Category Archives: South Carolina

Supt. Scott Andersen and Dist. 5 school board in better days

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Our Sunday lead editorial will be about the Lexington/Richland District 5 school board’s conspiracy of silence over the resignation of Superintendent Scott Andersen. As I was editing it earlier today, it occurred to me that I had video of the superintendent together with his board at a time of perfect unity — just under a year ago, when they came to visit us to promote the bond referendum that failed last fall.

I had posted video from this meeting before, but the clips concentrated entirely on the board members. They, after all the ones who are elected and therefore directly accountable to the people (or should be, their recent secrecy to the contrary). And the thing that impressed us was their unanimity on the bond referendum. None of us could remember when the District 5 board had been so unified about anything, so that was where the news lay.

But I remember having the impression that the unanimity might have resulted in part from a good selling job by the superintendent. Superintendents work for boards, but all of them strive to lead their boards when they can. And when they lose that ability, they are often on the way out.

In the above clip, watch for two things:

  • Mr. Andersen’s breezy confidence as he makes his pitch, even to the point of joking about his having "skipped over the price tag." This was obviously a guy who was comfortable in front of his board members.
  • His board was comfortable with him, chuckling and joshing about the fact that "Scott’s not from around here," after the superintendent had explained his ignorance about a piece of property the district had been interested in (ignorance that critics of the board had misinterpreted as a deliberate attempt to deceive, according to Mr. Andersen).

To help you remember, I’m imbedding below the old clip from that meeting as well, with the board members speaking.

Alert: Actual relevant discussion happening on the blog as we speak!

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Just thought I’d clue y’all into the discussion going on as I type this between DHEC’s Thom Berry and the S.C. blogosphere’s "not very bright" over the sewage spill into the Saluda River.

Those of you who prefer serious issues to Top Five Lists should probably tune in, and weigh in…

Yeah, but what’s ‘normal?’

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Just now had to run downstairs to make a change in a Friday editorial because I got this release from DHEC to the effect that test results "from the Saluda River in Columbia indicate water quality has returned
to normal following the discharge of partially treated wastewater last
week."

DHEC further says it’s taken down the warning signs that everybody was ignoring, so I guess it has a lot of confidence in the tests.

Personally, I’m not going to run down the river and jump in quite yet, partly because of my heavy dignity as eminence grise of the editorial board, and partly because, after I dragged my old behind back up the stairs after updating the editorial I got to conjurin’ (which is "Firefly" talk for "figuring"): Do they mean "South Carolina" normal, or "states with the kinds of safeguards in place to make sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen in the first place" normal?

Mind you, I’m not putting the blame on DHEC here — or rather, I’m only assigning to them their fair share of it. The whole way we provide such basic local services as sewer in this state — a fragmented, often overlapping mishmash of local gummints, special purpose districts and private providers — is such a mess it’s hard for anybody to keep track of it.

Maybe Mayor Bob ought to go ahead with pulling his summit together. With all these little local fiefdoms along the river counting on its waters to attract untold wealth to the region, I expect they’ve all got some more conjurin’ to do.

(Oh, and for those of you who conjure that Mayor Bob, or someone in local gummint, should have been able to deal with this without meeting with a bunch of other folks — well, you just don’t understand how weak and fragmented local gummint is in our state. You can thank the Legislature for that, by the way. They never miss an opportunity to keep things this way.)

Are you a locavore?

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Emile DeFelice, sometime contributor to this blog, said it this way: "Put Your State On Your Plate."

Hugh Weathers, the man who beat Emile to remain state agriculture commissioner, has a more succinct way of putting it: The word, he says, is "locavore."

Read about the concept, and what South Carolina is doing to promote it, in Mr. Weathers’ op-ed piece today, if you haven’t read it already. Then take the challenge — eat local for a day.

Then, do it again.

But what do we CALL the building?

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Today’s paper reported that the tallest building in South Carolina — you know, the one across GervaisAtt
Street from the State House — is to have yet another new owner.

Fine. But what I want to know is what to call it, preferably something less cumbersome than "the tallest building in South Carolina — you know, the one across Gervais Street from the State House."

I have in the past called it "the AT&T building," because that’s what it was known as first, near as I can recall. But it hasn’t really been that for a lot of years. Officially, it’s been the "Capitol Center" — but how many people who have occasion to refer to it actually call it that. And it’s so generic-sounding, not many are likely to remember it. The new owner is the Boston-based Intercontinental Real Estate Corp., which doesn’t suggest anything catchy.

Here’s an idea: You remember my column about the political etymology of "good ol’ boy." If you recall, I traced its use in S.C. to the 1986 gubernatorial campaign. Here’s something I wrote then in an addendum to that column about a conversation I had with Bob McAlister, who was in the middle of all that:

In fact, he believes (immodestly) that a TV commercial he produced,
entitled "Good Old Boys," was what won the election for Campbell. The
thrust of it was to drive home the cozy relationship between the
developers of what then was called the AT&T building on the site of
the old Wade Hampton Hotel (neither Bob nor I could remember what it’s
called now; it’s had several aliases). The clincher was a picture he
had taken of a banner in front of the building itself supporting
Democratic nominee Mike Daniel.

So how about, "Good Old Boy Tower?" OK, I just said it was an idea, not that it was a good one.

Can you do better? It’s the tallest building in the state, folks; that makes it a landmark. We ought to have something memorable to call it.

How do you say ‘So Gay’ in German?

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Cindi wrote a short editorial for tomorrow about the latest way that our state has found to waste "Competitive Grant" money. In case you haven’t read about it, Rep. Liston Barfield got 100 Gs to entertain German visitors to the Grand Strand, even though some local tourism officials said the money would have been better spent on advertising to promote tourism.

Wanting to jazz up the headline a bit, I sent her an instant message asking, "How do you say ‘So Gay’ in German?"

So far, she hasn’t replied. Maybe Herb can help us with that.

SLED’s antique helo

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Sometimes on the edit page, we get into a bit of a rut. There are so many ways in which our inadequate state government is underfunded that for simplicity’s sake we tend to fall back on certain standbys when we gripe about our Legislature’s failure to set priorities in budgeting. When we cite a litany of neglect, we usually fall on:

  • Mental Health — A favorite example is how the lack of state resources for the mentally ill unnecessarily overcrowd our jails and hospital emergency rooms.
  • Prisons — We keep locking up more and more people, and providing less and less resources even to guard, much less rehabilitate, them.
  • Highways — We let them crumble, and we don’t enforce speed limits or other laws.
  • Schools — Too many districts, no follow-through on the promise to do more in early childhood, the neglect of the most troubled and impoverished rural districts, etc.

And that’s a nice overview, as far as it goes. It’s fine for just a representation in passing of the overall problem. We refer to such examples when we’re complaining about everything from poorly considered tax cuts to spending on things the state doesn’t need to spend on.

But we could write about other examples as well, and probably should more often. I was reminded of this by new SLED Chief Reggie Lloyd when he spoke to the Columbia Rotary yesterday. He talked about how everywhere he’s been in either state or federal government, he always seemed to arrive just as the budget screws were being applied.

The wiretaps he spoke of, and which were cited in the brief in today’s paper, were related to this. SLED has the equipment and the authority to do wiretaps in drug and gang investigations. But the people haven’t been trained in how to do it, so the equipment has sat there (to the delight of libertarians, no doubt, but not to those of us who love Big Brother).

But my favorite anecdote was when he was talking about the department’s Huey. When I heard that, I thought maybe I heard wrong: They’re still flying a Huey? But that wasn’t the half of it. This particular Huey was salvaged from the rice paddy it once crashed into in Vietnam. Now, it’s being flown by pilots who weren’t yet born then. Not long ago, SLED did some sort of joint thing with some folks from the Coast Guard, and they all wanted to see the Huey. They had heard about it, but found it hard to believe.

Hamburgerhill

Maybe because he really, REALLY is?

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Working on catching up on e-mail — just getting started, really; I probably won’t get it done today — I ran across this one:

Dear Mr. Warthen,
    I thought you might be interested in a piece I’ve written for Governing Magazine’s blog, pondering why Gov. Sanford is so frequently described as a libertarian: http://ballotbox.governing.com/2008/08/south-carolinas.html .
All the best,
Josh Goodman

Before following the link and reading the post, I hazarded a guess as to the answer: "Because he IS?"

I suppose Josh has a point in noting that more and more people are calling him that these days. I remember when I was the only one I knew of. That’s because I got an early start. One day in his first months as governor, I was visiting him in his office, and after we had touched on various topics that seemed to have a recurring theme, I blurted out, with the tone of one who just realized he’d been a chump, "You ran as a ‘conservative Republican, and you still call yourself that. But you’re not. You’re a libertarian." As I recall, he nodded soberly — I guess "soberly" is how you describe the expression in my mind’s eye. In any case, he didn’t argue about it.

As for people using it as a "pejorative" — perhaps they do. I know I wasn’t thinking happy thoughts when I realized the sort of governor we had. You see, a libertarian is not a good thing to has as governor of one of the most undergoverned states in the union. Maybe it would be a good thing to be in Massachusetts. But in a state that lacks so much in the way of basics that citizens of other states take for granted, the anti-government stance is at best superfluous, and at worst positively malevolent.

Of course, some purists may do what Josh does and quibble that not all of his views are purely libertarian. But you can say that about Ron Paul, too; that doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s America’s best-known libertarian.

Welcome to the beach

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Generally, I make a point of keeping up with the local news wherever I am. Hence my occasional reports in this venue from Memphis, or from up in PA (where over the weekend the biggest news seemed to be the question of whether Joe Paterno would retire).

Today, I’m at the beach in SC, where I am greeted by this lovely news in The Sun News:

    South Carolina’s beaches, including those in Horry and Georgetown
counties, are the sixth most polluted in the nation, according to a
report released Tuesday by a nonprofit environmental group.

    Local
and state experts denounced the report, saying area beaches are safe.
Officials with Horry County, North Myrtle Beach, Myrtle Beach and the
state Department of Natural Resources all complained of inaccuracies
and misinterpretation of data in the National Resources Defense
Council’s report….

That second paragraph makes me feel SO much better, doesn’t it you? Well, of course YOU feel better; you’re not at the beach, are you?

As I left to come to my favorite blogging spot at the beach, I told my daughter not to go near the water until I got back. I told her it was because of the buddy system of aquatic safety. I didn’t want to freak her out totally.

Working around the governor

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At first glance, when I saw this story this morning, and my eye fell on the word "governor," I thought, "Hey, that’s new — Sanford working with others to grow the knowledge economy in South Carolina."

Then I actually read the story. An excerpt:

    Legislative, business and education leaders Tuesday announced a new
partnership designed to draw high-paying technology and research jobs
to South Carolina — the types of jobs, lawmakers said, Gov. Mark
Sanford and the Department of Commerce have failed to bring to the
state.

    The
new effort was the brainchild of House Speaker Bobby Harrell,
R-Charleston; Rep. Dan Cooper, R-Anderson; Senate President Pro Tem
Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston; and Senate Finance Chairman Hugh
Leatherman, R-Florence — arguably the state’s four most influential
lawmakers. The idea was also endorsed by new University of South
Carolina president Harris Pastides and others in the business community….

So it was, of course, the work of every state leader except the governor. The governor, of course, maintains through those who work for him that he and his Commerce Dept. are getting the job done. But they are the only ones in state government, or apparently in academia, who think so.

It’s really unfortunate for Gov. Sanford that the state is run by Republicans. He would be much more at home with a Democratic Legislature, so that his dismissals of criticism as "political" would be more readily accepted. For instance, I might be able to dismiss the complaints of my friend Samuel. Samuel, as you probably know, was the guy who came up with the idea of the endowed chairs. He served on the governing board of that until the gov replaced him. But he’s a Democrat who’s been dumped on by the gov, so you take his complaints about the gov not caring about economic development with a grain of salt, right?

But as things are, the governor doesn’t work well with others, period, regardless of party.

And that’s why others work around him.

Noble offers to bet Dawson Obama will win S.C.

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Remember a few weeks ago, when Phil Noble predicted on our pages that Barack Obama would win in South Carolina in November?

There’s been some Republican scoffing since then. So today, I received a copy of this message:

                    July 24, 2008

Mr. Katon Dawson
SC Republican Party
P.O. Box 12373
Columbia, SC 29211

Dear Katon,
    Recently, I wrote an op-ed that appeared in a number of newspapers in South Carolina entitled "Why Obama Will Win South Carolina."
    It seems to have caused quite a stir among some of your Republican friends who confidently dismissed an Obama victory as an impossibility. You have been quoted in newspapers as saying "We’ve got South Carolina taken care of." and the idea of Obama winning was ‘a pipe dream’.
    A ‘pipe dream’?
    To quote Robert Kennedy, "Some men see things as they are, and say ‘Why?’ — I dream of things that never were, and say, ‘Why not?’"
    Along with millions of people around the country, we in South Carolina are working to make our dream come true…and it will happen.
    I’m so confident of victory that I would propose a friendly wager — as representatives of our respective candidates — the loser buys the winner a dinner of the finest South Carolina barbeque, with all the trimmings, at any restaurant of the winner’s choice in the state — except Maurice’s.
    I look forward to hearing from you…and having a great dinner on you.

Sincerely,

Phil Noble
President
SC New Democrats

Colbert: S.C. is SO not gay

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Let’s credit Adam Fogle — the guy who started it all when he broke the story initially — with bringing to my attention the clip of Stephen Colbert explaining in no uncertain terms why his native state and mine is so not gay, no matter what those British ad wizards may say.

This should settle the matter, as I can hardly imagine a more authoritative source. He knows what’s what. Remember, this is a guy who gets all his South Carolina news from Brad Warthen’s Blog:

Butch says he and Kevin working pro bono for DMV

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Just got this e-mail from Butch Bowers, one of the attorneys who stuck up for the "I Believe" license plate on our Monday op-ed page:

Brad – enjoyed
reading you blog post about our piece and the DMV’s release of yet another
license plate.  In one of the comments to this post, a reader
asks you if Kevin
and I billed DMVBowersb08_4
for writing the piece and if we are getting paid by the state
to defend this suit or if we are working pro bono.  If you are interested in
responding, I thought I would let you know that we are in fact providing pro
bono representation to DMV.  We didn’t bill anybody nor did we otherwise get
paid for writing the op ed piece, and our representation won’t cost the
taxpayers any money at all.
 
Thanks very much,
and I hope you are doing well.  Take care,
 
Butch
OK, Butch, "I believe" you. But if my ol’ friend Kevin hasn’t found a way to bill somebody on this, he must be slipping…

RichCo Council agrees with us on sales tax hike

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The proposal to put a local penny sales tax increase for Richland County transportation needs on the November ballot presented us with a dilemma as an editorial board. Some of the main points to consider:

  • With the vehicle tax expiring in October, some way to continue funding the Midlands bus system was needed.
  • The road work identified in the plan a citizen study group came up with DID identify real needs — although the road construction, along with bike paths, etc. — were in our minds mere sweeteners (in this plan, that is) to draw more votes for the bus funding. There is indeed a need for some road construction, and MUCH road maintenance, not only in Richland County, but across our state. That has been neglected by our Legislature, which has also refused to reform the DOT, making us reluctant to see any additional funding passed, since it would pass through such an inefficient and unaccountable agency.
  • With the tax swap of last year, the Legislature has already put far too much stress on sales taxes, and too little on other mechanisms such as property and income. Another penny would exacerbate an already serious problem. It’s not as bad here yet as Tennessee, but we’re getting there.
  • The Legislature — see how often the Legislature is the source of problems? — has given local governments no better options for funding local needs.
  • Putting the question on the ballot is not the same thing as supporting it.

So, faced with all that and more, we noted the problems with a sales tax increase in our Tuesday editorial, although we reluctantly granted that at this point, perhaps the only way forward was to go ahead and have the referendum. Then, when it failed, the council would know it had to find another way to fund the buses.

Now that it has voted down even having the referendum (which we did not think the council would do, or I  didn’t anyway), the county has reached that point even more quickly.

The best option at the moment would seem to be continuing the wheel tax, while looking for a longer-term solution to paying the county’s share of operating the inadequate transit system that we have.

Again, the private sector steps up on homelessness

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A couple of weeks back — when I was in Memphis, in fact — I wrote about how the private sector was once again stepping to the plate to deal with Columbia’s problem with homeless people. The United Way, the Chamber, the Salvation Army and a consortium of other churches had put together a plan for a one-stop service center to deal with the homeless, and the Knight Foundation (with which I was once associated, but no more) had put up a challenge grant of $5 million.

I also reminded y’all of how the Columbia City Council killed the last such effort, and was naysaying the latest one, which did not bode well.

Well, another major nonprofit player in town stepped up this week to commit to the latest effort that is happening in spite of a lack of encouragement from the city:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Central Carolina Community Foundation Presents Midlands Housing Alliance with $500,000 to Fund Homeless Transition Center
Nonprofit Corporation Contributes $100,000 Upfront plus a Four-Year Annual Commitment of $100,000

COLUMBIA, S.C. – July 18, 2008 – The Central Carolina Community Foundation (CCCF), a nonprofit corporation that empowers donors to make effective charitable giving decisions by linking them to different areas of community need, announces its donation of $500,000 to the Midlands Housing Alliance to fund the Homeless Transition Center that is planned for the current Salvation Army site in downtown Columbia.  Today, $100,000 was granted with an annual commitment of $100,000 for the next four years. 
    “Our role as a community foundation is not only to support humanitarian needs in our community,” stated Board Chair David Sojourner, “but also to address strategic issues and to be a catalyst in bringing together leaders, donors and organizations working to resolve community problems.  Our Board of Trustees recognizes that this comprehensive plan is the best approach to break the cycle of homelessness.”
    CCCF will challenge and encourage its donors to contribute to the Alliance and the homeless services center, which was jump-started by a $5 million challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation June 26, 2008.   The grant provides $5 million to fund the development of the center and organizers are seeking approximately $5 million from private organizations and the business community, and an additional $5 million from our local government.
    Board Vice-Chair Mike Kelly said, “I am very enthusiastic about this strategic opportunity and am committed to supporting it both as a board member and personally.  I encourage others in the community to do the same.” 
    The CCCF has long contributed to addressing the issue of homelessness in the Midlands.  As a constituent in the 2004 Blueprint to Address Homelessness and awarding nearly $300,000 to support housing and homelessness in 2007 and 2008, the CCCF believes the comprehensive services center is the next logical step for the Foundation, as well as for the community.
    “Our experience working with the homeless people of New Orleans after Katrina offers clear evidence that the transitional center concept with all services provided in one location is an extremely effective way of working with the homeless,” said board member Samuel Tenenbaum.  “If we can do it for New Orleans, we can do it for the Midlands!”
    Gayle Averyt, a founder and supporter of CCCF, said, “The Knight Foundation’s challenge gift has given Columbia a realistic opportunity to deal effectively with our homelessness problems.  Also no organization has more experience managing all aspects of the homeless problem than the Salvation Army.  It would be tragic if we don’t take full advantage of the Knight Foundation’s challenge gift.  I commend the Central Carolina Community Foundation for making this bold commitment and strongly encourage others to do the same.”

About Central Carolina Community Foundation
Central Carolina Community Foundation is a nonprofit organization serving 11 counties in the Midlands by distributing grants and scholarships and linking the resources of donors, nonprofits and community leaders to areas of need.  For more information about the Foundation, visit www.yourfoundation.org.
                ###

OK, city, how about it? Ready to do your part yet?

Another license plate, another bad idea

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Here we go again. I just got this release from S.C. DMV:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 21, 2008

GEORGIA TECH FOUNDATION LICENSE PLATE AVAILABLE
Blythewood, SC – The South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles (SCDMV) announced today the availability of a new specialty license plate.
    The Georgia Tech Foundation license plate is now available in SCDMV offices across the state. The fee for the Georgia Tech Foundation license plate is $70 every two years in addition to the regular motor vehicle registration fee. The plate is available to the general public and has no special requirements for obtaining the plates.   
    A portion of the fees collected for the Georgia Tech Foundation plate will be used for scholarships to Georgia Tech for students from South Carolina.
     To view images of all the specialty license plates currently available, visit the SCDMV Web site at www.scdmvonline.com.
                    #####

We had another op-ed piece in today’s paper on the interminable debate over whether South Carolina should issue "I Believe" plates. I thought Kevin and Butch did pretty well with what their client gave themHumanists to work with. Gotta hand it to them, the "Secular Humanists of the Low Country" plate was a new one on me.

And it makes a certain kind of sense for the state to make "I Believe" plates if it’s going to make "In Reason We Trust" plates, and it should make those if it’s going to make, oh, I don’t know… "Surfrider Foundation" plates. (By the way, I am not making any of these up. You can look at all of them here.)

But as I’ve said before here, and as we’ve said editorially in the paper, we shouldn’t be making any of these specialty plates, especially not the ones that exist to raise money for some cause or other. I’m not going to repeat all the arguments. I set them out back here. But I will say this much again:

The purpose of a license plate is essentially a law enforcement one — they should be quickly identifiable as SC plates, which is a standard that all these special vanity plates blow out of the water.

With all these different plates already, how a cop is supposed to tell whether he’s looking at an SC plate or not at a glance is beyond me…

Michael on the Confederate flag

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Michael Rodgers, longtime correspondent here and founder of the Take Down The Flag blog, wrote this to me today, and I share it with you:

Dear Brad,
I am writing for two reasons: to point out some common things people often say that are wrong and to describe the stunning lack of leadership from our state government on this issue.

First, the things that are wrong:

1) Our issue in SC is just like the issue in Mississippi or Georgia.  Wrong, because our issue in South Carolina is about the third flag we fly, not about our state flag.
2) The 2/3 vote requirement for this issue is insurmountable.  Wrong for two reasons:

  a. The 2/3 requirement is a legislative hurdle can be taken out of the way with a simple majority (1/2).  Then a simple majority would be able to change rest of the law.
  b. Our state government votes 2/3 all the time when they override Gov. Sanford’s veto, so in fact 2/3 routinely occurs.

3) No one in our state legislature is interested in resolving this issue.  Wrong, because H-3588, a bill to resolve this issue, has seven sponsors. (And as a personal opinion, I think H-3588 completes the compromise).
4) This issue is between flag supporters, who are happy, and flag opponents, who are unhappy.  Wrong for four reasons:

  a. The issue is the FLYING of a third flag from Statehouse grounds, so the camps are flag flying supporters and flag flying opponents.
  b. Flag supporters are unhappy – why else would they get so worked up all the time about this issue?
  c. This issue is between the leaders of our state government, who are happy, and South Carolinians, who are unhappy.
  d. The issue is actually the story (the why!) we tell when we fly or when we don’t fly the flag.  (And as a personal opinion, H-3588 provides a completely consistent clarification of the story of the compromise of 2000).

5) This issue is not worth our time to resolve.  Wrong because this issue is

  a. a defining issue for our state,
  b. tearing our state apart, and
  c. diminishing our state’s stature.

Second, the stunning lack of leadership.

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/

Gov. Mark Sanford said, "Everybody has a different perspective. It is a deeply dividing and complex issue that we’re not going to try and open and re-examine. Somebody is going to have to place a tremendous amount of political capital to pry open a compromise. This administration is not going to be doing that."

Our state government is flying the Confederate flag, and this action causes people to react viscerally.  And when I say people, I am concurring with Gov. Sanford’s grouping:  It’s a deeply dividing issue that affects everybody.

Our state government is flying the Confederate flag, and this action causes people to have enormous confusion as to the reason for this action.  And when I say people, I am concurring with Gov. Sanford’s grouping: Everybody has a different perspective.

Our state government is causing deep division that confuses everybody, and what does Gov. Sanford propose to do about it?  Nothing.

Gov. Sanford says that this simple issue is too complex for him to re-examine.  He says what he always says, which is if we’re going to do anything, we’ve got to throw out everything we’ve been given and start fresh — new constitution, new government structure, new approach to property taxes, new approach to education, etc.  No wonder he doesn’t have the political capital to spare for this issue!

I say that we can solve this issue by respecting the compromise and by clarifying the confusion.  Our state government made a compromise in 2000, where they decided a lot of things under a lot of pressure.  By and large, they did a fantastic job, under the circumstances.

One part of this compromise, the flying of the Confederate flag from Statehouse grounds, is deeply dividing everybody because everybody has a different perspective on this action. We can focus on solving this last remaining issue because the complex parts of this issue have already been solved.

We can solve this last remaining issue, the simple one, with H-3588.  This bill says that confusions about racism and sovereignty can be resolved by flying our state flag in place of the Confederate flag.  This bill says that confusions about respect for heritage can be resolved by commemorating Confederate Memorial Day every year by flying the Confederate flag at the flagpole where it is now.

H-3588 respects the compromise of 2000 by honoring the Confederate Soldier Monument, Confederate Memorial Day, and the Confederate flag.  H-3588 clarifies the message about why our state honors the Confederate flag: because we respect the service and sacrifice of the Confederate soldiers and not for any other reason.

Because H-3588 respects the compromise and clarifies the confusion, H-3588 completes the compromise.  A leader can easily solve this problem.  Who’s going to step up to the plate?  The governor’s mansion awaits.

Regards,
Michael Rodgers
Columbia, SC

Obama’s Southern hopes

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A WashPost blog called "Behind the Numbers" has thrown cold water on an Associated Press projection "that if Barack Obama lives up to his pledge to boost African American
turnout by 30 percent, he would score big wins across the south."

I had heard of the AP analysis until I read this. I thought y’all might be interested — especially since Obama has indicated he wants to contest South Carolina — so I call it to your attention. An excerpt:

Taking Georgia as an example: George W. Bush beat John Kerry by 17
points in 2004, a massive margin, and better than his 12-point victory
in 2000. Average GOP advantage: 425,796 votes. But add in 1996 (when
Bob Dole beat Clinton by a single point) and 1992 (a narrow Clinton
win), and the average drops to 216,218 votes, a much lower threshold.
Using the CPS data further confounds the issue. The 2000 CPS estimate for black turnout in Georgia exceeds the total number of African American registered voters in the Georgia Secretary of State’s database by more than 27,000.

Substituting the 2000-2004 average for the 1992-2004 average and
using estimates of black voter turnout from the state government, shows
that black turnout would have to go up by 81 percent to put Obama over
the top; again assuming all else remained the same. Compared with 2004
alone, black turnout would have to about double (increase 96 percent)
to give Obama the state’s 15 Electoral College votes.

Well, it makes my head spin — but perhaps y’all will get something out of it.

That Howie — he just can’t meet a deadline, can he?

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Ross Shealy over at Barbecue and Politics has been busy compiling some interesting facts on some of the individual races in our recent state primaries.

Actually, it’s just the same fact over and over, but it’s an interesting one. Howard Rich — that star of video, thanks to Katon Dawson — funneled thousands of bucks to candidate after candidate, right AFTER the final deadline for pre-primary campaign finance reports. So did some other out-of-state voucher supporters.

By Ross’ reckoning, Katrina (no relation) Shealy (to name one) got $97,000 in out-of-state funding, of which voters only had the chance to know about $5,000 before they voted.

Here’s the result of Ross’ labors with regard to Ms. Shealy. Here also is what he’s put together on the following candidates:

Our boy Ross has been busy. So has Howard Rich.

Sanford and McCain: How many times must a horse be beaten to death?

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Since yesterday, I’ve seen the question posed several different ways, both mockingly and in dead seriousness: Does Mark Sanford’s blank-out on CNN (now being compared unfavorably to the Miss Teen USA contestant from SC), hurt his chances to be John McCain’s running mate?

Let me pause now and count to ten before answering that. In fact, let’s discuss an unrelated point, which is that I wouldn’t be able to answer the question either. It’s not the sort of question I think about. If you asked me to say what was different in the economic policies of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, or John Kerry, or Alfred E. Neuman, I wouldn’t be able to answer you on the spur of the moment, and in fact would probably spurn the question as unimportant to me. Sanford’s problem is that he lacked the cool or presence of mind to do that. Perhaps he didn’t think he could get away with it. That’s too bad for him, because insouciance is what he does best, and once you take it off the table, he’s got a problem.

Now, as to our main point? Who out there still thinks Mark Sanford’s got a snowball’s chance on a Columbia sidewalk of being asked to carry John McCain’s freaking luggage, much less be his running mate? Didn’t we beat this horse to death some time back? And then beat it again? And again? What’s it doing clop-clopping down the street in the middle of summer?

I’m beginning to lose patience on this point, the whole concept is so offensively stupid.

Here’s a corollary to that: The presumption in Wolf Blitzer’s question is that Mark Sanford is somehow well situated to speak as an apologist for Sen. McCain. This is almost, but not quite, as idiotic as the idea of his being a running mate. There is probably no Republican in South Carolina LESS invested in the McCain campaign than Mark Sanford. This is the guy who expressed his "support" in the most insulting way possible, AFTER it no longer mattered — and after the other two most prominent Republican officeholders in the state had put their reps on the line for their chosen candidates.

I wouldn’t ask Mr. Sanford if he knew how to SPELL "McCain," much less ask him to defend his policy positions. Maybe that’s why I’m not in TV news…