Category Archives: South Carolina

McMaster confirms the worst

… or, at least, does so to the extent that a mere Attorney General’s opinion can do. Basically, Henry says the Clyburn amendment can’t bypass Gov. Sanford, on account of the 10th amendment.

There also seems to be some separation of powers stuff going on. Here’s a copy of Henry’s letter, which says “the General Assembly itself may not coerce the executive branch to act in accordance with the legislative will.

James Clyburn, meanwhile, is ticked:

ECONOMIC RECOVERY DEBATE: CLYBURN STATEMENT ON McMASTER OPINION
WASHINGTON, DC—House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn today responded to an opinion released by South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster about the interpretation of the so-called “Clyburn workaround amendment,” Section 1607 in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

“Today the State of South Carolina added another chapter in its ongoing effort to maintain a standard of minimally adequate education. For over 100 years, the last 20 in state courts, leaders in our state have fought to uphold that standard. Over the last several weeks and without even going to court—the proper venue to determine constitutionality of federal laws—Attorney General McMaster, Governor Sanford and Senator Graham have gone out of their way to ensure that South Carolina continues its long history of providing a minimally adequate education.

“Rather than renewing the age old debate over States’ Rights and the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution our leadership should be seeking common ground to provide our schools the funds they need to retain teachers and maintain healthy, safe buildings in which our students can learn.

“What makes ‘state stabilization’ funding different from the funding Governor Sanford has authorized to rebuild highways or increase unemployment checks? Why aren’t Attorney General McMaster and Senator Graham calling on Governor Sanford to use the very same pen to accept the state stabilization money—which our taxpayers are providing—to retain teachers and give our state’s schools the opportunity to move beyond their minimally adequate legacy?”

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If you ask me, there’s a lot more going on here than some sort of Democrat-vs.-Republican tug of wills over “minimally adequate” schools. But then, Rep. Clyburn didn’t ask me.

Neither, obviously, did the governor. So what do we do now? I don’t know. Maybe y’all have some ideas.

Drowning time for state government

Maybe y’all can explain this to me, since I have no morning editorial board meeting at which I would ask Cindi and Warren to answer this question: “In what sense is this alleged ‘deal’ Mark Sanford is offering on the stimulus a compromise?”

Let’s see — he doesn’t want the $700 million spent to “grow government,” which is the phrase used on his home planet for what English speakers call “restoring some of the cuts to essential services.” He wants to devote the money instead to “paying down debt,” which means many things in Sanfordese, including paying “debt” that won’t even be incurred for a generation — anything, absolutely anything, other than spending the money on immediate needs.

And the Obama administration said no, then when he absurdly asked the same question again (the governor is not bothered by repeating himself; he doesn’t get bored), it said hell no with added language to the effect of, “what part of ‘stimulus’ don’t you understand?”

So now he’s offering a “deal” whereby the Legislature spends that money, but sets aside an equal amount from other sources — which means money that we taxpayers paid for state services we expect — to “pay down debt.” So he gets, let’s see, everything that he wants, and the state doesn’t get anything it needs from that part of the stimulus.

Oh, and by they way, you have to go ahead and make every cut in spending that HE wants, and you can take your deliberative process and stuff it down the oubliette.

That’s my understanding, anyway.

By the way, for those of you who don’t understand the governor’s thinking on all this, let me explain it to you. You’ve no doubt heard that the governor’s ideological ally Grover Norquist wants to shrink government “to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” (Oh, and if you follow that link and think, “Mother Jones! What do expect from a left-wing rag?”, allow me to explain that when Grover came to visit with our editorial board a few years back, he brought at copy of that article with him to make sure we’d seen it. He’s proud of what they wrote about him.)

The recent drastic cuts to state agencies are just catnip to the governor and Grover and their ilk. Once you get government down to where services suffer, they can point to it and say, “See how ineffective government is! What did I tell you?” That gives support to their argument that we “waste” even less money on gummint, thereby making it even less effective… and pretty soon, it’s drowning time.

Our governor isn’t about to let some meddling Obama administration drain the tub right when state government is going down for the third time. This is the moment he’s been waiting for.

How much is this foolishness costing us?

Just a quick reaction to this message received this afternoon:

Members of the Press – we just had a very important Senate Finance Committee meeting regarding the state budget and the federal stimulus money.

In an initial Finance Committee budget meeting today Chairman Hugh Leatherman instructed subcommittee chairmen to work into the night creating a budget without federal stimulus funds. He has instructed the chairmen to cut $370 from the House budget, including $161 Million from K-12 education and $44 Million from higher education.

The Finance Committee will reconvene tomorrow at 9:00 am to review the proposed cuts in Gressette Rm 105.

Please email me with any questions.

– Wesley Donehue
SC Senate Republican Caucus

I wonder how much this insanity of Sanford forcing the Legislature to do TWO budgets is costing us, in staff time and such? Drafting the budget each year is the biggest, hairiest lifting the General Assembly does. And they’re having to do it TWICE, because of the bizarre whims of one man?

Higher education funding in S.C., by the numbers

xxx
By BRAD WARTHEN
brad@bradwarthen.com

For once, let’s start off with some numbers and dates:

· 17 percent – the amount of the University of South Carolina’s funding that now comes from state appropriations. Our state’s major research universities now get less than a fifth of their funding from state appropriations. In recent years, those in the know have stopped calling them “state institutions” and started calling them “state-assisted.” We’ve now reached the point at which even that seems like an overstatement.

· 1^st – South Carolina’s ranking in percentage of higher education funding cut last year. South Carolina, before the December and March reductions, had cut 17.7 percent from higher education budgets. (After those cuts, it has slashed higher ed budgets 24 percent.) The second worst state was Alabama, at 10.5 percent.

· 38^th – Our state’s ranking for higher ed funding before the past year’s nation-leading cuts.

· 1995 – The last year that state appropriations, as a dollar amount, equaled the current level, before adjusting for inflation.

· 1973 – The year that matches the current level of funding, once you adjust for inflation. (Think for a moment what North Carolina and Georgia have done in higher education since 1973, pulling light years ahead of South Carolina.)

· $29 million – The value of one grant (from the National Institutes of Health) brought in by a single one of the 13 endowed chair holders at the Medical University of South Carolina.

· 25 – New technology companies started by USC faculty in the years since the endowed chairs program started, which places the university 19^th among public institutions in the nation in number of start-ups.

· 50,000 – S.C. jobs provided directly or indirectly by USC.

· 11 percent – South Carolina unemployment rate in February.

· 43^rd – South Carolina’s national ranking for percentage of adult population with college educations.

Those are a few of the figures I picked up from the presentations that Clemson President James Barker, Medical University of South Carolina President Ray Greenberg and USC President Harris Pastides (joined by Garrison Walters, executive director of the state Commission on Higher Education) made to a joint meeting Wednesday of two Senate panels that deal with higher education funding, such as it is.

They were there to try to stop the bleeding, and to send the message that dealing a further blow to these institutions’ already last-in-the-nation funding by not accepting federal stimulus funds would be beyond insane (my wording, I hope you’ll note, not theirs).

In some cases, they had requests that bore specifically upon their respective institutions. For instance, Dr. Greenberg’s wish listed included a request that if tuition is capped, graduate and professional programs will be exempted. But in keeping with the extraordinary collaboration that has marked the interaction of the three presidents in recent years (which is no less than miraculous, given the petty, wasteful, tit-for-tat competition that characterized the decades that went before), he also cited priorities shared by all: Regulatory relief (which President Barker has explained as minimizing cost by requiring the schools to jump through two or three hoops instead of six every time they make a move); a state bond bill for capital needs; and passing the cigarette tax increase, with a major portion of the revenue going to Medicaid. OK, so maybe that last one has the most immediate effect on the medical university, but its benefits to the entire state are so obvious as to absolve it of parochialism.

And they had a sympathetic audience. “You’re number one in the country,” in budget cuts, Sen. Nikki Setzler noted. “If that isn’t a challenge to this committee to carry forward to the full General Assembly, then shame on us.”

Of course, Sen. Setzler is a Democrat, but that doesn’t count for as much of a difference in the S.C. Senate as it does in some venues. And when it comes to the federal stimulus upon which the GOP leadership is completely dependent for keeping essential state services running, there are only two sides – on one is Gov. Mark Sanford and a few allies to whom ideology is the only reality; on the other the vast majority of lawmakers.

Republicans don’t come more conventionally conservative than Senate Education Chairman John Courson, to whom Ronald Reagan was a demigod. And here’s what he had to say about the stimulus: “If we don’t accept that money, it does not go back to the Treasury; it goes to other states.” Which is just common sense, of course – nothing ideological about it. But this is a moment in South Carolina history when commonsense statements are in pathetically short supply, so every one uttered takes on added value. In an interview later, Sen. Courson explained the rationale adopted by most Republicans whose top priority is not posturing for national media: He opposed the stimulus bill when it was being debated in Washington. There’s a lot in it he doesn’t like; if he had been a member of Congress he would have voted against it. But that’s all over now. It’s a fact, and South Carolinians are going to be paying for it along with everyone else. Therefore, not taking the money makes no sense at all.

Tuition cost was on the senators’ minds, and well it should be, now that the bulk of higher education costs is on students and their families rather than state taxpayers. “I am pledging to keep any tuition increase for next year to a minimum,” said Dr. Pastides. “I’m keenly aware of the burden that a tuition increase would put on students and their families.”

But what happens with tuition depends upon the General Assembly’s actions – and the governor’s. “Will tuition and fees increase next year?” President Barker asked rhetorically. “The answer is: Almost certainly, but the level of increase is very dependent on what happens with state funding. Tuition is Clemson’s last-resort response….”

Mr. Barker pointed out that the effect of stimulus money on tuition is not direct, since he, like the other presidents, would use stimulus money for one-time, not recurring, expenses. But when asked by Sen. Harvey Peeler the expected effect upon the institutions of not accepting the stimulus money, the Clemson president said it “would be devastating.”

Other senators, seizing upon that word, asked other witnesses whether they agreed with it, prompting Dr. Pastides to oblige them by saying for the record, “It will be devastating, and it will have an effect on tuition” if the stimulus is blocked.

Normally, I’m not what you’d call a numbers guy; words are my thing. So I appreciate that the senators were groping for just the right word to describe the situation. But in this case, for once, the numbers impress me more. We are so far behind in our state. And if our governor has his way, we’ll take an additional giant leap backward.

This is my first weekly online-only column after leaving The State. Watch for more here on bradwarthen.com.

Background materials for tomorrow’s column

Being a creature of habit, I’ve written a column for tomorrow. It won’t be in The State, but it will appear here at bradwarthen.com (I hope that makes y’all feel special).

It’s based on the joint meeting of the S.C. Senate Education Committee and the Senate Finance Committee Higher Education Subcommittee on Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. The heads of the state’s three research universities and of the CHE testified regarding budget matters.

One of the cool things about being unemployed is that I actually have time to go out and do legwork, which I haven’t been able to do for years. I hadn’t even set foot in the Statehouse complex this year before Wednesday. And it’s been many years (perhaps going back to my reporting days in the late 70s) since I was able to sit all the way through a two-hour public hearing.

It was nice to be able to get that sort of perspective for a change. Anyway, I thought I’d provide y’all with some background material for the column. I don’t have electronic copies of CHE head Garrison Walters’ presentation, because it didn’t occur to me to request it, since I had a hard copy from the meeting. Likewise with MUSC President Ray Greenberg’s remarks, since he gave me his personal copy afterwards. But I did ask for USC President Harris Pastides’ and Clemson President James Barkers’ via e-mail, and here they are:

Here are Dr. Pastides’ prepared remarks.
And here are President Barker’s.

Let me know if you have any trouble opening those.

Is anyone looking into impeaching Sanford?

At the Verizon Wireless career fair. (credit: caberry@thestate.com)

Just wondering. It’s not that I’m advocating it or anything. Yet.

It just occurs to me to ask whether, once lawmakers have asked him to reconsider and he’s brushed that off (as you know he will), they have a backup plan for making sure South Carolina gets the stimulus that we’re going to be paying for anyway.

The stakes are huge, and they’re way more important than Sanford or whether he continues to hold office. For years, we’ve held our breath at the notion of Andre Bauer becoming governor, but at least he would accept the funding that is essential to continuing such critical services as, say, keeping prisoners locked up or teachers in the classroom.

Did you see the piece in today’s paper about our 11 percent unemployment rate in February, and the projection that it’s going to be a long time before things get better? (By the way, I borrowed the above image from thestate.com. If that’s not OK, somebody tell me.) An excerpt:

More than 900 people showed up this week at a Verizon Wireless career fair in Forest Acres for 120 call-center jobs with $27,000-a-year starting salaries and full benefits.

Though not required, many applicants had college degrees —desperate for work in a state with an unemployment rate that rose to 11 percent in February.

South Carolina continues to have the nation’s second-highest jobless rate, as 241,000 people last month hunted for work, the S.C. Employment Security Commission reported Friday.

Yep, we have the second-highest unemployment rate, and a couldn’t-give-less-of-a-damn governor.

The problem with the Clyburn bypass on stimulus funds is that it might involve a 10th amendment violation, what with the federal government telling a state what it has to do. But the bizarre situation we find ourselves in is that we have a governor who couldn’t care less about our actual state or its needs, but whose every decision is guided by his own desire to strut upon the national stage.

So, this raises the question: Is anyone at the State House looking into what it would take for South Carolinians to seize control of their own fate, which could involve taking control back from this ideological dilettante?

I have no idea what the legal possibilities are. But surely someone does. And surely someone is considering this contingency.

Sorensen on my last column

Former USC President Andrew Sorensen had the following to say about my last column in The State:

Dear Brad:

As one who has just embarked on a marked change in professional responsibilities, I wish you well in the next stage of your career, whatever that may be.

Thanks very much for your stimulating op-ed piece of March 22^nd. Although I was tempted to respond to each paragraph as well as the concluding suggestions, in the interest of brevity I’ll comment only on (1) “Improve our schools” and (2) “Let our colleges and universities drive our economy.”

(1)I couldn’t agree more with your recommendation that we “stop talking about nonsensical distraction, and fix the schools.” We South Carolinians ought to be profoundly embarrassed by the quality of schools in our economically depressed communities. It is imperative that all South Carolinians have an opportunity for the quality of education afforded at the many first-rate schools throughout our state. Your suggestions for restructuring, if implemented, would do much to correct our current imbalance in facilities and human resources.

(2)During the past several years, the presidents of USC, MUSC and Clemson have made extraordinary progress in collaborating on the “cutting edge of wealth-creating innovation.” During this period of profound fiscal crisis the temptation is great to hunker down and look upon investment in this area as one of high risk that will yield principally future benefit, and is unlikely to be manifest in the next few weeks or months. That admission will cause detractors to argue that investing in these programs in the midst of economic stringency is counterintuitive. But the economic future of our state is heavily dependent on the highly skilled and scientifically sophisticated youth of today who will become the leaders of our state’s economy tomorrow.

All the best to you.

Sincerely,

Andrew A. Sorensen

Leatherman’s letter to Sanford

Folks, here’s a copy of the letter that Hugh Leatherman wrote to Sanford about the stimulus. Don’t know what to add except that his point, that South Carolinians will pay for this stimulus whether we get the money or not, is one that I heard Republican senators making yesterday at the State House.

Hardly seems worth mentioning because it’s so painfully obvious. To everyone but Sanford. Did you read the short item in the paper today about what Bobby Harrell had to say?

COLUMBIA, S.C. — House Speaker Bobby Harrell said Wednesday South Carolina lawmakers should prepare a budget without using federal stimulus cash unless Gov. Mark Sanford reverses himself and decides to seek the money.

“We’re probably not going to have that money with the governor not requesting it,” Harrell, R-Charleston, said. “It is time to write a budget that does not include that money.”

But Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said it is time for legislators to sit down with the governor and come up with a budget plan that uses $700 million stimulus cash the governor will control during the next two years to pay down state debt or forgoes the federal cash altogether through budget cuts. “So far, they’ve not indicated a willingness to do so.”…

That comment from Joel really gets me. He might as well say, “The governor has invited lawmakers to poke every citizen of South Carolina in the eye with a sharp stick, but so far, they’ve not indicated a willingness to do so…”

Asking Sanford to reconsider

So here is what we’re reduced to, after Senate Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman raised the alarm that the Clyburn amendment notwithstanding, the Legislature might not be able to bypass him to get the stimulus funds: Asking Mark Sanford to reconsider.

Which, I’ve got to say, is not much of a plan.

The senator said, in the story in The State this morning, that he plans to ask the governor to reconsider his quixotic stand against common sense. And at a Senate Finance subcommittee hearing that I attended this morning (to hear the three research university presidents make their budget pitches — more about that later) several other senators urged the presidents, and their trustees, and students, and the small army of alumni attending Carolina Day at the State House, to make their concerns known to “the man downstairs,” as Sen. Darrell Jackson referred to him, even though he was speaking in the Gressette Building rather than the State House proper (and maybe he was talking about some “man downstairs” in the basement of Gressette, but I doubt it).

And what do you think the chances are that the governor will be moved by any of this? Essentially, zero. You have to understand that real-world consequences mean nothing to this governor, whose only reality is his ideological constructs. Especially when the consequences are felt by people other than Mark Sanford.

Maybe you can think of an argument that will cause him to see how nuts it is to refuse money that South Carolinians will have to foot the bill for later anyway. But I’m fresh out.

South Carolina’s unfinished business

By BRAD WARTHEN

THE COLUMN I’d prefer to be remembered for — my fond reflection on how great it has been to work here with Robert Ariail — ran on Friday. But I hope you’ll forgive me if I close my career at this newspaper with a tough-love piece about unfinished business in South Carolina. Keep in mind, I say these things because I do love my state dearly, and I want the best for it. I always have.

None of these issues will come as a surprise to you. I’ve gone on and on about them for years. These are things we need to do if our state is to reach its potential — to put it more bluntly, to catch up with all those other states whose people are healthier, wealthier and (apparently, given our resistance to reform) wiser than we are.

Each of these items is interwoven with the others; each could be a book (one that I’ve written, on these pages). But here’s the short version:

Improve our schools. Stop talking about nonsensical distractions — such as our governor’s proposal to pay people to pull their children out of our schools — and fix the schools. The only way we will ever raise incomes and overcome the legacy of our economy having been built upon slavery is to make sure everyone has a decent education. And the only possible way to do that is through a statewide system of public schools, with the more affluent areas underwriting the more depressed ones. Public schools are the only ones we the people control, and they have to do whatever we decide they should do. Here are some of the changes we should implement: Pay teachers more for better performance, not for initials after their names; eliminate waste and reduce incompetence by cutting the number of districts from 85 to no more than one per county; empower principals to hire and fire. Let’s stop talking, and get these things done.

Restructure state government. Right now, most of the executive branch is fragmented into scores of tiny islands that answer to no one. Make the executive branch accountable to the elected chief executive, so that our next governor (and here’s another thing for our to-do list — elect a better governor) can pull our limited resources together and get state agencies working together to accomplish the agenda upon which he (or she) is elected. Our current system was designed, intentionally, to resist change. We have to replace it to move forward.

Restructure local government. To give you but one example — the real-world economic community that we informally name “Columbia” consists of more than a dozen municipalities, two counties, seven school districts and an absurd tangle of independent little jurisdictions such as fire, recreation, water and sewer districts. The technical, legal city of Columbia — a mere fraction of the real community — is “governed” in a way that is guaranteed to shield both city administrators and elected officials from accountability. Statewide, we need to make it easier for local governments to consolidate and annex, and get rid of the more than 500 special purpose districts that unnecessarily complicate governance on the local level.

Set local governments free. Let the people elected to run the governments closest to the people run them, without interference by state legislators. The ways that the people who should be minding state business (and you’d think they’d have enough on their plates) meddle in local matters are legion. In some communities they appoint school board members (in Dillon County, a single lawmaker — who happens to be an employee of the school system — determines who will be on the school board). In others, they set school budgets. Collectively, legislators put local governments statewide in a ridiculous bind, writing impossible rules for how and even how much they can tax. Local people know what their communities need; leave them alone.

Let our colleges and universities drive our economy. The presidents of our three research universities have made strides, cooperating to an extraordinary degree. It needs to become the focused policy of this state to use our public institutions of higher education to attract the best and brightest, keep them here and foster research that puts us on the cutting edge of wealth-creating innovation. That means funding the endowed chairs program at twice the level that we did when we were actually investing in it, and restoring support for the schools themselves. We are 40 years behind North Carolina and Georgia. We won’t catch up in my lifetime, but we need to start trying.

Overhaul our tax system. Figure out what state government needs to do, the things that only it can do, then determine what that costs, and devise and implement a fair, balanced and reliable way of funding it. That means scrapping our entire tax structure, and making it serve all of the people of this state, rather than overlapping, competing, narrow interests.

Some of these things are tough; others are less so. But they are all essential to getting our act together in South Carolina. To help us warm up for the harder ones, I suggest we do the following immediately:

• Raise our lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax by a dollar, bringing us (almost) to the national average, and saving thousands of young lives.

• Remove the Confederate flag from the State House grounds.

While those last two are easier to implement, they are essential to proving to the world and ourselves that we are serious about building a better South Carolina. The reasons that have been offered not to do those two, simple things are not reasons in any rational sense, but rather outgrowths of the mind-sets that have held us back since 1865.

Which is long enough.

Mr. Warthen was vice president and editorial page editor of The State through Friday. He worked at the paper for 22 years. Find his new blog at bradwarthen.com, or e-mail him at brad@bradwarthen.com.

Those nice letters in today’s paper

I’m loving me some letters to the editor today. I thank my (ex-)colleagues for running them. The thing I like about them aside from the nice things they say about me, is that they represent a nice cross-section of readers — or as good a sample as you can get with just one day’s letters. A brief overview:

Harriet Hutto remembers our friendship starting differently from the way I do. She says it started with an e-mail response she wrote to me. She’s probably right. But I particularly remember getting to know her when she became the most persistently loyal reader I know. She lives on a rural route in the Holly Hill area, and it was one of those routes that was so rural, and had so few subscribers on it, that the paper dropped it. She refused to do without her paper, and she began a quest that involved me, Kathy Moreland in the publisher’s department, and Eddie Roof in circulation, trying to find a creative way to get her paper to her. Here’s what we came up with at one point: A friend who lived several miles away was on a route we were keeping. Harriet got the friend to put up a second box, and Harriet’s paper was delivered there — and she drove over and got it every morning. Anyway, Harriet has over the years written some of the most fascinating e-mails chronicling life in rural South Carolina. She is a talented, and prolific, writer, and a dear lady. Oh, and FYI, she’s Sen. Brad Hutto’s mother.
The night of the first presidential debate, I hung around to meet the panel that the newsroom had put together to react. It had been another long day, and I was tired. Since it was a newsroom deal, I felt sort of like a fifth wheel. I sort of justified my being there by passing out a bunch of “State in ’08” coffee mugs. And now, I see this nice letter from James Frost, saying he was glad to meet me that night — that it was, in fact, an honor. Likewise, Mr. Frost. I’m glad I showed up.
Jim Stiver was an honors college adviser over at USC in the mid-90s when my oldest daughter started there. As I recall, he interviewed her for a scholarship. I learned that he was an ardent libertarian, and that he had mentioned to my daughter that he was familiar with my work. (She said he asked her a question — “What is the difference between anarchy and chaos?” I forget what my daughter said, but I remember what I told her I would have said: “About five seconds.”) Uh-oh, I thought. My poor child will never get that scholarship. But she did. And that testifies to what a fair-minded man Prof. Stiver is.
Milly Hough is the communications director at the SC Arts Commission. I don’t know what to say to someone who says I was the “conscience” of the paper. Feels like a heavy burden I’ve just put down. I do truly appreciate it, though.
When I read this proof on Friday, my red pen struck at Nancy Padgett saying, “I always knew that he was going to end up voting Republican.” But I let it go. Nancy meant it kindly. It’s SO demonstrably untrue (my count shows that we endorsed slightly more Democrats than Republicans in the years I headed the editorial board), and to me insulting (the idea that I would identify with either of those execrable factions appals me), that I was going to protest it to me colleagues. (Of course, they would have told me that I had no say, that I had to recuse myself, but I was going to protest it all the same.) But the thing is that I knew from years of correspondence with her that this was what she truly believed — she’s one of those Democrats who, if you endorse a Republican once at any point in time, you are a Republican, and incontrovertible evidence to the contrary has no effect — and that she was only saying it to dramatize her kind intentions toward me. And besides, the following letter was a nice counterpoint to it…
Once, early in my friendship with Bud Ferillo, I was a guest for dinner at his home, and I was pretty impressed by his study. Wall-to-wall, floor to ceiling, nothing but pictures of prominent Democrats, national and state, and remembrances of past Democratic campaigns. It was a shrine to his party. So I figured, if readers see that Bud Ferillo of all people, expresses his “deepest appreciation for the causes and hopes we have shared,” readers will probably take Nancy’s kindly-intended error with a grain of salt. So I left it alone, and did not protest.
I’m particularly pleased by Carole Holloway’s anecdote about my playing phone tag with her until I reached her at 8 p.m. on a Friday when she had a complaint. It pleased me because I know that in recent years — as my staff shrank, and it became harder and harder to get the simplest things done in the course of the day — there have been too many people I failed to get back to. At least, that’s how I remember it. We tend to remember our failings; or I do. I don’t remember everything about my conversation with her, but what I probably said is this: I appreciate that you care so much about what I do for a living that you don’t want less of it. But I ask you to consider, if you don’t like having fewer editorial pages being put out by fewer people, how do you think I like it? Do you think I would give you less if it were in my power to give you more? Just to be clear, I would not. My whole career has been about doing more, doing a better job than I did the day before. And now I can’t. I’m sorry, and touched, that you don’t like it. But I like it far less. Or something like that. I’ve said things like that a lot in recent years. I felt every cutback like it was coming out of my hide, but I also fully understood the horrific bind that my industry was in, with the advertising revenue base melting under our feet. And I understand it now that I’ve lost my job. Of course, understanding doesn’t make it any better. The awful thing is, there’s no one to blame — and no one who might put it to rights if only you complain passionately enough. It’s just the world changing.

Sanford presumes to speak for us

You don't want that stimulus. Really. Take my word for it. Now put it down, right this minute...

My Wall Street Journal subscription The State paid for has expired — I got the third notice recently — but the last few editions are still coming. So it is that I had the privilege of being appalled at this op-ed headline:

Why South Carolina Doesn’t Want ‘Stimulus’

So you see, it’s not just our governor who keeps embarrassing us with his antics who doesn’t want the stimulus. Seems that we don’t want it, either. Did you know you didn’t want it? Came as a big shock to me, I can tell you.

Of course, the piece was written by Mark Sanford. And you know, it raises the scary possibility that he actually and truly believes that “South Carolina,” defined by him, doesn’t want the stimulus. Which means that he is only talking to, and listening to, that slice of our state that is crazy enough to agree with him that we should not get to stimulate our economy with a stimulus that we will be paying for.

This was beyond ridiculous when it was just Mark Sanford doing his solo act, his Horatio at the bridge, his boy standing on the burning deck. Trying to include us in his bizarre behavior takes this to a whole new level of absurdity. I liked it better when he was trying to dramatize his lonely specialness. This claim that he speaks for the multitude is most unsavory.

Getting paid to have a blast: Working with Robert

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
REMEMBER “The Dick Van Dyke Show”? For you younger folks, it was about a guy named Rob Petrie, the head writer for a fictional variety show (and if you’re too young to know what a “variety show” is, go look it up) called “The Alan Brady Show.”

There were these wonderful scenes of Rob and his colleagues at work, writing comedy sketches — a process that involved a lot of bouncing around the office, acting out and collaborative improvisation. Morey Amsterdam’s frenetic character would jump up and say something like, “OK, so Alan walks into the room…” and the other two would throw in various wild things until they made each other laugh, and the skit would take shape. It looked like the most fun a person could possibly get paid for having.

That’s what it’s been like working with my friend Robert Ariail over the past 15 years. Just like that.

Robert would come into my office after the other editors and I were done with our morning meeting (Robert doesn’t do meetings), usually with several sketches. Sometimes he’d come with nothing, but that was unusual. I’d react to the sketches, maybe suggesting dialogue changes, maybe an entirely different approach. Robert pays me the compliment of saying I think like a cartoonist. And I do. I have everything it takes — except the talent.

Robert has truckloads of that. He can sketch an idea as quickly as you can describe it, and many of those initial sketches could be published as they are. But was he satisfied? No way. He might go through 10 versions in the course of the day, coming back to my office several times to seek further feedback. This was fine, although more often than not, his first instincts were the best. He would refine, and it would get better and better, but he usually had it nailed from the start.

As you know, Robert and I are both leaving the paper. Today is our last day. Such is the state of our industry. So much for getting paid to have fun, for a collaboration that almost daily, for years on end, had both of us laughing like a couple of hyenas on nitrous oxide. How many people get to do that for even one day? We’ve had 15 years, and for that I feel blessed.

But it hasn’t been just about fun. What Robert has done has mattered, to South Carolina and the nation (which is why he’s won every national award except the Pulitzer, and he’s been a finalist for that twice). Robert can pack more punch into a cartoon than I can get into a hundred columns. There’s just something about a funny picture with a point.

That’s why the prestigious Calhoun Lecture Series at the Strom Thurmond Institute at Clemson University had Robert deliver the last talk of the term, just last week. He spoke of the history of cartooning in general, and at The State in particular. Among other things, he told this story:

Robert is the second cartoonist actually to be employed (rather than contributing on a freelance basis) by the paper. During the 1910 gubernatorial campaign, the first one did a cartoon on the race-baiting populist Cole Blease. It was hard-hitting. The surviving Gonzales brothers (original editor N.G. Gonzales had been gunned down five years earlier) didn’t see the cartoon before it appeared in the paper. The cartoon was seen as so harsh that it was widely believed to have helped Mr. Blease win the election, by causing voters to feel sorry for him. The Gonzales brothers apparently decided that having a cartoonist was a risky thing, because they never hired another one.

In fact, the position remained vacant until Robert filled it in 1984. Before he started, he was interviewed by the late Ben Morris, then the publisher, who just had one thing to tell Robert: “Don’t surprise me.” It wasn’t until Robert read the history later that he understood the reference.

Here’s hoping cartoonists aren’t like comets. Here’s hoping it doesn’t take another 74 years for another one to streak across the sky.

Perhaps I’m being overly dramatic. After all, Robert will still be around. He has a new Web site, robertariail.com — just being set up as I write this — where he will post new cartoons, and where you can find links to his old ones. And he will still be syndicated nationally, which provides him with a monetary incentive to keep ’em coming.

Beyond that, I’m happy to have reason to believe Robert will be just fine.

You see, Robert is not my first close cartoonist friend. Richard Crowson and I were at Memphis State University together in the early ’70s. The first column I wrote for the editorial page of the journalism department lab paper was illustrated by a Crowson cartoon. After college, he and I worked together for a decade at The Jackson (Tenn.) Sun. After I became news editor at the much-larger paper in Wichita, Kansas, in 1985, I persuaded Richard to pull up roots and join me out West.

So imagine how I felt when The Wichita Eagle laid Richard off six months ago — for the same reasons Robert and I are leaving The State. I was so torn up about it that I didn’t call Richard to talk about it until two days ago. And guess what? He’s happy as a clam. “For me personally, the layoff has just been great,” he said as he was driving to a recording session (he’s the finest bluegrass musician I’ve ever known). “I don’t have any money, but… how do you put a value on peace of mind?” He doesn’t miss the daily pressure one bit.

And after all my worrying. Robert’s, too. We knew he was not long for this newspaper. Sadly (for me), it has cast a pall over our daily brainstorming sessions, sometimes making me impatient and crabby — although Robert kept cranking out wonderful cartoons anyway.

But the past few days, since the news broke, have been great. With the pressure off, the old fun has returned. That may sound odd, but it’s true.

And this is the way I’m going to remember it.

Robert and I will still collaborate at every opportunity. Find his future work at robertariail.com. My new address is bradwarthen.com.

A previous column about Robert Ariail

At the moment, I’m supposed to be writing a column for tomorrow’s paper about the departure from the paper of my dear friend Robert Ariail. I haven’t started that column yet. (Don’t tell Cindi; she’ll be in here beating me about the head and shoulders with a pica pole.)

Anyway, in the process of fixin’ to write that column, I looked back at this old one I wrote about him, back when he had a show of his work going on over at the State Museum, in 1998.

I share it with you while I set to work on the new one:

DO ME (AND YOURSELF) A FAVOR: INSULT ROBERT ARIAIL
State, The (Columbia, SC) – Sunday, March 15, 1998
Author: BRAD WARTHEN , Editorial Page Editor
The top five editorial cartoonists working today are Pat Oliphant, Robert Ariail . . . and I forget the other three. Based on the reams of syndicated cartoons we get, Robert Ariail throws away more good ideas in a day than other cartoonists publish in a week.

The State is lucky to have him. So is South Carolina.

And so am I. I get to supervise Robert , and that’s one of the best parts of my job. Actually, “supervise” isn’t exactly the word, since Robert is a guy who very much does his own thing. Instead, call what I do “vicarious participation in the creative process.” I get to be a close observer of the creation of really wonderful cartoons, at least five days a week. It’s the next best thing to having talent of your own.

But please, please don’t tell him I said any of that. Robert doesn’t need building up right now. What he needs is a good swift kick to the ego. Not that he has a swollen head yet. Robert ‘s still as unassuming as ever. But that can’t last, not at this rate.

To start with, you’re going to see his face on billboards around town. That’s not too bad; several of his colleagues will have the same experience. But with Robert , billboards are just the beginning.

Starting last week, Robert has been syndicated by United Media, which means cartoons that first appear in The State now go to more than 600 newspapers around the country.

Later this month, Robert will be the guest of honor for a do at the State Museum. This fete will have several purposes – celebrating his syndication, benefiting the museum (at $25 a pop) and kicking off a show of his cartoons.

And then there’s the national award – strike that, international award – that Robert just learned he has won. But I can’t tell you about that because it hasn’t been announced.

I can tell you that it isn’t a Pulitzer. A Pulitzer is about all he hasn’t won. The cardboard box in his office in which he keeps such things already contains a National Headliner Award, a national Sigma Delta Chi Award and two Green Eyeshade Awards (a mere regional prize). But still no Pulitzer. That’s about all I’ve got to cling to, my one hope for keeping the boy down on the farm.

And even with the Pulitzer, he’s come frighteningly close recently. In 1995, he was one of the three announced finalists. In 1996, according to a source on the jury, he was in the top six – which is closer than it sounds, since in the final stage the judges rejected the three finalists and went to the next three for their winner.

In 1997, I took desperate action to reverse this trend. Here’s the approach I took in the cover letter for his entry:

OK, folks, I’m beginning to lose patience with this process. Every year, Robert Ariail , arguably the best editorial cartoonist working in America today, submits a stellar Pulitzer entry. Every year, I write him a nice, respectful cover letter listing his virtues.

And every year, he ALMOST makes it. (But) every year, he ends up a bridesmaid. And if you think your cousin Ethel looked bad in a bridesmaid’s dress, you should see Robert .

I told Robert that being obnoxious and making stupid jokes would get the judges’ attention. He bought it. And my plan worked. In 1997, he didn’t get so much as a nod from the Pulitzer folks.

Why do I have to do all of this myself? You people could help. But no – everywhere I go, people have to go on about how they love that Robert Ariail . Even people who hate everything else on the pages have to throw him bouquets: “All of you scum-sucking Yankee Northern ‘Knight-Rider’ carpetbagger pinkos should go back where you came from (which in my case would be Marlboro County, but never mind). However, I find Ariail ‘s cartoons delightful.”

What are you people trying to do – run him off? How much more of this can one poor boy take without getting the idea that he’s too big to hang with us local yokels? Sure, he was born here, and his family’s here, but what’s all that in the glare of the bright lights?

People are always asking what it’s like to work with Robert Ariail . I’ll tell you: It’s a lot of fun, and I want to keep on doing it.

Every morning when he comes into my office to pitch cartoon ideas, we end up laughing like a couple of hyenas on nitrous oxide. People outside my office think we’re not working. Come to think of it, maybe I’m not. But Robert is. And is that fair?

Once, a colleague of mine at another paper, who fancied himself a great wit, asked Dave Barry why he got to write a fun, syndicated column and be the toast of the nation while the rest of us have to stay in the trenches putting out the paper every day. Dave just said, “Talent,” then jetted off to meet his next batch of admiring peasants.

Is this what you want to see happen with Robert Ariail ? I should hope not. So do something about it. What? I don’t know. Go to his show at the State Museum next month and make cutting remarks. It’s not much, maybe, but every little bit helps the cause.

You can write to Mr. Warthen at warthen @thestate.infi.net or at P.O. Box 1333, Columbia, S.C. 29202.

And no, that infi.net address doesn’t work any more. Once I get it up and running, my new e-mail address will be brad@bradwarthen.com, by the way.

What’s the governor saying to me?

The governor's note.

This is embarrassing. The governor, for all I say about him, is a classy guy, gently reared, and given to sending gracious, hand-written notes — the surest sign that a person’s mama brought him up right.

But when he does this, I always have trouble deciphering the message. As you know, he had already called me about my departure, and couldn’t have been nicer. I’m assuming this was sent after my Sunday column, which mentioned that call — without sugar-coating what I think of the job he’s done as governor.

I’ve made note of this in the past when he’s written to me, and some of y’all thought it was tacky of me to post it, but I’m perfectly sincere here. I’m not trying to be mean, or anything. I want to know what he said. Is it “Good luck?” “Good grief?” “God gives?” Or what?

Help me out here, folks. (Here’s hoping the comment function is working on this new blog.

Barrett says he’d bring people together

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
GRESHAM Barrett was a very busy man Wednesday, what with hearings on the issue of the hour in Washington — AIG. The matter of what that “too-big-to-fail” insurer did with the billions we sent it occupied most of his day.
But I kept hammering on his staff — I’ve promised my readers, twice, to do a column on the Republican congressman’s candidacy for governor, and with Friday being my last day on the job, I’m about out of time — so he called me right after 5 p.m., and this column is the result. (So blame any inadequacies in this column on me and my hurry, not the congressman.)
While he’s been on the scene for a while — in the Legislature for six years, representing the 3rd District in Congress since his election in 2002 — I haven’t gotten to know him as well as some of the other candidates and potential candidates, such as fellow Republican Attorney General Henry McMaster and Democratic S.C. Sen. Vincent Sheheen.
I had already written what little I knew on my blog: He was critical (although not as harshly as Speaker Bobby Harrell was) four years ago about the job Gov. Mark Sanford had done on economic development; he was an early supporter of Fred Thompson for the GOP presidential nomination; he’s a big fan of nuclear power (the Savannah River Site is in his district); he voted against the TARP bailout, before he voted for it (which adds to his angst over AIG); he was dubbed one of the 10 “Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill” by The Hill (which frankly I just can’t see, but that’s me).
Rep. Barrett helped me fill in some blanks Wednesday evening.
Some quick bio: He was born and raised in Westminster, S.C., and grew up working in his father’s hardware store, where local farmers would gather on Friday evenings to talk over the issues of the day. His first job was “coal bucket boy.” He would go on to command his company at The Citadel. He served four-and-a-half years in the Army, reaching the rank of captain. He has no combat experience, but learned a lot about leadership in field artillery at Fort Hood. He joined his father’s business after the Army, and ran it from 1993 to 2006. He and his wife, a first-grade schoolteacher, have three children of high school and college age.
Asked to name his biggest accomplishment in the Legislature or Congress, he cited “helping lead the fight” to ban partial-birth abortion in South Carolina. That’s his “crowning achievement” thus far, “absolutely, without a doubt.”
So what would he want to accomplish as governor? So far, he’s light on details — he plans to enlist experts from various fields in developing white papers on a wide range of issues — but he wants to focus on three areas:

The economy. He wants to create jobs and economic opportunity, so our children and grandchildren don’t have to leave the state to find those things. He says this involves not just recruiting new industry, but also helping existing businesses grow, and changing tax policy. “Too many in Washington, D.C., think government is the answer, and it’s not,” he said. “It’s creating an environment where people are the answer; where you empower people.”
Energy. Aside from nuclear (he cites Duke Power’s planned $10 billion investment in a new plant in Cherokee County as economic development that can’t be beat), he talks about opportunities in biofuels. He said switchgrass for fuel could be grown on dormant tobacco land in the impoverished I-95 corridor. He also pointed to tree waste from loblolly pines, “and the good Lord has blessed us with that.”
Education. He advocates, somewhat vaguely, “creating a 21st century environment that educates everybody” with “a holistic approach” from K-12 to higher education. What does that look like? He cited the forthcoming white papers.

After mentioning those as the three main planks of his platform, he added a fourth: government restructuring. That was pleasing to me as a longtime fierce advocate of that very thing, but he startled me when he added, “Governor Sanford has done a fantastic job on government restructuring.” When I asked just where the governor had done this fantastic job, he said “I think he has brought up a lot of issues.”
The congressman was studiously careful, here and elsewhere, to avoid criticizing the incumbent of his party — directly, that is. But he did draw a rather clear contrast when he said:
“One of my strengths is working with people, is having a personal relationship with people…. I think my leadership style is bringing people together .æ.æ. putting them in a room and saying hey, guys, now here’s our ideas and here’s what I want. I want to get to the 35-yard line, and I understand that you want to get to the 20. But let’s do this: Let’s figure out what we can do to move South Carolina … (to the) 25. Let’s open the door … and next time, let’s get to the 30.”
He was too polite to say so, but that would be a change at our State House.
The reason I was all in a sweat to write this column now — a follow-up to a piece I did on Sen. Sheheen after he announced — is that it is critical that we start thinking hard (harder, more wisely, than we have in the past) about who our next governor is going to be, and the more scrutiny on these candidates the better. I’ll continue to follow this race from my new blog, and my colleagues here at The State will be all over it as well, I’m sure.
So I urge you to start paying attention, and please don’t stop until we have elected a governor who will do what this one has not, and help lead South Carolina to be everything it can be. You, and your children, deserve that.

For a copy of the congressman’s statement at the AIG hearing, video from that hearing and more, go to my new blog, bradwarthen.com.

Check out bradwarthen.com

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There's not much there — the new blog is just taking its first, teetering, baby steps — but I urge you to go check out bradwarthen.com, and watch it grow.

I will no longer be doing THIS blog after Friday, so if you want to continue the conversation, you'll have to go there. Again, that address is:

bradwarthen.com

And I promise, there will be much more to see there soon…

More on Gresham Barrett

Still trying to figure out this new blog. But as will be promised in my Thursday column, here are the congressman’s opening comments from the AIG hearing:

“Thank you Mr. Chairman. Last fall, President Bush asked for my help to avoid a total collapse of our economy – a collapse that would have pushed our country into even greater economic peril. Back home, small business owners and major corporations, called me to let me know that if we did not take extraordinary steps in those extraordinary times that many of the employers my constituents rely on would be forced to close their doors for good.

“Now, it disappoints me to see that some of the very companies who requested taxpayer assistance have failed to change their pattern of irresponsible decision-making which undoubtedly contributed to the current economic crisis. The Bush administration, and then Chairman of the New York Fed, Timothy Geithner, mismanaged the implementation of this program and the Obama administration, while assuring us that they knew exactly what was going on and how monies were being spent, have failed to bring about the necessary reforms and safeguards to protect the American taxpayers.

“Panel, we need to figure out our exit strategy, how taxpayers are going to be paid back, and when we can end this toxic relationship with AIG.”

And here’s a link to video from the hearing, in case the imbed above doesn’t work. (Not very exciting video, is it?)

Video: A brief history of cartooning at The State

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Robert Ariail delivered a lecture last Thursday night, as part of the prestigious Calhoun Lecture Series at the Strom Thurmond Institute at Clemson U. It was about the history of cartooning in general, and at The State in particular.

Today, he dropped by my office to share an anecdote that he told up in Clemson, one which seems particularly apropos to share today, the day the news came out that his career at The State is coming to an end.

It's about the only other cartoonist The State ever actually employed full-time, back in the days of the Gonzales brothers, and why it took 74 years for the paper to hire one
after its first experience...

Cindi’s very kind words today (and Bob’s last week)

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Don't know if you saw Cindi Scoppe's very touching column about me today. I pass on the link in case you missed it.

It means even more to me than you might think because, as she notes, she's not the sort to butter up the boss (certainly not one who's leaving), or anybody else. Cindi refers to herself as the "designated mean bitch" around here, which of course is entirely (or almost entirely) inaccurate. I prefer to think of her as tough-minded, which is what makes her one of the best in the business.

I'll tell you a little anecdote — Cindi was the first person (and just about the only one) to welcome me my first day on the job here. As Gordon Hirsch (a frequent commenter here) informed me, I was regarded as the "Knight-Ridder spy" because I was the first editor to come from another KR paper. It didn't matter that I had left Wichita the way Lot left Sodom. It was a lousy working situation, and I never looked back. But many here were convinced I was the corporate guy, so I got a lot of suspicious looks. (When I explained to Gordon how ridiculous it was, he shook his head and said none of that mattered. Far as scuttlebutt was concerned, I was the spy, so I might as well get used to it.) But Cindi, all of 23 years old at the time, strides through that cloud of suspicion right up to me, sticks out her hand and makes it clear that she, for one, was glad to have me here.

So it's fitting that she should bid me a public farewell. She didn't care who knew she was glad to meet me, and isn't a bit shy to let folks know she's sorry to see me go. And I've appreciated it both times.

While I'm thanking people, I have to apologize because in all the craziness of last week, I never got around to thanking Bob McAlister for the kind words that he wrote on his blog, which we published as an online-only column (online-only because we had recently run a column of his in the paper, so he was under our "30-day" guideline).

Bob, as I recall, regarded me a good deal more warily than Cindi, upon first meeting me. He was the communications chief — later chief of staff — for Gov. Carroll Campbell. It was his duty to be suspicious. But over the years we've fought a few battles together and become good friends. Bob is one of many such friends who have reached out and offered to do whatever they can to help in recent days, and in his case has actually taken action to ease my transition to … well, to whatever comes next.

Anyway, I wanted to be sure to thank both Cindi and Bob for thinking so kindly of me, from their differing perspectives.