishment, and then march forward to address some of the other things we should have done years ago in South Carolina.

Graham not so ‘cool’ now on global warming

2 Replies

Back in late February, Tom Friedman wrote the following about our senior senator:

And for those Republicans who think this is only a loser, Senator Graham says think again: “What is our view of carbon as a party? Are we the party of carbon pollution forever in unlimited amounts? Pricing carbon is the key to energy independence, and the byproduct is that young people look at you differently.” Look at how he is received in colleges today. “Instead of being just one more short, white Republican over 50,” says Graham, “I am now semicool. There is an awareness by young people that I am doing something different.”

But today, we have the following  release from some of his erstwhile young fans:

Youth Activists Demand S.C. Leadership on Energy and Climate Legislation

(Columbia, SC) – Responding to Senator Lindsey Graham’s withdrawal from federal energy legislation and the offshore oil disaster, youth activists in South Carolina have called on the Senator to renew his leadership.

“Students at Clemson were proud to stand behind our hometown Senator in pushing for federal energy and climate legislation,” says Gabriel Fair, co-president of Clemson University’s Student for Environmental Action. “Lindsey Graham’s leadership really encouraged the young people who are fighting to cut carbon pollution and create a clean energy economy in this state.”

Over the previous months, Graham has led in federal energy and climate legislation. In February editorial in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman quoted Graham saying, “I have been to enough college campuses to know if you are 30 or younger this climate issue is not a debate.  It’s a value.  These young people grew up with recycling and a sensitivity to the environment – and the world will be better for it.”

Senator Graham’s withdrawal from the federal energy debate has disappointed students across South Carolina. “We’d like to stand behind our Senator again and hope he comes back to the table and strengthens the bill further,” says Fair.

Students in South Carolina are looking for the jobs comprehensive energy and climate legislation would produce. According to Winthrop University student Lorena Hildebrandt, “Young people face the highest unemployment rates in this country right now. Like many of my friends, I’ll be graduating college soon and looking for a job.  That’s why building a new clean energy economy is so important to young people. It’s absolutely necessary we pass comprehensive federal legislation to create a clean energy economy.”

Graham’s backing away from the process occurs at a crucial time for federal energy legislation.

In light of the unfolding oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Americans are reconsidering our country’s dependence on oil. Recent polls have indicated that the Deepwater Horizon explosion has actually bolstered support for federal climate legislation, while support for drilling is falling.

According to a poll conducted last week by Clean Energy Works, 61 percent of Americans now favor a climate bill that would cut carbon pollution.  Meanwhile, CBS News reported this week that forty-one percent of Americans feel the risks of offshore drilling are too high, up from twenty-eight percent in 2008.

Students on the coast are worried about what Graham’s pulling out will mean for federal legislation on energy and climate. “We’re disappointed here on the coast that Senator Graham walked away from federal energy and climate legislation,” says Marissa Mitzner, Sustainability Coordinator at Coastal Carolina University. “Especially with the oil disaster in the Gulf unfolding and our own South Carolina coasts vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and the threat of oil drilling, we need Senator Graham’s leadership more than ever.”

###

Face it, senator: You’re not even “semicool” now, not with the kids.

As for what a cool guy like me thinks, well, I’d certainly appreciate a better understanding about why the Dems’ recent moves on immigration mean you can’t lead on this.

Oh, and kids — Tom Friedman didn’t write that in “and editorial.” It was a column. He doesn’t write editorial.

You mean that’s NOT a Haley campaign ad?

9 Replies

Under the headline, “Is this even legal?,” Wesley Donehue shares the above ad being paid for by ReformSC.

Which makes me wonder — surely no one’s pretending this is anything other than a Nikki Haley ad… are they?

Well, maybe there’s one difference… I’m thinking Nikki herself might be embarrassed to pour it on THIS thick. Wouldn’t she?

Shocker: Sanford’s favorite club backs Nikki

7 Replies

Chad Walldorf at the SC Club for Growth is a nice, sincere guy, and I’ve always liked Nikki Haley. But both of them are so in step with Mark Sanford that there’s not a bit of surprise in this:

The S.C. Club for Growth has endorsed the Republican gubernatorial bid of Lexington Rep. Nikki Haley. Club chairman Chad Walldorf said Haley bets fits the group’s belief in limited government and free market principles.”We have seen Representative Haley’s incredible work in the South Carolina legislature and are thrilled to have a candidate with her track record running for our state’s top office,” Walldorf said in a statement. “As our governor, Nikki Haley will continue to make South Carolina more business friendly, protect our hard-earned tax dollars, and perhaps most importantly, shine a light on the darkest corners of state bureaucracy.”…

‘The epitome of conservativeness’

30 Replies

I’ve never had much to say about Sarah Palin one way or the other, because I’ve always had trouble putting what I think of her into words, but one of her supporters does so in the video above, explaining that she is:

… the epitome of conservativeness.”

Just so. It’s not that she has any actual conservative ideas, or any ideas at all. This is not to run her down. There are different kinds of people in the world, as my late mother-in-law used to say. Most are either people people or things people. When I protested to my wife that I saw myself as neither, she said there was a third, less-mentioned, category, idea people.

Sarah Palin is not one of them. Frankly, I suspect she’s a people person, which I think is what a lot of her supporters sense. But I haven’t been able to stand to observe her long enough to tell. Just last night, I surfed past an interview she was having with one of those talking heads, and I could only listen for about five seconds, but ranted at my wife about what I heard in those five seconds for the next minute as I surfed on, which was my wife’s hint that I was feeling a lot better and could start fetching my own cups of convalescent ginger ale.

What got me was that she didn’t have ANYthing to say. She ranted against the stimulus, and when the friendly interviewer asked her what she’d do instead, she slid into vague mumblings about cutting government and returning power to individuals — incantations, rather than arguments.

She doesn’t so much have conservative thoughts as she is… conservative-y. Conservativish. Just loaded with “conservativeness,” which I take to mean the appearance, the general aura of being “conservative,” which is a quality that fewer and fewer of those who embrace the description can coherently describe (and before you liberals start feeling all smug, you have your own set of problems, and they’re not that different).

As you get farther into this clip, if you’re like me, you start to feel sorry for the subjects. I mean, it really IS mean and unfair to ask private citizens who love Sarah Palin to explain their views. I started feeling bad for them the way I felt bad for the gun nuts in “Bowling for Columbine.” Rather than getting upset over our overarmed society, I got ticked at Michael Moore for being a sneering bully.

Which of course is another secret to the Sarah Palin appeal: She generates that kind of resentment toward elites (not that Michael Moore is an elite, even though he thinks he is, even though he would claim that he’s not, and so on…). It may be THE secret of her celebrity.

You hold a microphone in front of Sarah Palin, or someone who admires Sarah Palin (for any qualities other than her undeniable pulchritude), and keep asking “Why?” or “Could you explain your view about that?” and you’re going to come across as obnoxious.

… but I promise to read Faulkner before I do Palin

11 Replies

Yeah, I said some fairly dismissive things about William Faulkner, but you Faulknerheads out there can take comfort from the fact that I did so from pure ignorance.

And here’s something else to make you feel better: Even though everybody and his brother is going on and on and on about the new book by Sarah Palin (there’s something oxymoronic in that combination of words, “book by Sarah Palin,” don’t you think?), I can assure you, with no doubt of ever breaking my promise, that I will read Faulkner before I read Palin. Trust me on this.

There are a lot of things I’m going to read before I get to Faulkner — that new Trotsky book I got for my birthday, that biography of Alexander Hamilton that’s been on my shelf for several years now (I asked for it for my birthday or Christmas after Fritz Hollings recommended it), the Bible from cover to cover, those last few books of the Aubrey-Maturin series that I’ve been saving, and definitely The Grapes of Wrath, which my wife can’t believe I haven’t read yet, to name but a few.

But there is no way that a book by Sarah Palin will ever make that list. For one thing, I never read those books that “everybody’s talking about,” especially books by or about current political figures. The only reason I read those autobiographies by Obama and McCain last year was as pegs for those two really long columns (“Barack Like Me” and “Faith of Our Fathers“) I was going to write anyway. In other words, purely for work and not for fun.

But even if I read books like that, I can’t imagine why I’d be interested in one by Sarah Palin. Not so much that I have an aversion as the fact that I completely lack any positive motivation to do so.

Charleston GOP praises Graham with faint damnation

5 Replies

The Charleston County GOP has censured Lindsey Graham for the unpardonable sin of … gasp! … bipartisanship. From the resolution:

“U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham in the name of bipartisanship continues to weaken the Republican brand and tarnish the ideals of freedom, rule of law, and fiscal conservatism…”

Weakening the GOP brand? Golly, who’da thunk it was possible?

The True Believers of the Holy City also complained that their senior senator “has shown a condescending attitude toward his constituents” with regard to their hyperventilating against his attempt at comprehensive immigration reform.

The Lowcountry GOPpers really don’t have to go to this much trouble to make me like Lindsey. I already thought he was a good guy, who would be welcome in the UnParty any time; they don’t have to go to this much trouble to reinforce it.

Bauer looking for “creative way to announce”

9 Replies

Andre

This morning Andre Bauer stopped by my table at breakfast, and while chatting picked up the Metro section of The State and glanced at the story about Jenny Sanford endorsing Nikki Haley.

“What do you think about that?” I asked. What he thought, he said, was that it would really mean something if Jenny could deliver some of the Sanford financial backing to Nikki. This led to some general remarks on what a shame it was that money meant so much in politics, and so forth, but then Andre shifted gears to say that he was proof that money could be overcome — “Your paper (a reference to a newspaper with which I was once associated) reported that Campbell outspent me three to one,” for all the good it did him. He also noted with satisfaction that Mike Bloomberg, despite outspending his opponent by significant margins, was barely re-elected.

I noted that Andre always seemed to overcome the odds by being a “hard worker,” which is true, and which he did not dispute, that being a large part of his public persona.

Then he said he was trying to think of “a creative way to announce,” which of course would give him some exposure he wouldn’t have to pay for.

“You got anything for me?” — meaning ideas. Nope, I said — and managed to hold myself back from begging him to give Sanford just a little longer to resign (not that any amount of time would be enough, of course) …

Nikki gets a Sanford endorsement that actually might help her

9 Replies

The brains of the Sanford outfit has sent out a letter endorsing Nikki Haley, which is of a whole lot more value than if the gov himself were to do so.

Of course, in terms of substance, it’s the same. Which is to say, an endorsement of Nikki is an endorsement of more of the same stuff we’ve suffered through for seven years. An excerpt from Jenny Sanford’s letter:

With many of our public schools shamefully underperforming, I dearly wish for better educational opportunities for our children. With a state government structure that rewards the status quo and stands in the way of change, I wish for vital government reforms. It’s amazing how much better off the people of our state would be if those things happened.
But they won’t happen by just wishing for them. They won’t happen without an enormous amount of hard work. And they won’t happen without making a lot of entrenched powers upset.
I’m proud of the work Mark and his Administration have done over almost seven years now, trying very hard to move the ball forward on all of those fronts. Little in life that is worth accomplishing ever comes without some setbacks along the way. While the Sanford Administration has had some defeats in its efforts to reduce out-ofcontrol state spending, reform archaic state government structure, and give children more educational choices, it has also had successes.

Jenny was always the brains behind Mark. So while her endorsement might generate more sympathy, in terms of political substance, it means the same.

Mild-mannered demagoguery in the echo chamber

18 Replies

Just now I got an automated phone call on my land line inviting me to take part in a telephone “town hall meeting” with Jim DeMint. So I listened in.

And first, I want to say that I appreciate that Jim DeMint is mild-mannered. None of that shouting, in-your-face demagoguery for him.

But that said, I have to say that after awhile, hearing some fairly extreme ideas espoused mildly and politely starts to creep me out.

Basically, the way this thing worked was that ordinary, regular, plain, normal, average Americans in the 2nd District asked the senator question after question in a manner that was rather like T-ball. Nobody was trying to throw it past him, and he kept saying “good question” to little sermonettes from folks who are worried about that Barack Obama guy giving away “our freedoms,” on issue after issue. Whether we’re talking global warming or trade or monetary policy to crime to health care, that’s what it always boiled down to: Thank goodness we have you, senator, to stand up for our freedoms. No problem, folks, glad to do it, and be sure to sign up for my “Freedom Alert” reports…

When somebody calls in, truly worried about crime — her house has been broken into twice, she said — and says “Is it possible that they’ll be able to take away our constitutional right to bear arms?,” it seems to me that the right thing to do would be say, “Of course, not — no one is trying to do that to you.” But not Jim. In his own mild, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-mouth way, he makes sure he gives the impression that the only reason ATF goons aren’t about to batter down your door and take your guns from your cold, dead fingers is because he’s there stopping ’em: “I’m doing all I can,” he promises, “to make sure we don’t lose our constitutional rights.”

So why am I not reassured?

Yes, I could have hit a button and tried to butt in with a “Hey, wait a minute” sort of question, but all those years of not upstaging regular folks — of not wanting to become the story — stopped me.

One guy, though, did — right at the end — ask Jim what in the world would be wrong with ordinary working Americans having the same kind of health coverage as Congress (this was the only question I heard on the subject that wasn’t about that Obama wanting to take away our Medicare and turn it over to the gummint). Jim assured him that HE wanted ordinary Americans to have good health care, which was why he provided insurance when he was an employer in the private sector, and that he thought members of Congress should be forced to sign up for whatever gummint plan it cooked up, etc., etc. — everything, of course, except to say that yes, members of Congress are in a government health care system, and it works just great for them.

Far more typical was Hazel, who wanted to know why she had worked to pay into Medicare for over 40 years, and now that Obama “wants to take it away from us.”

And of course, Jim didn’t say, “You like Medicare? So what’s wrong with having it for everybody?” That would apparently defeat his purposes.

Anyway, when it was over Jim went away feeling all that much better about his brave stances against health care reform and cap and trade and so forth.

Maybe I should have said something. You think I should have said something? I should have said something…

Oh, give it a rest, Gresham…

27 Replies

Here I am, trying to figure out what the House just passed in the way of a health care bill, and I get this Tweet from Gresham Barrett:

greshambarrett

Sad day 4 Freedom. I worry abt my children. Big Gvt-more red tape-more debt-is NOT the answer. Today-our Forefathers cry.1 minute ago from mobile web

Oh, give it a rest, Gresham. What pitiful histrionic nonsense. I don’t know about your forefathers, but mine were made of sterner stuff.

I don’t know at this point whether this was a good bill or a bad bill, but I suspect rather strongly that whether it was the best conceivable bill, or the worst thing you ever saw, or somewhere in between, ol’ Gresham would still be over-emoting against it. He’s been overreacting to all sorts of stimuli this week, hasn’t he?

Anybody agree with Barrett about the Navy brig?

29 Replies

Now to the substance of what Mullins McLeod was getting on Gresham Barrett about.

As I mentioned before in one of my last columns for the paper, Rep. Barrett didn’t seem to have a reason for running for governor. He could clearly state what he wanted to do, or anything special that he brought to the job (which is probably why he dodged talking to me for a couple of weeks, until I got really insufferable with one of his staffers — avoiding free media is just bizarre behavior in a gubernatorial candidate, and it really stood out), which was not good.

Now, he’s apparently decided he wants to grab attention and break out of the pack in the worst way — which is exactly what he’s done.

In the playbook of the kind of politician who has a very low opinion of the electorate, he’s doing everything right: He’s appealing to xenophobia, to the Not In My Backyard mentality, to insecurity, and sticking it to the administration that happens to be of the other party. He accomplishes all that by griping loudly and obnoxiously about the idea of the Obama administration bringing “detainees” from Guantanamo to the Navy Brig in Charleston.

Folks, I’d just as soon they stay in Gitmo, because I’ve always thought that was an excellent place to keep them, practically speaking. First, it’s off our soil, which keeps them in limbo as far as our legal system is concerned. You’ll say, “But that’s just what’s WRONG with Gitmo,” but the fact is that prisoners who are taken in such unconventional warfare, many of whom are sworn to do anything to harm Americans if given the chance, are different either from people arrested in this country under civil laws or captured in a conventional conflict.

And it’s secure as all get-out.

But… and this is a big “but”… as convenient as it might be for us to keep people whom we believe to be terrorists on a sort of Devil’s Island, as practical as it might be — it hasn’t been good for our country. Why? Because we’re not the 19th century French. We aren’t governed by a Napoleonic Code. We’re all about innocence until proven guilty. And while we may sound like damnable fools for extending such niceties to people who thought 9/11 was really cool and would like to see another, we do stand for certain things, and Gitmo has given this country a huge black eye that it can’t afford. We have to be better than that.

For that reason, even if John McCain had been elected instead of Obama, we’d be closing Guantanamo. (As Lindsey Graham says, we might have done it in a more organized manner, but we’d still be doing it.) And finding a secure place to put those people is part of that process. Guess what? Our allies don’t want them. So we’re stuck with them.

And that makes the brig down in Charleston as good a place as any. Hey, I don’t want them there, but sometimes, somebody besides our men and women in uniform has to put up with something they don’t like in our nation’s greater interest in this War on Terror.

And does anyone truly doubt the ability of the United States Navy to keep those people secure there? I don’t. I suspect we could always transfer up a few more Marines from Guantanamo if we think we don’t have enough security there. It certainly fits the brig’s mission, which is officially stated as follows:

The mission of the Naval Consolidated Brig Charleston is to ensure the security, good order, discipline, and safety of prisoners and detained personnel; to retrain and restore the maximum number of personnel to honorable service; to prepare prisoners for return to civilian life as productive citizens; to prepare long term prisoners for transfer to the Federal Bureau of Prisons or the United States Army Disciplinary Barracks; and when directed by superior authority, detain enemy combatants under laws of war.

So basically, Rep. Barrett’s attempt to score points on this issue is ugly, petty, and insulting.

Just for the sake of argument, does anyone agree with him?

Yep, the plaid shirt guy

17 Replies

Alexander78

Back on this post, I made a gratuitous name-dropping reference to covering Lamar Alexander back during his gubernatorial campaign in 1978, and Kathryn replied with a suitably unimpressed, “Plaid shirt guy. Swell.”

Indeed, as name-dropping goes, “Lamar” isn’t the same as “Elvis.” So it was a forgettable reference.

I only return to it because, coincidentally, I was going through even MORE files from my newspaper career just hours later, and ran across these two shots from that week I followed Alexander in 1978. I practically lived with the guy that whole time. I flew on his campaign plane with him (with my paper paying a pro rata share of the cost), went where he went, ate where he ate… I’d get about five or six hours away from him at night, and spent a couple of hours of that in my hotel room writing. We used to do stuff like that in those days — actually cover political campaigns.

This was a pretty exciting experience for me, my first exposure to statewide politics as a reporter. The following week, I was following his opponent, Jake Butcher, just as closely. We sort of tag-teamed the candidates in the last weeks of the election.

Anyway, the photo above, with Lamar’s tasteful plaid shirt clashing with a really ugly plaid sofa (be grateful it’s not in color) in the back room of a political headquarters in Nashville, captures a tense moment for the candidate. He had just been interrupted during this Nashville leg of his celebrated walk across the state by a reporter from the Tennessean with legal papers in hand. The legal papers — affidavits, I believe — had something to do with a business deal Alexander had been involved in. I want to say it had to do with ownership of some Ruby Tuesday restaurant franchises.

Anyway, somebody was alleging there was something irregular about it, and the candidate was being confronted with it. Big drama. This was his first look at the document, and there he sits with a suitably furrowed brow while we stare at him and wait for a reaction. One of us (guess who) is actually taking pictures of this potentially bad moment for Lamar Alexander. We were all about the next political scandal in those days, and Lamar had served in the Nixon White House, so he knew to take such things seriously, and soberly, and not complain about the pesky press.

But I will confess now to a bit of feeling bad for the guy at that moment. We weren’t supposed to feel that way, but I did. Even as I was dutifully taking the picture (if this is the end of his candidacy, I captured the moment!), I was sort of thinking it would be kind of nice if the guy had a moment to read this in privacy and compose his thoughts — if only so we could get actual facts from him instead of a gut reaction. But we didn’t allow him that.

Anyway, to balance that, here’s a happier moment below. It was taken on his campaign plane, as it was preparing for takeoff, early on the morning of Oct. 18, 1978 (going by the newspaper). The Yanks, as you see, had just won the World Series again. Check out Jimmy Carter and Moshe Dayan. The day was going well so far — no scandals yet — and was filled with possibilities.

I like the way the light works in the picture. I was a pretty fair photographer, for a reporter.

Sorry if I’m boring y’all. Don’t know why I’m taking y’all down memory lane. Oh yes, I do: This is my way of getting y’all to think, Ol’ Brad has been covering this politics stuff up close and personal for a long, LONG time, so maybe sometimes his reflections are based in experience and not just gut reactions.

Is it working?

Anyway, it’s certainly been a long time. Burl and I graduated from Radford High just seven years before this…

lamar78

Delleney sounds (almost) like my kind of conservative

1 Reply

Not really knowing Greg Delleney, I took some interest in this mini-profile John O’Connor included in his story today:

Often quiet and funny, Delleney is a member of a loose-knit – and often low-brow – lawmaker lunch group, the House Bi-Partisan Eatin’ Caucus.

Prior to this year, Delleney was not among Sanford’s chief critics. “I agreed with him more than I disagreed with him.”

Chester County GOP chairwoman Sandra Stroman said she has known Delleney, who served in the Navy for three years, for 15 years.

“He’s generally a very quiet person,” she said. “He listens a lot.”

Though many South Carolinians are tired of hearing about Sanford, Stroman thinks Chester Republicans support Delleney.

“I don’t think it’s personal,” Stroman said. “Greg Delleney is a man who believes in right and wrong, and I think he comes down on the side of right every time.”

Delleney is among the strongest right-to-life supporters in the Legislature, typically introducing a new bill each year to limit access to abortions.

This year, Delleney successfully shepherded through the House a bill that requires a 24-hour wait before a woman can receive an abortion. He also scuttled a bill that would have provided dating violence counseling for teens by adding an amendment restricting the counseling to heterosexual couples.

Delleney has critics.

“I like Greg. He is very passionate about what he believes,” said state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg. “My problem is he is foisting his moral beliefs on public policy. I’m not surprised he’s pushing this, particularly when sex is involved.”

That makes him sound, in general terms, like the kind of conservative I like — as opposed to the Sanford hyperlibertarian type, or the type that gets extremely worked up over illegal immigration. I much prefer the Brownbacks and the Huckabees to the Sanfords and the DeMints.

Not that I would do everything he does. I don’t think I would have adding the hetero clause to the violence counseling thing. That’s the kind of making-an-issue-of-something-that-isn’t-an-issue stuff where social conservatives lose me (at least, that’s the impression I remember having at the time).

So he’s not exactly the kind of conservative I’d be were I to consent to being called a conservative (or a liberal, or any of those oversimplifications). I’m still more the John McCain type.