Category Archives: Republicans

Governor working his (national) constituency

From time to time I mention the constituencies that our governor cultivates with a success that stands in sharp contrast to his inability (and/or unwillingness) to get anything done working with elected officials of his own party here in South Carolina. So you regular readers know what starry-eyed fans he has among the Club for Growth and the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal.

Between them, those two did all they could to construct an alternative universe in which Mark Sanford was seen as a viable second banana on the national ticket this year. Cato

But I have been remiss in failing to note that there’s another group out there that is a natural part of the constituency that our governor continues to cultivate: The Cato Institute, of course.

Guess where that libertarian think tank held its annual retreat? And guess who spoke to them, and got his picture featured as the dominant art on the organization’s most recent slick newsletter? You guessed it! Y’all are so smart!

Oh, as long as I’m keeping y’all up with the governor’s doings on the national front — and you’ll notice that he seems to be devoting a lot of energy to heading the Republican Governor’s Association, and writing for the WSJ, and speaking to Cato, and generally keeping his name out there (and quick, name three things he’s done for SC in the past month, or even ONE thing other than complaining about Mack Whittle, while he’s been doing all this national stuff) — I should give you a link to his latest op-ed piece in the WSJ, saying he does NOT want the federal gummint sending any bailout-style aid to SC.

You say I already TOLD you about that? No, this is ANOTHER piece in the same paper, saying the same thing. The only difference is that this time, he got another governor to sign it.

So that makes two brave boys standing on the burning deck…

Actually, though, I think maybe Gov. Perry deserves the top billing he got on this one. It’s a little better written, the cliches not nearly as shopworn as those in the piece the gov penned all by his lonesome. It’s also different in that it doesn’t engage in naked self-aggrandizement to the extent that the first one did. See if you agree.

GOP’s in worse trouble than you thought

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There is a tiresome sameness to the reaction of Republicans to this year’s elections. And this piece by Katon Dawson on Politico is an excellent example of what I’m talking about, replete with the same cliches about "courage of convictions" and "walking the walk" that brought the GOP to this pass.

The irony is that after admitting what should be obvious, that the GOP is "in need of new ideas, new
messengers and a new focus in order to move forward as a party," Katon falls back on this stuff:

What really cost Republicans at the ballot box during the past two
election cycles was forgetting a lesson many of us learned from our
parents — say what you mean and mean what you say.
… Our elected
officials, candidates and party leaders dutifully repeated the
principles of our party, but once in office, too many abandoned those
principles. Whether it was abandoning our commitment to fiscal
responsibility, turning a blind eye to serious character flaws in some
of our candidates, or providing a handout to big business at the
expense of the American taxpayers, we seemed to lose the courage of our
convictions.

Of course, the context of this piece is Katon’s campaign to be national party chairman, as he states openly. He argues against claims that "Republicans were too conservative, that we’ve become a regional party and that
we’re clinging to an old playbook." He says that speaking from the conservative wing of the party, from its regional heart of South Carolina, and gripping the old playbook tightly to his chest. For instance, he says Republicans must:

Renew our commitment to our Party’s timeless principles…by reconfirming
our commitment to be the party of smaller government, lower taxes, individual
freedom, strong national security, respect for the sanctity of life, traditional
marriage, the importance of family and the exceptionalism of America.

THOSE are the GOP’s "timeless principles?" I bet that would surprise ol’ Abe Lincoln. He’d agree with the exceptionalism thing, and he’d be on board with a strong defense, but that’s about it. He sure wasn’t a small-gummint guy.

Nikki vs. the Speaker

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One day last week (I’m thinking it was Monday the 10th), Nikki Haley called to say she wanted urgently to talk with me. She came by later that same day. With her approval (she had initially asked just to speak with me), Cindi Scoppe sat in with us. (I TRY not to meet with sources alone, on account of the fact that it’s pretty much a waste of time if someone OTHER than me needs to write about the subject, which is usually the case. Also, in case the meeting leads to an editorial, it helps if more than one board member hears the pitch.)

She didn’t want us to take notes, though, so what I’m writing here is from memory. At the end of our meeting, she agreed to go on the record — which meant that, since Cindi and I had to get back to work that day, Cindi had call her back another day and go through the whole thing AGAIN in order to write her column today, which I hope you read. Antsy sources can be a problem that way.

Cindi’s column deals with the main conflict between Rep. Haley and her leadership in the House. This post is to provide some additional context from what she said — according to my memory (Cindi and Rep. Haley are welcome to berate me for any errors, which I will be happy to correct). Mind you, since I’m writing neither a column nor (perish the thought) a news story, I’m NOT spending a week running down reactions from other parties the way Cindi had to do to write her column. If anyone, including Speaker Harrell or Harry Cato, would like to ADD their comments to this post, they’re more than welcome. I’m just trying to offer as faithful an account of what Rep. Haley said as I can, before I forget it entirely.

When she first called to request the meeting, she didn’t tell me what it was about, but referred to what had happened when she ran against incumbent Larry Koon back in 2004. She mentioned that again when she arrived. In retrospect, I see only two things the previous incident had in common with this: Both were instances in which Ms. Haley felt embattled, and in both cases she was initially reluctant to go on the record. There was a third potential commonality: I DID write about what happened in 2004, and she seemed to hope I would see my way clear to do so this time. For what it’s worth, here’s a copy of what I wrote in 2004.

Anyway, last week Nikki began her tale by harking back to her chairmanship of the subcommittee that tried to pass a payday lending reform bill. What she tried to do did not go far enough in the opinion of this editorial board — she wanted regulation, not a ban. She can present all sorts of pro-biz reasons WHY regulation is better, and did so at the end of this video I posted here back during the recent election. Probably the most pertinent part is the very end of the video, when she says she had really, really wanted to pass a bill, and so had others on the subcommittee who had worked hard on it — but that was not allowed to happen. That struck me as interesting at the time, but she added to the story last week. She said the bill died after she was called in to meet with the speaker and Chairman Harry Cato and another member of the leadership (I want to say Jim Merrill, but I could be misremembering), and she was told that’s not what they wanted.

But that anecdote was sort of a warmup. She says that’s not why she’s at odds with the leadership now. She says the current conflict is all about her having become a champion, over the summer, of the notion that all House votes should be recorded. That led to various machinations aimed at denying her the chairmanship of the LCI committee, culminating in the speaker wanting to change the rules so that HE appoints committee chairs directly. Currently, the speaker appoints members to the committees, and the members choose their chair.

Speaker Harrell, as you’ll see in Cindi’s column, disputes Rep. Haley’s version of events, and says she’s making herself out to be more important in all this than she is. But they agree about one thing: The House leadership didn’t like it a bit when she went gallivanting about the state with the governor promoting her recorded-votes bill. Note that he says he’s for more recorded votes and all that (you may recall his recent op-ed on the subject). He prefers to portray Ms. Haley’s main sins as being a) working with the governor, and b) setting herself up as holier-than-thou.

Another House member who’s apparently gotten a bit too big for his britches in the leadership’s view is Nathan Ballentine, who has been writing about this all on his blog, here and here. He’s not the only one, by the way. So has Earl Capps, here and here. So has Will Folks.

Interesting, huh?

Republicans seek affirmation

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While the Democrats are still fulminating, the Republicans are at least trying to give us something to laugh about:

Dear Brad,

As we as a Party regroup after our near miss in the presidential election, we
must reflect on what our Party has done well and what we can improve moving
forward. It is for that reason we have created a new Web site for you to share
your thoughts on the direction of the Republican Party. Please take a moment to
visit www.RepublicanForAReason.com and
create an account to begin the dialogue.

The Republican Party has always been the party of reason and hope, and I
strongly believe we will continue in this tradition as we work to the
future….

I mean, they were playing for laughs with that bit about "what our Party has done well" stuff, right?

You know, there was a time when I thought of the Democrats as lovable losers, sort of like the Chicago Cubs. They kept losing (in S.C. anyway), but they were hapless and helpless about it, and it was sort of endearing. Nothing like the partisan nastiness you’d often hear from the Republicans back in those days, who always seemed angry about something. Then, in the late 90s or so (during the Clinton impeachment and the Jim Hodges campaign), the Democrats caught up and showed they could be just as angrily organized as the GOP. Then, after the debacle of 2000, they took anger and resentment to new depths.

Anyway, this note from the GOP is so plaintive that it makes me wonder whether the Republicans are about to be like the Dems back when they struck me as a sympathetic underdog.

Now we KNOW the GOP is in trouble

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Just in case you thought the GOP might get a grip on itself and find a positive way forward after last week’s election (and if you did, silly you — it is, after all, a political party), this should destroy your hopes:

MIAMI — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was elected the new chairman of the Republican Governors Association on Friday.

Sanford
succeeds Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who will now serve as finance chairman.
The association has been meeting this week in Miami – and some
discussions have revolved around what went wrong for the party on
Election Day.

"I am honored and excited to become chairman of the
Republican Governors Association as we work together to win a majority
of governors by 2010," Sanford said in a statement released by the
group. "Republican governors are natural leaders who will find
solutions to our nation’s challenges and bring back the party."…

See, you people out there who wanted me to be all horrified over Sarah Palin just couldn’t understand that, all along, I was perfectly conscious that McCain could have done a lot worse in picking a running mate — as the Republican governors just demonstrated. Come on, guys — Mark Sanford isn’t even a governor, in the sense of anyone who takes any interest in governing. Normally, governors stand out as people who are pragmatic, and unburdened by the whacko ideologies one finds inside the Beltway. Sanford never lets reality get in the way of his ideologies. He is utterly "unspoiled," in that regard, by the experience of holding the office of governor.

Now that your hopes are utterly destroyed, Republicans, consider the UnParty. Of course, before we accept you, you’ll have to leave a lot of baggage behind.

‘Boogie Man:’ Atwater on ETV

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Did any of y’all see "Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story" on "Frontline" tonight?

That was the first time I’d seen it, and you know what struck me? It was the first documentary I can remember seeing in which I personally knew practically everybody who came on the screen — Lee Bandy, Tom Turnipseed, Tucker Eskew, on and on. Even leading characters I don’t know well were people I had at least met or interviewed, such as both George Bushes.

You know what that says to me? It says I’m really getting old. Forgive me for citing Stranger in a Strange Land twice in one week, but we old Boomers do that. Do you grok that? Anyway, Jubal Harshaw observed that "…one advantage of a long life was that eventually a man knew almost everybody of importance…" That meant one thing when I first read it when I was 17, something else altogether now.

I’m no Harshaw, and if the man from Mars was hanging out at my house I don’t think I’d get as far as he did calling on the powers that be. But I’ve at least met these people. I’ve sat and talked with John McCain a number of times over the years; same with Joe Biden, multiple times. I’ve only interviewed Obama that once, not counting that abortive phone thing where he tried, but my phone kept dropping the call — hey, don’t look at me; he hasn’t been around as long — but that once was impressive. Never met Sarah Palin at all — does that mean I’m out of the loop, or she is?

Maybe y’all have more relevant things to say about the film. I already told my one, short Lee Atwater story. Anyway, I’d better go to bed. We cranky old people need our rest.

Ozmint wants to let prisoners go — what else can he do?

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This just in from the AP:

{BC-SC—State Budget-Prisons,0113}
{SC prison chief preps inmate-release plans}
{Eds: APNewsNow. Will be updated.}
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina’s prison chief says he has a plan to release inmates early because of a budget shortfall.
Prison agency director Jon Ozmint told the state’s financial oversight board Thursday he’s prepared to submit an early release plan to the Legislature to ease a deficit of more than $14 million. Earlier this year, legislators rejected Ozmint’s proposal to cut time off the end of sentences.
The Budget and Control Board is monitoring Ozmint’s shortfall. Gov. Mark Sanford heads the board and says he’s not ready to endorse that kind of plan. He says people committing crimes should know sentences will be carried out.

That’s a short item, but it raises several points:

The governor is not the "head" of the Budget and Control Board, in the sense of controlling anything. He’s one of five votes.
He IS, however, the boss of Jon Ozmint. Meaning that any plan Mr. Ozmint comes up with that doesn’t have his blessing seems unlikely to see the light of day. Of course, maybe some of those lawmakers who give Ozmint such short shrift because he’s Sanford’s man will actually pay attention if they think it would irk the governor. But the smart money would be on lawmakers doing what they always do — continue to shamefully neglect Corrections, when they’re not pointlessly persecuting it.
Sanford picked Ozmint because he was a very conservative, small-gummint sort of Republican. So why would they disagree on this point? Because Mr. Ozmint has for several years had the responsibility, day after day, of actually trying to run the prisons and keep the prisoners inside them with a budget that has shrunk year after years. And faced with that reality, he knows he can’t keep doing it. Mark Sanford’s opinions regarding what it costs to run government properly are entirely theoretical, and immune to practical reality.
I recall Mr. Ozmint showing me a while back exactly how thin security was at the time — this many people per that many prisoners, THIS part of a perimeter covered but not THAT part. It was very alarming. And that was several budget cuts ago.
We’ve said this many times; perhaps someday the folks at the State House will listen: As much as we need to appropriate more for prisons, the REAL solution is to stop locking up so many people we don’t NEED to lock up — a category that covers most non-violent offenders.
Henry McMaster needs to back off on the "no-parole" stuff, and ramp up his efforts to push alternative sentencing.

Our 2008 endorsements favor GOP; overall record still tilts to Dems

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This is an all-things-to-all-people post.

Those of you who think we’re just another bunch of wild-eyed liberals who only back Democrats, just read this paragraph! I’ve done the count on this year’s endorsements (which you can go read here), and here’s the final count: We endorsed 8 Republicans (John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Joe Wilson, Nikki Haley, Michael Koska, Mike Montgomery, Celestine White Parker and Harry Harmon), 5 Democrats (John Spratt, Jim Clyburn, Nikki Setzler, Anton Gunn and Jim Nelson). And one independent (Elise Partin, in a nonpartisan election for Cayce mayor).

Now, those of you who think we’re that right-wing rag that only endorses Republicans, just read this paragraph! As you may recall, I started keeping score a couple of election cycles ago, and our running total in general elections, from 1994 through 2008, is 60 Democrats, and 54 Republicans, so we’ve endorsed Democrats 53 percent of the time.

As I’ve explained about a gazillion times, party is not a consideration for us. The only reason I know the numbers above is that I got tired of people constantly accusing us of being one or the other, so I went back through all of the general elections since I had joined the editorial board in 1994 (and everyone else currently on the board joined later than that).

Since then, I have kept the count up-to-date. But I only total up the numbers for the current year after we’ve decided all our endorsements. That makes for some pretty lopsided years in which someone might think we were pushing mainly for one party or the other. For instance, in 2006 we endorsed 12 Democrats and only five Republicans.

Here’s the year-by-year breakdown (and here it is on a spreadsheet):

Year    Democrats Republicans Independents
1994       10                4             1
1996          2                5
1998          8                11
2000          7                10
2002          9                4
2004          7                7
2006          12                5
2008          5                8          1
TOTALS    60             54          2

Looking back at this, I wonder about the low number of independents, and then I remember that most of our opportunities to endorse nonaligned (or at least NOMINALLY unaligned) candidates have come in Columbia city elections, and these are not counted. I’m just looking at the November elections here. I think that one independent in 1994 was Bubba Cromer.

Have fun trying to find patterns, if you’re so inclined. I notice that, except for 1998, we have a tendency to go for Democrats in years when we elected statewide officials to S.C. government, and Republicans in presidential election years — except for 2004, which was a tie. I’m no statistician, but I sort of doubt that someone who IS a statistician would think a trend that involves only 8 elections and has two exceptions is much of a trend.

You could also compare the time BEFORE I became the editor (when the makeup of the board was quite different) to AFTER (I became editor in 1997), but you don’t get a dramatic difference. In the two elections before I was promoted we went for 12 Democrats and 9 Republicans, since then it’s been 48 Democrats and 45 Republicans — indicating that I have kept it closer to even than previous leadership did! Which of course is also statistically meaningless.

If we were trying to create a trend, it would be to aim for a 50-50 breakdown, so neither party could claim we were biased against them. But we’re not trying, so the results are imperfect.

You know what’s most startling to me? That in all those years, we’ve endorsed only 116 fall candidates. Seems like a lot more. But then, the primaries are always busier than the general.

The Post and ‘liberal bias,’ then and now

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Cal Thomas cries AHA! upon reading the Sunday column of The Washington Post‘s ombudsman, in which Deborah Howell writes:

Neither the hard-core right nor left will ever be satisfied by Post coverage — and that’s as it should be. But it’s true that The Post, as well as much of the national news media, has written more stories and more favorable stories about Barack Obama than John McCain. Editors have their reasons for this, but conservatives are right that they often don’t see their views reflected enough in the news pages.

For Mr. Thomas, this is an occasion for pontificating (in a column he wrote for tomorrow) about "what’s wrong with modern media." For me, I’m reminded of "All the President’s Men," which I watched again over the weekend.

There’s a great scene in which Hugh Sloan is trying to explain himself to a fidgety Woodward and Bernstein. "I’m a Republican…" he begins, to which Redford’s Woodward, eager to keep this critical source talking, says, "So am I."

In response, Dustin Hoffman’s Bernstein gives Woodward this look. As focused as he is on the goal of getting Sloan to talk, he registers surprise, for just an instant. His look seems to say, "What did you just say? Going a bit far to ingratiate ourselves with this guy, aren’t we?" The look combines incredulity with a touch of acknowledgment that maybe it IS true, and if so, this Woodward guy is really a different animal.

I really don’t know what newsrooms are like these days because I haven’t worked in one in a while, but in my day it was extremely unusual for anyone to declare a party preference, but a far greater rarity to say, "I’m a Republican." I can think of one reporter I had over the years — one out of dozens — who made a point of saying that, and it was sort of the running gag — he was the "office Republican." He left the paper in 1982 to go to work for a newly elected GOP congressman — Don Sundquist. Now he’s a lobbyist for the insurance industry. I’ve mentioned him here before: Joel Wood.

There have been reporters who, if you forced me to guess, I would guess leaned Republican, and plenty of them who leaned — some very heavily — to the Democrats. But Joel’s the only I remember who made a point of it. Come to think of it, I can only think of one reporter who made a big point about being a Democrat, and he did it to an embarrassing degree. He wasn’t nearly as cool about it as Joel. And why do I just say "leaned" when I speak of the others? Because it’s nothing I would quiz people about, not back in my news days, anyway.

So yeah, Woodward was a different sort of critter, certainly back in Ben Bradlee’s day, and probably today. In another column, Ombudsman Howell says the following:

While it’s hard to get some readers to believe this, I have found no hint of collusion between the editorial and news pages in my three years here. The editorial board’s decisions have nothing to do with news coverage. In fact, Len Downie, who just retired as executive editor, famously didn’t read editorials, and the computer system has a firewall that prevents the newsroom from seeing the editorial staff’s work.

Republican-leaning readers — along with some who say they are Democrats — have overflowed my e-mail inbox saying that The Post is biased in favor of Obama. As I’ve noted before and will again, Obama has gotten more news and photo coverage than McCain.

Of course, readers who tilt to the right will say that with news people being instinctively, reflexively liberal, you don’t need any collusion. (The Post, by the way, endorsed Obama — even after years of agreeing more with McCain on Iraq.)

I’ll close this post with a quote from yet another Howell piece, and this is an experience that everyone in the business can identify with, whatever their biases or lack thereof:

When I came to this job in October 2005, I heard more from Democrats who thought The Post was in George W. Bush’s back pocket. The Post was "Bush’s stenographer." Now I hear mainly from Republicans who think The Post is trying to elect Barack Obama president.

Yup. Been there, heard that.

The Flame of Alaska?

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The things you learn about candidates from reading their books. Despite the length of those columns I wrote after reading Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s chronicles of their early years, obviously there was much I didn’t have room to get into, including a lot of stuff that each candidate’s respective detractors like to point to.

Obama had his dope-smoking years, a period of rebellion in which I think he was self-consciously trying to emulate Malcolm X in his wild, self-destructive period — although being careful not to go too far, of course. (We both read the Autobiography in high school in Hawaii. I found it interesting; Obama saw it briefly as a guide to being a "black man in America," something he had to practice to learn.)

John McCain, having been a Naval Aviator, was less inhibited. He had Marie, the Flame of Florida. And others; that name just stood out. She apparently was an exotic dancer who performed for the fliers at Trader John’s, their favorite Pensacola after-hours locale. Ensign McCain dated her for awhile. She was "a remarkably attractive girl with a great sense of humor." He made the mistake once of taking her on an impulse to a party given by a married officer. (The single junior officers seldom socialized with the married couples. There was a good reason for this.) She was "a good sport" about it, but was clearly out of place among the Eastern Establishment-educated wives:

The young wives she was about to meet would be decorously attired and unfailingly genteel. Marie was dressed somewhat flamboyantly that evening, as was her custom.
… Marie sensed that the young wives, while certainly not rude to her, were less than entirely at ease in her presence. So she sat silent, not wishing to impose on anyone or intrude in the conversations going on around her. After a while, she must have become a little bored. So, quietly, she reached into her purse, withdrew a switchblade, popped open the blade, and, with a look of complete indifference, began to clean her fingernails.
… A short time later, recognizing that our presence had perhaps subdued the party, I thanked our hosts for their hospitality, bid goodbye to the others, and took my worldly, lovely Flame of Florida to dinner.

I like that line, "as was her custom…"

Kathleen Parker believes the crusty old sailor who once romanced the Flame of Florida had a similar motivation for choosing Sarah Palin — another remarkably attractive girl with a great sense of humor — to go with him to the party those Republican stiffs held up in St. Paul. Only this time, the date was the hit of the party. They particularly liked the part where she took out her switchblade and sliced and diced the Community Organizer with it.

But perhaps we’re reading too much into this.

My biggest hit ever: McCain on ‘that little jerk’ Graham

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The kind words some of y’all offered about my video on this last post — which featured Lindsey Graham talking about Sarah Palin — reminded me of something I noticed just the other day.

Remember how I used to bore y’all with my Top Five Lists of which of my video clips were getting the most play on YouTube? Well, I sort of got out of the habit there for awhile (partly because I was tired of being depressed by the fact that three of my Top Five were clips of neoNazis at the State House), but the other day I looked, and lo and behold, the above clip from more than a year ago had come out of nowhere to top my list.

The last time I’d taken any notice of my stats, my top videos were at around 20,000 views. All of a sudden, the clip I shot in the Vista on the night of the first GOP presidential debate in South Carolina — way back in May 2007 (is it possible it was that long ago) — had shot up from nowhere to the top spot, at 45,000 views! It’s the one in which John McCain, standing on a podium with Henry McMaster and Bobby Harrell, looks out into the crowd and says,

… and I know that little jerk Lindsey Graham is around here somewhere.

Of course, being all about giving y’all the full story, I also posted the full, unedited context of that joke, in which McCain went on to say nice things about his buddy. But that context — which is sort of worth watching for the way my shaky handheld style captures the confusion and crowd excitement, although inadvertently — isn’t nearly as popular. It’s been viewed less than 1,000 times.

Obviously, on YouTube, brevity sells. So does irony.

One last note: I’m happy to say that my critically acclaimed "Who Resurrected the Electric Car?," probably my finest job of video editing ever (considering the low-res images I work with), stays in the number three spot at 28,000 views — right behind the not-so-acclaimed "Sieg Heil at the State House" and "Hillary’s Heckler."

Anyway, enjoy.

Actually, I was the FIRST to complain about the McCain-Palin tone

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No, this isn’t going to satisfy Randy, mainly because I don’t think it’s as bad as he thinks it is. But I was just looking back at some of my recent work, and happened to run across this, which I wrote minutes after McCain announced he’d chosen Sarah Palin. It was the very end of my column of Aug. 31, in which I had complained mightily about Hillary Clinton’s use of the "fight" metaphor:

Just moments ago as I write this, as he announced he’d chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate, Sen. McCain promised the GOP crowd that he’d “fight for you.”
Lord help us.

Note that this was before America fell even in love with Sarah, which was in turn before it fell OUT of love with her.

As I said, that’s not going to be enough for Randy, but as far as criticizing the tone of the McCain-Palin ticket, I was out there first, baby!

Be sure to register… Deadline? What deadline? DOH!!!

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We all know what a huge effort Obama has put in to registering new voters — in S.C. before the primaries, and everywhere since. It’s one of the main keys to his success in securing the nomination, and will probably win him the general election. Normally, one could discount his being ahead in the polls on account of the fact that self-identified Democrats often don’t show up on Election Day. This time, they will. And they’ll be registered.

So it’s kind of pathetic to see the two e-mails I received over the last day or so from GOP sources:

The first one I saw (even though it came in second), from Mike Huckabee, just made me think "He’ll use any excuse to strike up a conversation; guess he still has a lot of campaign debt." It was headlined, "A friendly reminder; register to vote," and had a link to this site. It provided a link to this Web site. It came in today.
But the true desperation was in this one that came in from McCain yesterday : "Emergency Voter Registration & Get-Out-The-Vote Effort," it was headlined.

Fellas, fellas… how can I break this to you? The deadline to register to vote in the November election was Saturday in South Carolina. And you know what? From my moving around the country over the years, I seem to recall that 30 days out is not a particularly unusual deadline, in spite of all those efforts out there to make it easier to vote on short notice (you know, the moves that you Republicans usually oppose).

This is lame, guys. Just lame.

By contrast, Barrett LIKES this bill — the one with all the fixin’s

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Earlier this week, we had on our op-ed page, all ready to go, a piece from gubernatorial wannabe Gresham Barrett about how keen he is on nuclear power. That was all well and good, but it was neither here nor there (I can keep the pretentious figures of speech coming all day) when it came to the issue of the moment, which was as that piece was being put on the page, Mr. Barrett was stepping out as the only member of the S.C. delegation to vote against the bailout, I mean rescue, bill.

Seemed sort of, well, off-topic to me. So I pulled the piece (you’ll see it online Saturday) and got Cindi to ask his office for a column explaining his vote. They expressed interest, and the next day we held space on the page past our deadline, but it didn’t show. Which was a shame because it would have run the same day as this editorial, which would have given you a sort of point-counterpoint on the subject.

It never did show. But today I get this via e-mail:

Barrett Releases Statement on Upcoming Vote concerning Economic Recovery Plan

Washington, DC – Congressman Gresham Barrett (SC, 3) released the following statement regarding the vote on the updated economic recovery package expected on the House floor tomorrow:

“Today we are faced with what Warren Buffet called an ‘economic Pearl Harbor’ that includes the ugly reality of an across the board credit freeze. The ability for companies to meet payroll and fund activities is threatened, and let’s be clear I’m not talking about Wall Street businesses, but 3rd district employers. Whether it is a small business that may have to close its doors, or major corporations employing thousands of my constituents, jobs are at risk. If Congress does not act the effects will be serious for American small business, families and consumers.

“Monday’s bill relied purely on government activity failing to consider fundamental free market principles that I believe must be part of any solution. I was aware of the gravity of the situation then as I am now, but was optimistic that working with relevant parties and my constituents through the legislative process we could produce a better bill. This legislation contains proven free market principles like tax relief and regulatory changes that will move our economy forward helping to mitigate the pain on Main Street. While this bill continues to contain a number of provisions that I oppose, I believe we are at the end of the legislative process and action is required.”
###

OK, so he understands it’s an "economic Pearl Harbor," but he didn’t feel like shooting back at the Mitsubishis on Monday. Now that the plan’s been beefed up with lots of fixin’s, so it’s not $700 billion, but $810 billion — more than I make in a year, for those keeping score at home — he likes it. Of course, he covers himself on that, with his airy "While this bill continues to contain a number of provisions that I
oppose, I believe we are at the end of the legislative process and
action is required."

So glad we’ve got your permission now, Gresham. Can we get on with the saving-the-country thing? Thanks.

Which was stupider — Pelosi’s speech, or the Republican reaction to it?

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Reading through various accounts of the breakdown in Washington yesterday, I kept running across the fact that some Republicans blamed a speech by Nancy Pelosi at the outset of the voting for so many Republicans voting against the bailout plan. And sure enough, it was pretty awful:

$700 billion. A staggering number. But only a part of the cost of the failed Bush economic policies to our country. Policies that were built on budget recklessness. When President Bush took office, he inherited President Clinton’s surpluses — four years in a row, budget surpluses, on a trajectory of $5.6 trillion in surplus. And with his reckless economic policies, within two years, he had turned that around.

And now eight years later, the foundation of that fiscal irresponsibility, combined with an anything goes economic policy, has taken us to where we are today. They claim to be free market advocates, when it’s really an anything goes mentality. No regulation, no supervision, no discipline. And if you fail, you will have a golden parachute, and the taxpayer will bail you out.

Those days are over. The party is over in that respect. Democrats believe in a free market. We know that it can create jobs, it can create wealth, it can create many good things in our economy. But in this case, in its unbridled form, as encouraged, supported, by the Republicans — some in the Republican Party, not all — it has created not jobs, not capital, it has created chaos.

One has to ask, what the hell was the woman thinking? After days of leaders of both parties struggling to come up with a deal that could pass the House, she talks like that as the voting starts? Was she trying to make it fail? Did she think the only problem at that point was that she needed to get the more angry, partisan Democrats to vote for it, and they needed to be whipped up? What?

Or was it just the usual — that people who live by partisanship just don’t even notice themselves when they say stuff like this; it just comes out?

I don’t know, but I do know this — that’s a lousy excuse for Republicans to use to vote against it, because, as Barney Frank put it, their feelings were hurt. No, the Speaker should not have said those things. But if this was the plan that Republican negotiators had agreed was the thing to do, you don’t just throw that out because somebody on the other side spouts a bunch of foolishness. The economic health of this nation is not a tool for you to express your displeasure with your opponents’ rhetoric.

Just disgusting all around. Every time I look at this situation, I just get more and more disgusted. I realize that’s not a particularly constructive reaction, but that’s the one I have.

Gop_leaders

All SC members voted for bailout, except Barrett

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The "how they voted" on the collapsed bailout plan is pretty simple: Every S.C. member of the U.S. House voted FOR the bailout, except Gresham Barrett.

Here’s his explanation (short version: It’s about him and his ideology.):

Washington, DC – Congressman Gresham Barrett (SC, 3) delivered the following remarks regarding his concerns with the level of government intervention and lack of free market principles included in H.R. 3997, the Financial Stabilization Package:

"First off, I want to commend my colleagues, especially Minority Leader John Boehner, Roy Blunt, Eric Cantor, and Ranking Member Spencer Bachus, for their work in improving this bill. However, after careful – and agonizing – consideration, I cannot support H.R. 3997 and will be voting no.

"I understand the need to act and I understand the urge to act quickly. We must restore the flow of credit. I firmly subscribe to the belief that “Main Street” and Wall Street are inextricably linked. Instability in the financial markets leads to instability in taxpayers’ personal accounts and their personal funds. Meanwhile, that capital that flows through our financial markets is vital to the continued success of our businesses, large and small. We should all agree that a failure of our credit markets would be an enormous catastrophe, and the government does have a role in ensuring that the financial markets function soundly.

"At the same time, we cannot allow the American taxpayers to become the insurance policy for financial decisions that did not turn out as planned. Whether you’re talking about someone from South Carolina who took a mortgage they couldn’t afford or a Wall Street banker who financed that loan, we see just how important personal responsibility must be to American society, and I fear that this legislation erodes that accountability – and the freedom that comes with it.

"Unfortunately, our government is in debt. And we are in a lot of debt, both as a government and as a nation. In fact, this whole crisis is built around debt, where too much bad debt has caused an inability to get new credit – otherwise known as debt. My daddy always told me that you can’t borrow your way out of debt, and he was right.

"There are other reasonable options that we should explore to help the markets heal themselves and that would not burden our country under even greater mounds of debt. I was pushing for a plan that would use more free market principles such as a suspension of the capital gains tax and incentives for repatriation of earnings, o help spur economic growth by helping all Americans whose retirement accounts are invested in the stock market, or who own a house, or a business and jump start the flow of funds back into the system.

"There is no doubt that we find ourselves in a precarious situation and people are angry, rightly so. I am angry. But we must not allow this anger to cloud our judgment, and make choices that will divide our country. This is not a matter of Wall Street versus Main Street.

"But when it becomes time to vote on this bill, I will be voting no. I understand my colleagues for their reasoning, and I am confident that we all want to do what’s best for the country. But, because I believe so strongly in the principles of the free market and the belief in freedom, I will be opposing this bill. My fear is that today the government will be forever changing the face of the American free market."

###

What I have not seen yet is any indication whether Mr. Barrett had any notion whether the bailout would actually fail on account of him and the others voting "no," or did he just intend to make a gesture? When I hear more on that, I’ll pass it on…

‘Boogie Man:’ Atwater film coming to Cola

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You probably already read in the paper that "Boogie Man," the documentary about Lee Atwater, is coming to the Nickelodeon. A fresh reminder came in via e-mail from Judy Turnipseed:

This movie which starts this week at the Nickelodeon about
the famous Lee Atwater features Tom Turnipseed with a lot of other South
Carolinians. Tom will be on a panel about the movie on Friday night.

Here is a review of
it in the New York Times

http://tinyurl.com/4aqd8c

Here is a link to a trailer of the movie and how to buy
tickets at the Nick if you want to see the movie.

http://www.boogiemanfilm.com/

Tom, of course, was the object of one of the most outrageously mean things Atwater ever said. Here, from a 1991 story by our own Lee Bandy, is a short version of that bit of history:

Tom Turnipseed, a liberal Democrat who ran for Congress in South Carolina, once accused Atwater of engineering a survey of white voters in which they were pointedly informed of Turnipseed’s membership in the NAACP. Atwater denied the charge, but also said that he did not want to deal with allegations made by someone who had once been "hooked up to jumper cables," referring to shock treatments Turnipseed had received years before as a suicidal teenager.

He said that in 1980, when Turnipseed was running against Floyd Spence.

GOP leadership continues war of words with Sanford

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Just got this release a few minutes ago from Bobby Harrell’s office:

State Needs True Transparency, Not Pandering
Governor proves statewide fly around is about headlines, not delivering true reforms

(Columbia, SC) – Today, Governor Sanford embarked on another statewide fly around to hold a series of press conferences. Upon learning that the governor’s intentions were only to make a media splash instead of fighting for real reforms, House Speaker Bobby Harrell gave the following statement:

“I have always supported more transparency and responsibility in government. More transparency is good for our state, and more roll call voting in the General Assembly would be a good idea, but we must be fighting for true transparency and not just pandering to voters and grabbing for headlines. In the House, we believe in working together to accomplish real transparency. That’s why the House has passed earmark reform, spending limits, government restructuring, tax cuts and many other important reforms to our state government.

“Demanding that we should spend taxpayer money to take a roll call vote on a resolution congratulating a state championship high school team is not true transparency, it’s pandering. Real reform in government is fixing the workers comp system, tort reform, and immigration reform, all of which became law because of actions by the General Assembly.

Tom DeLoach, President/CEO of South Carolina Business & Industry Political Education Committee (BIPEC), commented, “Roll Call voting in the South Carolina General Assembly is not uncommon. In fact, over the last 10 years business and industry related roll call votes have increased significantly to the point where a roll call vote when not taken is an exception to the rule. President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell and House Speaker Bobby Harrell have provided a roll call record on business and industry issues that is both plentiful and verifiable.”

Our fiscal 9/11?

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Remember when Democrats and Republicans stood on the Capitol steps and sang "God Bless America?" For a moment there, the Washington crowd was stunned by the attacks of 9/11 into forgetting their stupid partisan differences and remembering they were Americans. I made a passing reference to that in a column last week.

This NYT story describes a moment last night when the shock and awe of the scope of this mounting financial crisis had a similar effect on members of Congress. It happened in a briefing Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson gave to congressional leaders:

“When you listened to him describe it you gulped," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.

As Senator Christopher J. Dodd,
Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban
Affairs Committee, put it Friday morning on the ABC program “Good
Morning America,” the congressional leaders were told “that we’re
literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial
system, with all the implications here at home and globally.”

Mr. Schumer added, “History was sort of hanging over it, like this was a moment.”

When Mr. Schumer described the meeting as “somber,” Mr. Dodd cut in.
“Somber doesn’t begin to justify the words,” he said. “We have never
heard language like this.”

“What you heard last evening,” he
added, “is one of those rare moments, certainly rare in my experience
here, is Democrats and Republicans deciding we need to work together
quickly.”

What an amazing time for a spirit of bipartisan cooperation to emerge — if that indeed happens (and if it doesn’t, we’re sunk). Now, on the eve of this too-close-to-call presidential election, the one I worried so much about in another column.

I certainly hope that happens. But you know what? As weird as you may think the fact that 9/11 made me (however briefly) optimistic about the future, here’s something you might find harder to fathom: I don’t feel that way this time. With the terror attacks of 9/11, I had very clear ideas of what I thought should happen next (short version: fully engage the world), and it was my belief that those things would happen that prompted my optimism.

Now, I’m at a loss. I don’t know what it is I want the government to coalesce around. Maybe Bush and Paulson are taking the right steps, but I don’t know. To me, a financial mess of this magnitude is more perplexing than terrorist attacks. Not as immediately horrible, but less understandable. And that leaves me uneasy.

Also, the promise of bipartisanship seems shakier here. There is a history of partisans setting aside differences in response to an external threat. But many politicians cut their teeth demagoging economic issues, and happily drawing sharp ideological distinctions about them.

But I hope the potential described above is realized. As uncertain as I am about the way forward, I would feel much better if we’d drop the party games and face it together. That would help a great deal.

There’s life, and then there’s life

23 Replies

Oh, boy, the animal lovers are out again, and that always spells trouble. Check this letter on the Monday page:

Hunting suggests Palin is not pro-life
The photo in your Monday issue of Sarah Palin and her daughter posing proudly with the caribou that Palin has just shot to death is graphic proof that Palin is not, as she claims and as she is often labeled, “pro-life.” “Anti-abortion” or “pro-human-fetus” maybe, but certainly not “pro-life.”

Sigh.

No, hunting is not proof that anyone is not "pro-life," in the sense that word is used in American politics — not unless the person in question is hunting humans.

A caribou is not the moral equivalent of a human being. The difference isn’t even quantitative; it’s qualitative.

Now if Sarah Palin favors capital punishment — and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she does — THAT would indicate a failure to be pro-life.

Do ya see the difference? Are ya following me here?

This is not to defend hunting, by the way. I’ve never been able to square it in my mind. Killing an animal to avoid starvation, fine. But for sport, no. That, however, is a qualitatively different thing from killing humans.

We have here a hierarchy of moral considerations:

The lightest consideration is that if you want to say one shouldn’t hunt from helicopters, fine — it’s not sporting.
At a higher moral level, one should not hunt for sport alone anyway.
On the highest, a caribou still does not have the moral claim on us that a human does. Not the same at all.

bradwarthen.com

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