Just to show that the MSM are not one big, fat conspiracy, the Myrtle Beach Sun News has endorsed Hillary Clinton, as this release from Zac proudly announces:
Myrtle Beach Sun News Endorses Hillary for President
COLUMBIA, SC – The Myrtle Beach Sun News, a major daily newspaper serving the Pee Dee and Grand Strand in South Carolina, today endorsed Hillary Clinton for President, calling her "sharp, savvy, highly skilled" and citing her experience and ability to solve problems. According to the endorsement editorial, the newspaper found that Hillary Clinton “certainly has the brains, toughness and skill-set required to chart her own course.” The full endorsement follows.
Obama brings characteristics to this primary that lift up many
people and elevate their sense of hope. He is not a hardened ideologue.
While he does not minimize his Democratic Party roots, he talks openly
and encouragingly of wanting to get "Democrats, Republicans and
independents to work constructively on problems instead of (trying) to
score political points."
He could help Washington move past its
stubborn and destructive partisan politics. As he said in an editorial
board meeting at this newspaper, "The politics we have seen and grown
accustomed to over the past 20 years have not been productive." That’s
so true…
So as you see, they’ve chosen to endorse our candidate, using our reasoning, and making like it’s their own. Well, I suppose I can live with all that. After all, they’re right.
But then they went and copied us on releasing the endorsement early online. They’ve stolen our shtick! EPE Beth Padgett freely admits that they’ve never done this before, whereas everybody knows that we do it all the time — which is to say, we’ve now done it twice.
We did very thorough research of The State‘s editorial board’s positions over the last few years, and in addition to endorsing Democrats Jim Clyburn, John Spratt, Robert Barber and Jim Rex in the last cycle, this is what we found that the board has advocated for, among other positions:
Improved government transparency
Energy independence
Alleviating inequalities in educational opportunities
Strenthening consumer safety measures
Reforming No Child Left Behind
Adequately funding public colleges
I assume their campaign supports the aforementioned candidates and policy positions despite the fact the paper has endorsed Republicans. It makes you wonder where they draw the line for the legitimacy of your advocacy.
I didn’t realize we were being studied up on to that extent, but I see now that we were. Ordinarily, you’d expect that Don would have just known all this stuff about us, seeing as how he’s a Columbian. But he is blinded by his partisan view of the world — for him, if you ever endorsed or agreed with a Republican, you apparently are beyond the pale.
Well, it took him a day and a half, but Columbian and former Democratic National Committee Chairman Don Fowler managed to draft a response to our endorsement of Barack Obama (I received it at 10:46 a.m. today):
Don Fowler’s comments on editorial endorsements by The State Having The State newspaper render judgments about Democrats is like Lucifer rendering judgments about angels. The crack set of philosopher kings at The State have twice endorsed George Bush and twice endorsed Mark Sanford. No further comment required.
Don Fowler
No, that’s not an excerpt. That’s the whole message, except for his phone number and e-mail address at the end.
Apparently, we didn’t endorse Don’s preferred candidate. For those of you who don’t know Don, you should. At least you should know that his wife, Carol, is the present state party chair. But in his day, Dr. Fowler has operated on a much grander stage.
Over the years, Don and I have disagreed strongly over one thing: He thinks the political parties are a wonderful, essential part of our political system (hence all the time he’s spent serving one of them). I see the Republican and Democratic parties as anathema, the ruination of the country, destructive forces that foster intellectual dishonesty and prevent the deliberative process from functioning as the nation’s Founders intended. Don is a Democrat, through and through. I am the founder and most ardent proponent of the UnParty.
Given that divide between us, it was pretty much inevitable — looking at it now in retrospect — that we would endorse Barack Obama, the one candidate seeking the Democratic nomination with the goal of leading the nation beyond the nauseating polarization that has characterized the Bush-Clinton years. And it was just as inevitable that Don would disagree most vehemently, and in the hyperpartisan terms that he chose.
Don doesn’t even see the truth, which is that this newspaper has endorsed slightly more Democrats than Republicans in the years I’ve been on this editorial board. We haven’t done that on purpose; party is not a consideration in our deliberations. I wasn’t aware of it until I took the time in 2004 to do a study of the past decade’s endorsements. It just worked out that way. (In fact, in 2006 we endorsed 12 Democrats and 5 Republicans — again, not intentionally. And while that skewed our running average toward Democrats, we sometimes go just as strongly for Republicans, depending on the candidates that year.)
But Don’s apparently not a guy who can understand, or forgive, anyone who has backed a Republican ever. And the partisan filter through which he perceives the world is what divides us.
My old friend Bud Ferillo, an Obama supporter (and coiner of "Corridor of Shame") who was quoted in this Bob Herbert column, has shared with me a note he sent to David Broder, whom he says he has "known pleasantly for years":
Dear David:
Long time no hear. Hope you are well. I read your piece on South Carolina and agree that this is a must win state for Obama who I am supporting enthusiastically. I think the black vote is breaking heavily for him and should provide a double digit win, even though Bill Clinton will be here most of the week. Obama is stumping the state solidly. You’d think he was running for Governor of SC with four appearances a day set through Thursday. Hillary has left until Friday. I expect they’ll spin SC as a race based vote and continue that labeling to discount the results. Early voting here in Richland County (seniors over 65 can vote 30 days prior to a primary or election and absentee voting is easily done) is extremely heavy. I stood in a line for 75 minutes to cast my ballot today and was one of very few whites to do so. Also standing in line for an hour was 85 year old Federal Judge Matthew Perry: we agreed that voting in SC is still an arduous task! My reason for writing, other than to say hello, is to address the charge that Obama does not have the experience to be president. I sat down today – with the knowledge that he has 8 years of elected office in the Illinois legislature and three years in the US Senate for 11 years in total years in elected office – and Wikipedia’ed (new verb) earlier presidents. My report is this and I am somewhat surprised that no one has mentioned this: Obama has more time in elected office than the following individuals before they were elected President: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln ( only 2 years in the US House), Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D.Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. (I quit my research with these but there are probably more US Presidents who meet the experience test than those I have listed.) And … to top it off … more time in elected office than Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Is this not worth some attention? What the hell am I missing?
Hale to the Redskins!
Bud/
I think Bud meant "hail to the Redskins" there. And I don’t so much mind him running down Thomas Jefferson like that, but I’m a John Adams man from way back. I think we have to consider the crucial job he did representing our nation in both Paris and London during the Revolution. Sort of counts for more than routine elective service, I’d say.
Hillary Clinton to Deliver Major Speech TOMORROW in South Carolina Addressing the Serious Economic Challenges Facing America
Thursday, January 24 Greenville, SC
11:00 a.m. EST Clinton Delivers Major Speech Addressing the Serious Economic Challenges Facing America Furman University Younts Conference Center 3300 Pointsett Highway Greenville, SC 29613 OPEN PRESS Additional Details TBA
Apparently, we’re getting a lot of extra readership of our Obama endorsement today, thanks to links from Drudge, Andrew Sullivan, politico.com, dailykos and talkingpointsmemo.com.
"I’m ready to rip ’em a new one," he says, but the Obama campaign is holding him back. But entirely, though, this being Dick.
"I’ve dubbed the Clinton campaign the ‘Eddie Haskell Campaign,’ for claiming to want to run a clean campaign, then trashing Obama in the next breath. It’s like they’re saying, "Nice dress, Mrs. Cleaver," and as soon as she leaves the room, "Hey, Beav, your Mom looks like s__t." He says the strategy clearly is to turn voters off enough to suppress turnout.
Dick says he can’t say. Apparently, if he does, Mom and Dad will give him the business.
On a personal note, let me add that today is Dick’s birthday, and he’s 59. I guess that’s why he’s expected to act all grown up and stuff now. This has him saying unDicklike things such as, "I really, really, really was shocked at the tactics they’ve employed in recent weeks."
New South Carolina Poll: Obama expands lead Barack Obama 44 Hillary Clinton 28 John Edwards 15 Dennis Kucinich 1
… I held off on posting them, because I wanted independent confirmation from a source I know more about. Sure, as the e-mail pointed out, this outfit "correctly predicted John McCain’s victory in last weekend’s Republican primary," but then so did a lot of people.
After lagging far behind Mrs. Clinton in state polls for much of last year, Mr. Obama has jumped ahead. According to an automated poll conducted Monday by Public Policy Polling of Raleigh, N.C., Mr. Obama leads Mrs. Clinton 44% to 28%, with about 12% of respondents undecided. As late as October, Mrs. Clinton had a 20-percentage-point lead in many surveys.
But for the sake of consistency, I tend to wait each day for Zogby’s latest (even though in one dramatic instance this season, he got it dramatically wrong, but who can account for such factors as this?). Anyway, here’s what Zogby had to say today:
Clinton nearly 20 points back; Edwards lags further UTICA, New York – Buoyed by a tide of African-American support, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is almost 20 points ahead of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton in the days ahead of the South Carolina Democratic Party primary. A Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby telephone poll taken Jan. 20-22 shows Obama holding 43% support from likely Democratic voters, compared to Clinton’s 25% support. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards trails at 15%. The survey included 811 likely Democratic primary voters and has a margin for error of +/-3.4 percentage points. African Americans, a group that made up slightly more than half of the sample, backed Obama by a margin of 65% to Clinton’s 16%. Eighteen percent of black voters said they were undecided. Clinton did better among white voters, getting 33% support to 32% for Edwards. Obama lagged at just 18% among whites.
I should add that, in commentary Zogby offered to paying subscribers, he also said the following:
Like other states before, this race appears to be fluid. After the first night of polling, Obama led by some 20 points. The second night alone, Clinton was down by just 10. So, is there movement? Yes, back and forth. The question here in South Carolina is, if Obama wins South Carolina, will his win be big enough? If his lead is cut to single digits, given where this race has been in recent weeks, it stands to be a big victory for Clinton.
To me, that’s really stretching the expectations game. A win by Barack Obama in South Carolina, after having been well behind Sen. Clinton for most of 2007, is a clear, meaningful win. The Clinton campaign knows what’s coming, which is why she has left the state — to give herself implausible, "I-didn’t-really-try-in-South-Carolina" deniability.
By BRAD WARTHEN EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR A remarkable thing happened this week to The State’s editorial board — again. For us, it was the equivalent of lightning striking the same place, twice in the same month. After difficult, agonizing discussions over presidential primary endorsements in both 2000 and 2004, we arrived at a quick consensus on endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for the S.C. Democratic Primary on Saturday. We met with Sen. Obama Monday morning, before he and the other candidates spoke at the State House. (Neither Hillary Clinton nor John Edwards ever met with us, despite long-standing invitations — repeated invitations, in Sen. Clinton’s case.) Our decision was made easier by the departure of Sen. Joe Biden. We might have been torn between his experience and foreign policy vision, and fresh hope for the future offered by Sen. Obama. As it was, Sen. Obama clearly stood out as the best remaining candidate — and he had always been the most exciting and inspiring in the field. It’s not just that he might be the first black president — Sen. Clinton would make history, too. It’s that he offers a fresh start for American politics. It is his ambition to be a president for all of us — black and white, male and female, Democrat and Republican. The nomination of Sen. Clinton would by contrast kick off another bitter round of the pointless partisanship that has plagued the nation under presidents named “Bush” and “Clinton.” As he did before the Republican primary, Associate Editor Mike Fitts framed the discussion of our Democratic endorsement, and did a sufficiently thorough job that the rest of us merely elaborated on his observations. First, he mentioned the support John Edwards had enjoyed among members of our board in 2004, although he did not get our endorsement then (in a grueling three-hour talkathon, I successfully pressed the board to choose Joe Lieberman instead). This time, he was “a substantially different guy” — an unappealing embodiment of class resentment. Also, his extreme position on Iraq — wanting to pull all troops out, even those who are training Iraqis — made him a nonstarter. About Hillary Clinton, Mike said the same thing he said about Mitt Romney 10 days earlier — “Boy, I wish she’d come in to see us, because I have so many questions.” Mike cited her obvious intelligence, and the fact that she “knows where the levers of power are” — especially within the Democratic Party. She’s worked the corridors of Washington since well before her time as first lady. But she could never have built the kind of coalitions that could break the partisan gridlock inside the Beltway — even if she wanted to, and we’ve seen little indication that she would want to. And her policy prowess is that of the insider. We saw her failed effort to reform our health care system as emblematic of her style — get a bunch of wonks in a room, close the door, and come up with something too complex and nuanced to sell. Barack Obama, by contrast, would be oriented toward — and more successful at — bringing the American public into the debate, and persuading us to agree to a solution. He has that leadership ability that she lacks. Sen. Obama has political gifts that are more reminiscent of former President Clinton. Of Sen. Clinton, Mike said, “She’s sort of caught between Obama and her husband, as two of the most evocative leaders we’ve had in a while.” While Sen. Obama is completely true to the highest traditions of the Democratic Party, he would have the potential to lead others as well. Sen. Clinton’s main interest in Republicans seems to be beating them, prevailing over them, having things go her way rather than theirs. “I would really like us to be talking about Joe Biden or Bill Richardson,” said Associate Editor Cindi Scoppe. That leaves her with what she sees as “an emotional decision,” which initially makes her uncomfortable. Cindi usually prefers the wonkiest option, but in the end she’s quite OK with “going for the exciting person who gives us hope.” “Hillary is very smart,” Associate Editor Warren Bolton agrees. But “I think she thinks she is the only one who has the answers.” Publisher Henry Haitz said the same thing, in almost the same words, a moment later. In the end, we came to a second quick consensus for much the same reason as the first time: We thought among the Republicans, John McCain had the best chance of uniting the country and leading in a positive direction. On the Democratic side, the one person who offers that same hope is Barack Obama.
(Both photos from the board’s meeting are by Chip Oglesby of thestate.com. To read The State‘s endorsement of Barack Obama, click here. For video about the endorsement, click here.)
South Carolina Truth Squad Formed to Respond to Counter Clinton Attacks COLUMBIA – In a conference call with Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, former South Carolina Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum, and South Carolina state Representative Bakari Sellers, the Obama campaign today announced the creation of a South Carolina Truth Squad to respond to misleading negative attacks from the Clinton campaign. “We’re creating a South Carolina Truth Squad today to respond to a series of misleading attacks from the Clinton campaign,” Senator Daschle said. “South Carolinians and voters across the country want an honest debate about the issues, and they’re tired of a discussion dominated by misleading half quotes and distortions. We’re here to be vigilant and set the record straight.” In addition, Truth Squad member Dick Harpootlian responded to President Bill Clinton’s false accusation that his wife and Senator Obama have the same record on Iraq – even though Obama is the only candidate in the race who showed the courage and judgment to oppose the war before it started. “This morning, Bill Clinton continued his Washington, DC-style attacks against Barack Obama when he claimed there’s ‘not a dime’s worth of difference’ between Hillary Clinton and Obama on Iraq,” said Harpootlian. “As Hillary Clinton herself said last night, the record and the truth matter. The truth is, Senator Clinton cannot divorce her record of voting for the War in Iraq in 2002 from her Iraq policy today. To say there is not a dime’s worth of difference simply does not square with the record or the truth.”…
I can only think that if Dick Harpootlian is involved, the truth is going to have a decided edge to it. Dick, after all, is the one SC Democrat who can speak truth to Dave Barry, and be heard.
If we can just get Dick and former President Clinton in a room together, I will pay money to watch.
Andy Haworth did another nice job of putting together a short video of me talking about our endorsement of Barack Obama, which will appear in Wednesday’s paper. This was done very much on the run — minutes before the endorsement would appear online — but Andy managed to edit it to make my rambling seem halfway coherent, for which I thank him.
If the image above doesn’t start playing automatically, click here.
The clip was shot in our board room, with me sitting in the chair in which Sen. Obama sat yesterday before heading to the Statehouse for King Day at the Dome.
Later today, I’ll post my column about our discussion of this endorsement. I’ll be talking about it in other venues as well — for instance, I’m supposed to do a live phone interview with C-SPAN at 7:10 a.m. Wednesday.
Here’s a link to The State editorial board’s endorsement of Barack Obama, folks. As promised, we put it up on thestate.com early. Formally, it will appear in the paper on Wednesday’s editorial page.
Please read it, and react. Needless to say, elaboration follows — in column and video form, as we did with the Republicans.
To read my column about how our board’s discussion of the endorsement, click here.
For a video clip of me talking about the endorsement, click here.
Now, I’m getting whiffs of something on the Democratic side, as we shoot through the home stretch to Saturday. Three people — one at work, one a caller to the office, the other a relative — have told me of getting recordings that just unloaded a garbage truck full of stuff on Hillary Clinton. Tales of screaming fits in the White House, a bunch of junk everybody’s heard before about Vince Foster, and on and on. Highly offensive.
Thing about it is, at least one of the people who reported this voted in the Republican primary, so it’s a little strange that they would get these calls this week. If they’ve already voted, what’s the point? If it’s pitched toward the general election, why not wait a while, and see if she’s the nominee?
Or better yet, why not just not stoop to stuff like this at all?
You know, I was happy that the guy we endorsed in the Republican primary won in SC, but I sort of thought he had several more tough contests to go through before he had the GOP nomination in the bag.
Not according to the Democratic contenders tonight in Myrtle Beach: It’s John McCain this, John McCain that. Edwards says you’d best pick me ’cause I can take John McCain on in rural areas. Hillary says I’m the only one strong enough on defense to go against John McCain.
Has anybody told Huckabee and the rest about this? They might as well surrender at this rate….
Have y’all been watching this debate out of Myrtle Beach? I don’t believe I’ve seen the like of it before, without a certain key supporter of Mike Huckabee being involved. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards have a tag-team thing going on the guy in the middle.
Personally, I don’t think Barack Obama’s health care plan goes far enough — but I don’t think theirs are anything to write home about, either.
As for that snarl-a-thon on the economy, I’m not sure I got anything out of it.
Now they’re competing to see who can sound least responsible on Iraq, but Edwards always wins that contest — it’s hard to top a guy who wouldn’t even leave anybody to keep training Iraqis. The sad thing is that if you get them off the stage, either of the other two can make a certain amount of sense on the issue. But all this I-was-against-the-war-first-oh-no-you-weren’t stuff isn’t exactly moving us closer to a political solution in Baghdad. And I have to wonder, do even the antiwar folks they’re trying to appeal to with that like this nyah-nyah stuff?
Anyway, I’ll keep paying the best attention to this I can under the circumstances. My two-week old twin granddaughters are visiting, and they’re more entertaining, and more in touch with basic, everyday economic issues — they keep competing to be the one to nurse first.
Anyway, I invite y’all to weigh in on this slapfest from the Grand Strand.
Again, I had a lousy angle, at too great a distance, for my camera, but this still photos are slightly (very slightly) better than the video I just posted, in case you’ve like to get some rough idea of what the candidates looked like on this occasion. You can hardly see them at all on the video (although I hope you can hear them OK).
They are in the order in which they spoke. I was farthest away for Sen. Obama, but managed to work a little closer by the time Mr. Edwards and Sen. Clinton spoke. I left in a little of the bright sky behind Edwards when I cropped him, so you can see the backlighting problem I had with the exposure. In the third photo S.C. NAACP Chairman Lonnie Randolph is introducing Sen. Clinton.
We had a long, cold wait for the candidates to speak at King Day at the Dome today, although it wasn’t as long or cold for me as for some.
Barack Obama had met with our editorial board earlier (I’ll post about that later today, or tomorrow), and I couldn’t get away from the office for another hour after that, so when I arrived at the State House a little after 11, some folks were already leaving. One acquaintance told me he thought the candidates had been there and left. It seemed pretty clear that the candidates weren’t up there on the steps, but I also surmised that they were yet to speak. The security was there — a real pain, because they artificially compressed the crowd and limited movement so that it was difficult to get close to the steps, and impossible (as it turned out) to get into a good position for my camera. Wherever I stood, the speakers were in shadow, and worse, sometimes backlit. (NOTE: Because of the lighting problem, and the position from which I was shooting with my little camera, this is very low-quality video!)
So the security was still there, and the TV cameras were still in place. I ran into Warren Bolton who had arrived about the same time as I, and we were still wondering whether there was indeed anything to stick around for when Warren nudged me and pointed out Tom Brokaw a few yards away in the crowd (see photo above, which is higher quality than the video because he was in sunlight, and close by). We figured if the hopefuls had spoken before us, Brokaw would have left by now, so we stayed.
Speakers we could not identify from where we stood droned on, saying the things they usually say at these events, and I was beginning to resent the NAACP for letting all these folks (myself included) stand around waiting for what so many had come for. Remember, others had been there much, much longer. I was hardly the only one to feel the crowd was being abused. Warren overhead somebody leaving, muttering about it, and saying the NAACP was going to hear about this the next time he heard from them asking for a contribution.
Finally, just after noon, the main attractions came on. My wife, who was at home comfortably watching on TV, later said she assumed they had waited to go on live at the noon hour. Perhaps that is the logical, fully understandable explanation. Anyway, it was explained that the three candidates had drawn lots to determine their speaking order. Here they are, in the order in which they spoke. The videos are rough, incomplete and unedited, as I wanted to hurry and get them out (and the video quality wasn’t that great anyway); I just provide them to give some flavor of the event:
This afternoon, after I did my Alhurra gig with Andre, I dropped by the McCain HQ on my way over to visit my new grandbabies, to see what was happening. There was considerable worrying going on among some of the staff honchos, what with the mess in Horry County.
Of course, at that time they didn’t know that Greenville County would go for McCain. The conventional
wisdom was expressed to my Friday by McCainiac John Courson, when I asked him what impact he thought the predicted bad weather would have on today’s results. He said, not entirely jokingly, that the best
weather for McCain would be snow in the Upstate and sunshine on the coast. (Of course, we ended up with a mess across the state.)
But the folks doing the actual work of identifying and turning out the vote for McCain kept their heads down and kept at it, as shown in my double-naught spy camera photo. These folks did the job in the end.
McCain, when he came in to speak to our editorial board in August, said that’s how George W. Bush beat him in SC in 2000. Dismissing the smear campaign, and sounding like a good-sport losing coach, he said the other team just had the better organization, and more money.
This time, McCain had that advantage. At least, he had the advantage in organization. As for money — well, Mitt Romney can tell you that’s not everything.
Back in the dark days, when I wrote about McCain going to the mattresses, this HQ was a very lonely place. Not today, and that had a lot to do with making the difference.
Odd, isn’t it, that this anti-immigrant bit of propaganda — which purports to be about Sen. Lindsey Graham — should emerge at this particular moment:
This offensive nativist screed makes no policy proposal. The thrust here is about people speaking Spanish — as opposed to fine, decent folks with "South Carolina values." Appalling.
And as we all know, there’s a lot more at stake with an emotional play like this than a quixotic slap at a secure incumbent senator.
