Category Archives: South Carolina

Moderation in the pursuit of reason is no vice

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Back on a thread yesterday, reader CW offered this:

Brad,
Did you read Dana Beach’s recent [column] in the Post and Courier? He was lamenting Kathleen Parker’s label of Bob Inglis as a centrist. He saw Inglis more as someone who makes decisions based on his own judgment and that compromising shouldn’t be a virtue above all else. Good editorial and I’d like to hear your thoughts on it.

Well, now I have read it, and here are my thoughts…

There’s merit in what Dana says, but there are weaknesses as well.

He’s right that Kathleen’s use of language is inadequate, on a number of levels. For one thing, Bob Inglis’ problem is not moderation. He’s a very conservative guy who just doesn’t happen to hew to anyone else’s orthodoxy. Which means national commentators have trouble talking about him coherently, because they think in the binary terms of left-right. Kathleen at least is capable of breaking out of that.

And I understand what Kathleen is saying. “Moderate” has become shorthand (which Dana may call lazy if he likes) for people who refuse to play the absolutist right-left game in Washington. As imperfect as the term is, I’m just glad that anyone who writes from inside the Beltway (and yes, she lives in Camden, but she writes for Washington) even HAS a term for people who go their own way.

What Inglis is is INDEPENDENT.

As am I. I hold many views that are not moderate (one of the most vicious canards in our collective political consciousness is that independents are people who can’t make up their minds; on the contrary, we are people who DO make up our minds rather than buying prefab values off the shelf), but on the whole I’m not insulted when someone calls me that, because it means they know I’m not a ranting ideologue. And I take exception to Dana’s assertion that “The history of “moderation” in American politics is signified by moral cowardice and political irrelevance.” On the contrary, those of us who refuse to go along with either of the dominant ideological strains show considerable courage by charting an independent course. Frankly, I view most adherents of strong ideological leaning as sheep.

And his evocation of Chamberlain is entirely unfair, and lazy. History is replete with moderates who stood courageously against the ravages of absolutism or of “progress.” St. Thomas More, a most moderate man, comes to mind. So does Dwight Eisenhower. So does John Adams, a man with a distaste for ideology who did far more for the American cause than did his firebrand cousin Samuel. Abraham Lincoln was not some ideological extremist; his goal was to hold the Union together. And I’ve always regarded Goldwater’s famous dictum with some distaste: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” Really? Let me introduce you to the Tea Party. “Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” How do you figure? A belief in the moderate concept of rule of law is essential to justice; otherwise we are in a Hobbesian state.

So to my mind, the piece has good points and bad points.

By the way, here’s what I wrote on this topic back in my original UnParty column:

What a relief when “David” spoke for me by writing, “I am always intrigued by this argument that moderates aren’t passionate about anything…. I take every issue on its own merits and when I make up my mind, I am as passionate and diehard about that position as any conservative or liberal could ever be.”
Exactly. Why is it so hard for partisans and ideologues to understand that we might hold our own values and positions even more passionately than they hold theirs, for the simple fact that they are ours. We didn’t do what they did, which was to buy an entire set of attitudes off the rack, preselected and packaged by someone else, and chosen based on nothing deeper than brand name.
Is there anything wishy-washy about the stands taken by such “moderates” as John McCain and our own Lindsey Graham? Was Joe Lieberman being a fence-sitter when he helped push through the Iraq Liberation Act, which way back in 1998 made the overthrow of Saddam Hussein the official policy of this country?
These are the people who take the independent risks that make things happen, from campaign finance reform to banning torture. Without them as pivots, giving ideas credibility by virtue of their own independence, we’d be forever in a state of stalemate, unable to settle any difficult issue.
And those of us who support their like are the ones who decide elections — not the partisans, who can be taken for granted.

Oh, and by the way: Should Bob Inglis decide to stage a comeback, I’d be glad to see him try to do it on the UnParty ticket.

When you see this sign, drive fast. Drive very, very fast…

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The lt. gov. with his mother and sister at the dedication ceremony Dec. 21.

How did I miss this? Earlier this week, the humongous interchange where I-77 runs into I-26 was named the “Lt. Governor-Senator André Bauer Interchange.” Which is a mouthful. Not sure I’ve ever seen that construction — “Lt. Governor-Senator.” Kind of like “singer/songwriter,” I guess…

I suppose this was the best parting gift Jake and them could think up, but it really seems like it would have been more appropriate to give André, I don’t know, a plaque, or a toaster, or a pair of socks.

Anything but a public road, seeing as how he is so famous for tearing up such roads. We’re talking about the guy who:

  • When stopped speeding down Assembly Street, charged so aggressively at the cop that he felt threatened enough to draw his weapon.
  • When driving 101 mph on a wet highway, got on the police radio frequency to tell the patrolman pursuing him that “SC2” was “passing through,” and when he was stopped anyway, asked, “Did you not hear me on the radio?”
  • Lied to reporters about that incident, then said he “forgot” about it when confronted with the evidence.

Is celebrating secession offensive? Yeah. Duh. And so much more than that…

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Today I retweeted something that I got from Chris Haire, who got it from @skirtCharleston:

someone shouted “you lie” at mayor riley when he said secession was caused by a defense of slavery at sesquicentennial event this am.

Did that actually happen? Apparently so:

Charleston Mayor Joe Riley was interrupted by an audience member who yelled out, “You’re a liar!” as Riley talked about the direct relationship between slavery and secession during the unveiling of a historical marker Monday.

About 100 people crowded along a Meeting Street sidewalk at the site of the former Institute Hall — where South Carolinians signed the Ordinance of Secession exactly 150 years before.

“That the cause of this disastrous secession was an expressed need to protect the inhumane and immoral institution of slavery is undeniable,” Riley said, prompting the outburst. “The statement of causes mentions slavery 31 times.”…

Where else in the world, I ask you, would such a simple, mild and OBVIOUS statement (few historical documents make fewer bones about motives than the document Mayor Joe alludes to) elicit such a response? Wherever it is, I don’t want to go there. We’ve got our hands full dealing with our homegrown madness.

Earlier, I got this come-on to an online survey:

POLL – Celebrating Secession: Do you find it offensive to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the signing of  the…http://bit.ly/dNLi1h

Sigh. OK, I’ll answer the question which doesn’t seem worth asking: Yes. Duh. The operative word being “celebrate.”

As for the word “offensive,” well, that seems rather inadequate. I suppose in our PC times, it’s the highest opprobrium that most folks in the MSM seem capable of coming up with. “Appalling” would work. “Insupportable” would, too. “Unconscionable” would be another. Then there’s always “embarrassing.”

My point is not that someone somewhere — say, to oversimplify, the descendants of slaves — would be “offended.” That’s too easily dismissed by too many. (As the surly whites who resent blacks’ resentment over slavery would point out, everybody’s offended by something. They would say this as though such moral equivalence were valid, as though black folks’ being touchy about celebrations of secession were like my being offended by Reality TV.) My point is that the very notion that anyone would even conceive of celebrating — rather than “commemorating,” or “marking,” or “mourning,” or “ritualistically regretting” — the very worst moment in South Carolina history, is a slap in the face to anyone who hopes in general for the human species (one would hope it could make some progress) or specifically for South Carolina.

It’s awful enough that this one act stands as the single indisputably biggest impact that South Carolina has ever had on U.S., or world, history. But what does one say about a people, a population, that — 150 years after this Greatest Error of All Time, which led directly to our bloodiest war and to a century and a half of South Carolina trailing the rest of the world economically — they would think it cute, or fun, or a lark, or what have you, to mark the episode by dressing up and dancing the Virginia Reel?

I mean, seriously, what is WRONG with such a people, such an organism, that would celebrate something so harmful to itself, much less to others?

Lonnie Randolph of the NAACP calls it “nothing more than a celebration of slavery.” Well, yeah. Duh again. But that pretty much goes without saying. The point I’d like to add to the obvious is that it is also a celebration of stupidity, of dysfunction, of never, ever learning.

In fact, what we’ve done, from the time of Wade Hampton to the time of Glenn McConnell, is devolve. We’ve slipped backwards. The guys who signed the Ordinance of Secession were acting in their rational self-interest, something even the merchants of the North probably understood. Be morally appalled at that if you’re so inclined (and most people living in the West in this century would be), but it made some kind of sense. But for anyone today to look back on that act and celebrate it, seek to identify with it, get jollies from dressing up and in any way trying to re-enact that occurrence, makes NO sense of any kind, beyond a sort of self-destructive perversity.

And don’t give me that about the act of secession being an assertion of freedom-loving SC whites throwing off the oppressive gummint yoke, because it just proves my point. That attitude — that “Goldang it, but ain’t nobody gonna tell me how to live MAH LAHF” or make me pay taxes or whatever — is probably the single pathological manifestation most responsible for the fact that we have been unable to get it together in this state and climb out from under the shadow of the conflict that we insisted upon precipitating. The far more refined forms of this — Sanfordism, and other ways of asserting that we do NOT need to work together as a society to solve common problems, because we are free individuals who don’t need each other — have done just as much to hold us back as the old racist creeds of Tillman and the like.

It is, indeed, a pathology. And parties that “celebrate” secession are a manifestation of it.

“The Brad Show,” Episode V: Jim Rex

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Well, here’s the latest show. Go back to this post for supplementary materials, such as a release from Dr. Rex on his tenure.

It went well, I thought, but you’re the judge. All of us here at “The Brad Show” thank Dr. Rex for including us on his farewell tour of interviews, and we wish him the best in the future.

Next up (later this week): The Shop Tart. Don’t miss it.

Coming on “The Brad Show” tomorrow: Jim Rex

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Just another teaser/preview. Sometime tomorrow the latest installment of “The Brad Show” will air, with guest Jim Rex, SC superintendent of education.

As background, here’s a PDF Dr. Rex sent over in advance of our interview, detailing accomplishments during his tenure.

And for what it’s worth, here’s a list of the questions I used in our interview:

JIM REX – The Brad Show

December 15, 2010

Looking back, what do you consider to be your main accomplishments as superintendent?

What would you have done differently?

Particularly, I’d like to delve into your public-school choice initiatives. To what extent was it a response to the voucher movement? And doesn’t it face many of the same problems that private choice does? (Transportation, equality of access, etc.)

What are the remaining challenges for education in South Carolina?

Why did you decide to run for governor?

Do you wish now that you had run for re-election?

Is there anything you would have done differently in your gubernatorial campaign?

Is there anything the eventual Democratic nominee could have or should have done differently?

You’re an unconventional political officeholder in that you didn’t rise up through a party system and through lower offices. What does it mean to you, and to South Carolina, that the Democratic Party is no longer a player on the state level?

What are your hopes, and your worries, as you look toward Mick Zais taking the helm?

I didn’t read them out, of course — the list is just something I do to prepare my mind and help me if I get stuck. But I think we covered most of the material that the questions envisioned.

Lie of the year: “Gummint takeover of health care”

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A Tweet from the WashPost brings to my attention this item:

PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year: ‘A government takeover of health care’

By Bill Adair, Angie Drobnic Holan
Published on Thursday, December 16th, 2010 at 11:30 p.m.

In the spring of 2009, a Republican strategist settled on a brilliant and powerful attack line for President Barack Obama’s ambitious plan to overhaul America’s health insurance system. Frank Luntz, a consultant famous for his phraseology, urged GOP leaders to call it a “government takeover.”

“Takeovers are like coups,” Luntz wrote in a 28-page memo. “They both lead to dictators and a loss of freedom.”

The line stuck. By the time the health care bill was headed toward passage in early 2010, Obama and congressional Democrats had sanded down their program, dropping the “public option” concept that was derided as too much government intrusion. The law passed in March, with new regulations, but no government-run plan.

But as Republicans smelled serious opportunity in the midterm elections, they didn’t let facts get in the way of a great punchline. And few in the press challenged their frequent assertion that under Obama, the government was going to take over the health care industry.

PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen “government takeover of health care” as the 2010 Lie of the Year. Uttered by dozens of politicians and pundits, it played an important role in shaping public opinion about the health care plan and was a significant factor in the Democrats’ shellacking in the November elections….

And indeed, it’s tough to think of a bigger lie recently propagated than the idea of the lame, tepid, timid health care bill that Dems crammed through over Repubs’ kicking and screaming was anything in the same universe as a government takeover of anything.

If only it were. That is, if only it were a takeover, not of “health care,” but of the mechanism for paying for it. A few minutes ago on the radio, I heard ol’ Henry McMaster rumbling in that distinctive old-Columbia drawl of his about that mean awful nasty mandate, and again found myself wondering how he or anyone can even begin to imagine that we could address health care expense in any meaningful way without a mandate of some kind. Not THIS mandate, but a real one — a mandate for all of us to be in the same system, the same risk pool. Nothing else would really work.

I experienced actual gummint-run health care when I was a kid, because my Dad was in the Navy. Navy doctors, Navy hospitals. And let me tell you something: It was great. My Dad devoted his career to his country, frequently (at sea, and in the Rung Sat Special Zone of Vietnam with the river patrol boats) putting his life on the line. And in return, my family’s health care was taken care of. Made all the sense in the world to me. Way I see it, we should all pay into the system one way or another — for most of us, through taxes or premiums or whatever you choose to call them — and then everybody’s in the pool and we achieve maximum economies of scale.

But essentially, even that wouldn’t be a gummint-run health-care system, but a government-run (actually, I don’t care who runs it, as long as we’re all in it and nobody’s adding cost by building profit into the transaction, and the way you usually accomplish that is with a public approach) medical insurance program.

But we never even considered THAT. No one dared, from the beginning of the debate, breathe the two words that should have been nonnegotiable — “single payer.” Which is idiotic. No, we started with a premise far short of that, and negotiated farther and farther away from it until we ended up with something that bore no resemblance to anything even within that universe.

And still, people like Joe Wilson went around saying “government takeover of health care” as if the words coming out of their mouths bore some relationship to reality.

Talk about a big lie. Yeah, you lie, Joe. Whether you understand that you’re doing that or not. Even if you believe it, which you most likely do.

But I find myself wondering — when he said it, did anyone actually believe it? I mean, besides Joe? I find that hard to fathom, if anyone did…

Clyburn and DeMint: Two peas, one pod

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Yesterday, after reading about the split between Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint on the tax cut deal, I Tweeted this:

So I see Jim DeMint is siding with the most liberal Democrats on the tax cut deal. No surprise there: Extremes are extremes…

Today, I get this release from Jim Clyburn:

WASHINGTON, DC – House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-SC) released the following statement on the vote before the House on Obama’s tax cut package.

“While I am pleased that the tax package approved by the House tonight extends important tax cuts to middle-income families and unemployment insurance for millions of Americans,  adding $25 billion to the deficit to give a major tax benefit to the estates of the richest 6,600 families in America made it impossible for me to vote for the final package.   This measure does not create a single job or stimulate the economy in any way.

‘I hope that as we move forward and our economy continues to recover, we will restore some fairness to the tax code and reduce the burden we are putting on future generations.”

As I said…

Lots of people go through life thinking of Republicans as “the other side” if they are Democrats, and vice versa. Me, I tend to think of the ideological True Believers as the “other side,” the folks with whom I tend to have a knee-jerk disagreement.

The fact that DeMint and Clyburn are both against this deal that President Obama made with (some) Republicans makes me predisposed, on a gut level, to like it.

Of course, that is in some ways irrational, akin to a partisan response. Only with me, I’m being reflexively, emotionally UnPartisan. There is much to dislike in this deal. Such as what? Well, take a look at the national debt. How am I supposed to feel great about a “compromise” that means MORE spending and LESS tax revenue (unless, of course, it has a stimulative effect on the economy and leads to MORE revenue, which I sincerely doubt at this point, since we’re mainly talking about simply continuing current practices)? Not that I’m against continuing unemployment benefits, or against continuing the tax cuts (and I truly could not care less that rich people also get the tax cuts — this obsession some people have with what other people “get” is most unseemly). It’s just the sum total effect that concerns me. (To paraphrase something Tom Friedman famously said about George W. Bush, Just because the Tea Party believes it doesn’t mean that it’s not true. The “it” here being the idea that ever-deeper deficit spending is something to worry about.)

But when you have the pragmatic Obama on one side of an issue, and DeMint and Clyburn locking arms on the other side, my gut pushes me to go with Obama. It’s just a little quirk I have.

Sheheen gives restructuring another try

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As you’ll recall, I made the point back during the election that the truly credible advocate for government reform who was running for governor — and the one with the best chance of cracking the Legislature’s resistance — was Vincent Sheheen?

Well, I did.

Undaunted by his loss, Vincent is still trying to change the system from within.  I just got this release:

Sheheen Unveils Agenda For Change

Camden, SC – South Carolina state Senator Vincent Sheheen today released the legislation he pre-filed for the 2011 Legislative Session.

Sheheen issued the following statement:

“Today, I am pre-filing a legislative agenda that if enacted would fundamentally and dramatically reform the way South Carolina’s Government operates.  If adopted, this Agenda for Change would bring responsibility to spending, restructure the governor’s responsibilities and powers, modernize the legislature’s operations, and crack down on waste, fraud and abuse within our government.”

“As a member of the minority party, my obligation and goal is to put forward and challenge the powers that be with ideas that would fundamentally reform what has become a broken government.  My hope is that this year, the leaders of our state will embrace the true change that is so desperately needed in our long suffering state.”

Sheheen’s Agenda For Change:

1. Establishes a Department of Administration:

TO AMEND SECTION 1‑30‑10 OF THE 1976 CODE, RELATING TO THE AGENCIES OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF STATE GOVERNMENT, BY ADDING THE DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION; AND BY ADDING SECTION 1‑30‑125 TO ESTABLISH THE DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION AS AN AGENCY OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF STATE GOVERNMENT TO BE HEADED BY A DIRECTOR APPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR UPON THE ADVICE AND CONSENT OF THE SENATE, AND TO TRANSFER TO THIS NEWLY CREATED DEPARTMENT CERTAIN OFFICES AND DIVISIONS OF THE STATE BUDGET AND CONTROL BOARD, THE OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR, AND OTHER AGENCIES, AND TO PROVIDE FOR TRANSITIONAL AND OTHER PROVISIONS NECESSARY TO ACCOMPLISH THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DEPARTMENT.

2. Programmatic Budgeting

TO AMEND THE 1976 CODE BY ADDING SECTION 11‑11‑87 TO REQUIRE THE GOVERNOR’S ANNUAL STATE BUDGET RECOMMENDATION AND THE REPORTS OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS AND THE SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE ON THE ANNUAL GENERAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT TO BE IN A PROGRAMMATIC FORMAT BY PROVIDING A NARRATIVE DESCRIPTION OF EACH SEPARATE PROGRAM ADMINISTERED BY A STATE AGENCY AND PROVIDING THE ELEMENTS THAT MUST BE INCLUDED IN THE NARRATIVE; AND TO REQUIRE THE BUDGET RECOMMENDATION FOR AN AGENCY TO INCLUDE AN OVERALL BUDGET RECOMMENDATION BY BUDGET CATEGORY AND A SIMILAR RECOMMENDATION FOR EACH SEPARATE PROGRAM ADMINISTERED BY THE AGENCY AND THE SPECIFIC SOURCE OF FUNDS APPROPRIATED FOR THE AGENCY.

3. Legislative Oversight / Accountability

TO AMEND SECTION 1‑30‑10 OF THE 1976 CODE, RELATING TO THE DEPARTMENTS OF STATE GOVERNMENT, TO MAKE TECHNICAL CORRECTIONS AND TO REQUIRE CERTAIN REPORTS FROM THE VARIOUS DEPARTMENTS; TO AMEND SECTION 8‑27‑10, RELATING TO THE DEFINITION OF REPORT FOR THE PURPOSES OF THE EMPLOYMENT PROTECTION FOR REPORTS OF VIOLATIONS OF STATE OR FEDERAL LAW OR REGULATION, BY PROVIDING THAT A REPORT MAY BE A WRITTEN OR ORAL ALLEGATION OR TESTIMONY TO A LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE; TO AMEND CHAPTER 27 OF TITLE 8, RELATING TO EMPLOYMENT PROTECTION FOR REPORTS OF VIOLATIONS OF STATE OR FEDERAL LAW OR REGULATION, BY ADDING SECTION 8‑27‑60 TO PROVIDE THAT A SUMMARY OF THE PROVISIONS CONTAINED IN CHAPTER 27 ARE POSTED ON THE INTERNET WEBSITE OF EACH PUBLIC BODY SUBJECT TO THE PROVISIONS OF THAT CHAPTER; AND BY ADDING CHAPTER 2 TO TITLE 2, RELATING TO LEGISLATIVE OVERSIGHT OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS, TO PROVIDE THAT THE STANDING COMMITTEES OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY HAVE A DUTY TO REVIEW AND STUDY THE OPERATIONS OF THE STATE AGENCIES WITHIN THE COMMITTEE’S JURISDICTION, TO ESTABLISH COMMITTEE OVERSIGHT JURISDICTION, TO PROVIDE FOR THE PROCESS BY WHICH A COMMITTEE MAY INITIATE AN OVERSIGHT STUDY OR INVESTIGATION, TO PROVIDE FOR THE MANNER IN WHICH AN INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE MAY ACQUIRE EVIDENCE OR INFORMATION RELATED TO THE STUDY OR INVESTIGATION, TO PROVIDE FOR PROGRAM EVALUATION REPORTS, THE MANNER IN WHICH THEY ARE REQUESTED, AND THE CONTENTS OF THE REPORTS, TO PROVIDE THAT ALL TESTIMONY GIVEN TO AN INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE MUST BE GIVEN UNDER OATH, TO PROVIDE THAT WITNESSES TESTIFYING IN FRONT OF AN INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE MAY BE REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL, AND TO PROVIDE THAT WITNESSES ARE GIVEN THE BENEFIT OF ANY PRIVILEGE WHICH HE COULD HAVE CLAIMED IN COURT AS A PARTY TO A CIVIL ACTION.

4. Establishes Inspector General

TO AMEND SECTION 1‑3‑240 OF THE 1976 CODE, RELATING TO REMOVAL OF OFFICERS BY THE GOVERNOR, TO PROVIDE THAT THE STATE INSPECTOR GENERAL MAY BE REMOVED BY THE GOVERNOR FOR MALFEASANCE, MISFEASANCE, INCOMPETENCY, ABSENTEEISM, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, MISCONDUCT, PERSISTENT NEGLECT OF DUTY IN OFFICE, OR INCAPACITY; AND TO AMEND TITLE 1 BY ADDING CHAPTER 6 TO CREATE THE OFFICE OF THE STATE INSPECTOR GENERAL, TO PROVIDE THAT THE STATE INSPECTOR GENERAL IS APPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR WITH THE ADVICE AND CONSENT OF THE SENATE, TO AUTHORIZE THE STATE INSPECTOR GENERAL TO ADDRESS FAUD, WASTE ABUSE, AND WRONGDOING WITHIN THE SOUTH CAROLINA EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT AGENCIES, AND TO PROVIDE FOR THE POWERS, DUTIES, AND FUNCTIONS OF THE OFFICE.

5. Prohibits state funded lobbyists

TO AMEND THE 1976 CODE BY ADDING SECTION 2‑17‑55 TO PROHIBIT THE USE OF PUBLIC FUNDS TO EMPLOY OR CONTRACT WITH A PERSON WHOSE ACTIVITIES INCLUDE THOSE RELATED TO LOBBYING AND TO PROVIDE EXCEPTIONS.

6. Requires Legislative Budgets to get cut like other agencies

TO AMEND CHAPTER 7, TITLE 2 OF THE 1976 CODE, RELATING TO LEGISLATIVE ENACTMENTS, BY ADDING SECTION 2‑7‑67 TO PROVIDE THAT THE ANNUAL APPROPRIATIONS BILL MUST REDUCE APPROPRIATIONS TO THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN AN AMOUNT EQUAL TO THE AVERAGE REDUCTION IN APPROPRIATIONS MADE FOR THE DEPARTMENTS, INSTITUTIONS, BOARDS, OR COMMISSIONS INCLUDED IN THE ACT.

You know what would be cool — I mean, really cool? If Nikki Haley would grab hold of this and swear to work shoulder-to-shoulder with Vincent on it. And do it NOW while legislators are still hoping to have a better relationship with her than they did with Sanford. (This would not sway Glenn McConnell, but who knows? If Nikki and Vincent were both pushing it, they might line up enough support to embolden senators to … dare I say it… defy Glenn’s will…)

I’d praise her and everything.

City doing what it has to do on buses

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Yesterday I had breakfast with Joel Lourie over at the Lizard’s Thicket on Forest, and as we were chatting he was accosted by a constituent who didn’t like what he’d halfway heard Joel saying about the need for more moderates in the Legislature. He proceeded to lecture Joel on why voters are more and more “conservative” these days. Mainly, it had to do with spending.

But the thing that jumped out at me was the local example he used. After excoriating the effort to raise the sales tax to pay for transportation needs, he said, flat out, “We don’t need buses.” He said it like public transit was just the stupidest, most wasteful idea he had ever heard of.

The conversation ended pleasantly, as Joel listened politely and declined to engage the voter on the more incendiary things he said. (After many years of dealing with angry readers, I can testify that’s a good formula for ending conversations better than they started — look for areas of agreement, look for opportunities to explain your own position better, but mainly allow the frustration to be vented. Most people just want to be heard, and don’t have the same opportunities to make that happen that politicians and journalists do.)

But I thought back to it later in the day. Brian Murrell of ADCO and I went to get some lunch at Greek Boys, and had to park almost a block away north on Sumter. As we walked past the bus stop at Sumter and Hampton in the bitter cold, we passed a guy — probably a patient from Palmetto Health Baptist across the street — standing with a walker waiting for the bus.

We had a nice, warm lunch inside — I had the beef tips over rice with greek salad (minus the feta). It didn’t take all that long — service is fast there — but we weren’t in a hurry, either. We took time to chat with Butch Bowers and Todd Carroll from Hall Bowers over at the next table. Call it 30 minutes, maybe 40.

Then we bundled back up and headed back into the bluster. And as we passed the bus stop, there was that same guy with the walker, still waiting. He had to be chilled right through his bones.

At that moment, I wish that voter from Lizard’s Thicket that morning had been there to tell THAT guy we don’t need buses.

All of which is a long way of getting to the point that Columbia City Council is simply doing what has to be done by coming up for different revenue source for the bus system, for now. Read about that here.

What we should have done was pass the sales tax. But since we didn’t, the city’s got to do something (and so will the county). So that, so far, is what it’s doing.

“Again, get excited” (if you can): the Haley senior staff announcement

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I missed the announcement of Nikki Haley’s new senior staff yesterday, but I went looking for it after a friend (NOT a professional political observer, but a communications pro) at lunch today mentioned how… lackluster the announcement was. My friend said it really looked like Nikki was saying, “Well, since I went and won the election, I guess we have to do these things…”

This struck me because it sounded so much like my impression of Nikki’s low-energy victory speech on election night. Like it’s all sort of a letdown to her, compared to the frisson of campaigning. I’m finding it a bit hard to reconcile campaigning Nikki and soon-to-be-governor Nikki, in terms of enthusiasm. But maybe I’m just being a sexist pig who expects women to be bubbly all the time, right? Yeah, that’s probably it.

Anyway, enough about style over substance. My concern is not whether Nikki is enjoying the job so far, but what happens after she takes office. Let’s take a quick look at the staff she announced (all of whom seemed about as excited as she did, by the way — not particularly enjoying each other’s company, like they’re afraid they might accidentally touch each other or something…. no, I wasn’t going to talk style anymore…). Let’s break it down this way: Here’s Nikki’s press release, and here’s some minimal commentary from me:

Tim Pearson, Chief of Staff. Well, Nikki really damned him with faint praise: “He not only comes from The Hill…” say WHAT!?!? That’s supposed to be a recommendation? “… but also has presidential campaign and gubernatorial experience and he’s getting ready to do great things for our state…” a state which, far as we know, he knows nothing about. Look, I’ve done no more than exchange an e-mail or two with Pearson, and shake hands when I ran into him with Nikki at a restaurant, and he seemed OK. But with such an inexperienced governor, the idea of a guy who’s not from here and has limited knowledge of our state, its politics or its government being her chief of staff is not reassuring. What she needs is what Mark Sanford had the wisdom to hire at the start of his administration — Fred Carter. Fred didn’t last long, but he was exactly what Sanford needed. And what Nikki needs, too. Worst way to paint this? The way an ex-colleague did in an e-mail today: Kevin Geddings. Yeah, the guy who who led the governor’s winning campaign, but had little else to recommend him. Here’s hoping Tim Pearson will be WAY better than that.

Katherine Haltiwanger, Deputy Chief of Staff (Operations). Can’t say I know her. Know some very nice people named Haltiwanger. Maybe she’s related.

Ted Pitts, Deputy Chief of Staff (Policy and Cabinet Affairs). Great choice! And I’m glad to know Ted’s back OK from Afghanistan. If you’ll recall, Ted is MY representative. I briefly thought about making a run at the seat on the UnParty ticket when I heard he wasn’t running again. But I let Rick Quinn have it instead.

Trey Walker, Deputy Chief of Staff (Legislative Affairs and Communications). Another good choice — in fact, I’ll go so far as to say that if merit guided the gov-elect, Trey would be the guy in the top job. But I guess that since Trey — who ran Attorney General Henry McMaster’s office — didn’t join her until after the primary, Pearson was just in line way in front of him. Aside from actually knowing South Carolina, Trey also has the kind of experience Nikki seems to value most — helping run a national presidential campaign (McCain’s).

Swati Patel, Chief Legal Counsel. Don’t really know her, but she’s got relevant experience.

Rob Godfrey, Press Secretary. Another veteran like Trey, although I have to say that Rob’s been a bit — testy — this past year, as evidenced by this and this. Maybe he’ll settle down. Or maybe we’ll have a Ron Ziegler situation on our hands. We’ll see.

Taylor Hall, Cabinet Liaison. Don’t know him. I’m impressed that “Hall also worked at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, where he dealt with Transatlantic and European security issues,” although I’m not sure how it’s relevant. Maybe Nikki plans on raiding the EU for her Cabinet. Watch out, Brussels!

Rebecca Schimsa, Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff. I know a lot of very young people, but I don’t know Rebecca. (Or do I? If so, I apologize.) Oh, and note that a few years ago I was grumbling about Ted Pitts seeming too young, so consider the source.

Jamie Shuster, Director of Budget and Policy. Don’t really know her, but I know the South Carolina Policy Council. That reminds me. I was supposed to set up lunch with Ashley Landess. Y’all don’t let me forget that…

Katherine Veldran, Legislative Liaison. This is the one, I suppose, that that same ex-colleague mentioned above referred to thusly: “the chick who’s going to be working with the Legislature whose experience is working for a Hilton Head hotel. Huh?” I don’t know what that’s about, either. Perhaps she’ll lecture lawmakers on the inherent superiority of the private sector. We’ll see.

Harriet Keyserling has died at 88

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This sad news suddenly took me by surprise. I just got this from Bud Ferillo a few minutes ago:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Former State Representative Harriet Hirschfeld Keyserling of Beaufort has died at the age of 88.

Harriet Keyserling grew up in New York City, graduated with honors from Barnard College, the women’s college ofColumbia University, majoring in Economics and Mathematics.

During World War II, she married Dr. Herbert Keyserling of Beaufort, SC and spent the next thirty years raising four children and  engaging in community activities, primarily in the field of the arts and social services, in Beaufort.

She  helped organize a Beaufort branch of the League of Women Voters, which led to her running for Beaufort County Council, to which she was elected in 1974, the first woman to serve there.  Two years later she was elected to the SC House of Representatives from House District 124, serving for 16 years.

In the legislature she was involved in many issues, including public education, nuclear waste, energy and the environment, the arts and women’s issues. She waged a successful five year campaign to eliminate filibusters from the House of Representatives. Keyserling served on the House Education Committee, Ways and Means Committee, Rules Committee, and chaired the Joint Committee on Cultural Affairs, the Joint Committee on Energy and the Women’s Caucus.

On the national level she served on the  National Conference of State Legislatures’ Executive Committee, its Task Force on the Arts, and co-chaired the Women Legislators Network.  She also served on an advisory committee on nuclear waste to the  U. S Congress Office of Technology, and on a panel of the National Endowment for the Arts .

After her retirement from public office in 1992, Keyserling served on the Southeast Compact for Low-level Nuclear Waste,  South Carolina Humanities Council, Spoleto Festival USA, S. C. Nature Conservancy and Penn Center.   She was recipient of the SC Arts Commission’s Elizabeth Verner O’Neill Award,  Order of the Palmetto,  Greenville News Legislator of the Year, and honored by the American Civil Liberties Union, the SC Nature Conservancy, SC libraries, SC Women’s Commission and  others.

She wrote a memoir about her experiences in politics,  “Against the Tide: One Woman’s Political Struggle,”  published by the  USC Press.

Keyserling is survived by her four children: Judy, Billy, Beth and Paul Keyserling.

A graveside service will be held on Monday, December 13 at 3:30 p.m. at Beth Israel Synagogue Cemetery in Beaufort. The family will receive friends at the Firehouse, at the corner of Craven and Scott Streets, following the service. Copeland Funeral Home is in charge.

Ms. Keyserling was a great lady who served her state with dedication and distinction. If you’ll recall, I was corresponding with her very recently, as she energetically recruited members for her “Women for Sheheen” movement. I had no idea she wasn’t in the best of health.

South Carolina will miss her.

The SC New Democrats’ survey

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Phil Noble’s SC New Democrats are trying to figure out the future of their party (if it has one in SC), so they’ve sent out a survey to the faithful.

Somehow, I got a copy, too:

1,500 SC Democrats have had their say. Have you?

Friends,

Since we emailed you on Friday, over 1,500 people have completed our “What’s Next” survey. That’s 1,500 SC voters ready and eager to change the game and get Democrats back on the road to victory.

We’re certainly thrilled with the response, but we still really want to hear from you.

It only takes about 5 minutes. Will you take the survey right now?

In less than a month, Nikki Haley will take the oath of office and become this state’s next governor, and for the first time in a long while, no Democrats will hold statewide office, which makes it all the more important that Democrats step up and project a clear vision for our state.

Help us build that vision. Join 1,500+ across the state and the survey now.

We’ll be taking a look at the results this weekend and will report back with the findings.

We can’t wait to hear from you,
South Carolina New Democrats

I went ahead and filled it out, knowing I’d probably skew the results. For instance, when it asked, “What do you think that Democrats in South Carolina do POORLY?” I answered, “Everything. Which is fine by me, because I don’t like parties. Actually, the Dems’ fecklessness sort of endears them to me. Nothing worse than a well-organized political party.”

And some questions, I just didn’t know how to answer. For instance, when the survey asks:

Which best describes your opinion of the Democratic Party in South Carolina?

… what am I supposed to say? I mean, I don’t WANT the party to do better. I want it, and the Republican Party, to go away. But I chose the second option as the closest to my opinion. I mean, if it really DID get “fundamental change,” it wouldn’t be what it is anymore, would it?

Anyway, y’all should help them out and take the survey. After all, some of you are actually Democrats…

Graham: Change of mind or change of emphasis?

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On the one hand, on the other hand... Lindsey Graham, 2007 file photo. / by Brad Warthen

Seeing the story about Lindsey Graham and immigration in The Stet Peppah today reminded me of this release I got from the senator yesterday:

“Illegal immigration is a nightmare for America.  Giving a pathway to citizenship without first securing the border is an inducement to encourage more illegal immigration.  This is nothing more than a political game by the Democrats to try and drive a wedge between the Hispanic community and Republicans.

“Today’s cynical vote on the DREAM Act, along with a series of other votes, convinces me that the Democratic leadership in the Senate does not get the message from the last election.  They care more about politics than policy in a variety of areas, including illegal immigration.”

Now truth be told, the senator isn’t really being two-faced on this. Only if you believe in the misrepresentation of his critics do you think he’s changed his mind on the overall issue. He ALWAYS wanted to secure the border. To him and John McCain, this was first and foremost a national security issue — you need to know who’s in your country. That’s why you would both secure the borders and regularize the people who have already gotten in. Big Brother (and you know I love Big Brother) doesn’t need folks running around off the grid.

So basically what we have here is a change of emphasis. And that change really started as soon as 2007, when the debate over the previous attempt at serious, comprehensive immigration reform was still going on.

The one thing that Sen. Graham has said lately that really seems a departure for him was when he went out of his way to say that children born here to illegal parents shouldn’t be citizens. If anything indicates that he’s running scared and trying to head off a primary challenge from Mark Sanford or someone four years from now, that would be it. But senators, particularly this one, don’t run that scared that early. There are other explanations. And next time I speak with the senator, I hope to hear it. I doubt I’ll hear it through the MSM between now and then.

The world is even more with us

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The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.–Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
— William Wordsworth, 1802

Yeah, what Wordsworth said.

I am saddened by something that just happened in my home county of Lexington — or rather, the way it happened. Doug Ross already alluded to it — approvingly, of course. Therefore it is my duty to demur. Here’s the lowdown:

By Mike Fitts
mfitts@scbiznews.com
Published Dec. 8, 2010

Amazon is coming into Lexington County — and the county’s blue laws are going out.

Part of the deal that landed Amazon, announced Tuesday, includes a requirement that the county end the blue laws, which generally restrict shopping before 1:30 p.m. on a Sunday.

Amazon’s distribution center is likely to operate at all hours, seven days per week. According to Lexington County Council Chairman Jim Kinard, to ensure there is no problem with its operations, the company asked that the law be changed.

“These guys apparently had never heard of blue laws,” Kinard said.

Amazon’s request for the deal was one part of the big investment that it is making in Lexington County. The company plans to build a $100 million distribution center in the county’s Saxe Gotha Industrial Park alongside Interstate 26. It is expected to employ 1,249 full-time workers and 2,500 part-time staffers during holiday rush seasons….

First, that’s awesome that the community is getting 1,000 jobs.

It’s not so awesome that something that culturally set the community apart from other, more hurried, communities was set aside willy-nilly, without any sort of community conversation.

Yep, I’ve heard all the arguments against blue laws, and I haven’t heard a good one yet. Count me among those who remembers (way, way long ago, like in the 60s) and misses the times when we truly got a day off on Sunday, a day when no one expected us to engage in the hustle-bustle of the other six days because we couldn’t. (And the biggest canard spread by those who advocated modernity on this is the one about how we can CHOOSE not to run around like headless chickens on Sunday. No, we can’t. If you can do something, the world — the expectations of your family, your neighbors, your employer, everyone — will crowd you into participating on some level. Ours is an interconnected universe. Don’t make me quote John Donne, too.)

Again, I’m glad that the community is getting this shot in the arm. And if I had been in the position of those officials needing to act quickly to make it happen, I might have done the same thing. And I certainly understand Amazon’s unwillingness to get caught in a legal bind.

But I just hate that it had to happen this way, so that the community didn’t get to have a conversation about what it was trading away.

Bobby Hitt at Commerce

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Pretty much everyone who follows such things has said Nikki Haley’s first big test would be choosing her Commerce Secretary. And now we see how she has chosen. And it is very… interesting.

For the last couple of hours, since I heard that she had picked Bobby Hitt, I’ve been thinking back over my long association with him and wondering what I can legitimately say that is relevant to the situation.

You see, I know Bobby Hitt. I’ve known him for years. I served with Bobby Hitt. And you, senator, are no…

Wait, wrong tape loop…

Here’s the thing: Bobby Hitt used to be my boss, back when he was managing editor of The State and I was the gummint affairs editor. We worked together in a tumultuous time, as newsroom management was in transition from the old, family-owned regime to a new breed that, for lack of a better term, I’ll call the Knight Ridder editors. Bobby was a leading light of the first category, I was the vanguard of the second (I was the first editor in the newsroom from a KR paper — in fact, I think, the first who had ever been an editor outside South Carolina — after KR bought The State). I didn’t feel like an interloper or a spy — as a native South Carolinian, I just felt like a guy who had come home — but a lot of people regarded me as such. And Bobby was the new generation of the old guard. Some sparks were inevitable.

When I came to work at The State in 1987, Bobby was away doing a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, which sorta told me he was no dummy. When he came back in ’88, he was elevated to managing editor of The State (he had headed The Columbia Record before that). In 1990, Gil Thelen replaced my good friend and Bobby’s mentor, Tom McLean, as executive editor. About a year later, Bobby left the paper. What happened in between is a bit of a whirl in my memory, as it was the year of the Lost Trust scandal, the departure of Jim Holderman from USC, and about a dozen other scandals that had my staff running like crazy to stay ahead of them. (A time Cindi Scoppe alluded to in her column about me when I left the paper.)

Working with Bobby was … interesting. Bobby is a character and a half. He’s intense, and has a manner that works well with folks who think, “This guy will flat get some things done,” and very much rubs others the wrong way.

Bobby went to work for Nelson Mullins when he left the paper, and when BMW came into the state and hired that law firm to represent it, Bobby was delegated to help the Germans negotiate the complexities and peculiarities of public and governmental relations. They were so impressed by the job he did that they hired him away from Nelson Mullins, and he’s been up in Greer ever since, playing a key role at the operation that still stands as the big ecodevo success of the last two or three decades.

His intimate knowledge of the workings of such a business and what they’re looking for in a home should stand him in good stead, and no doubt was a huge factor in Nikki Haley picking him for this job. (An anecdote Bobby told me a few years ago about why BMW picked SC… Two reasons: First, our storied tech school system, which they relied upon to train their workers. Second — a BMW exec went on a driving tour of residential neighborhoods in the Greenville-Spartanburg area. He approvingly noted the neat houses and well-kept yards, and decided that people who took care of their property and community like that were people they could work with. The first is an ecodevo asset we understand and are happy to exploit. The second was intriguingly intangible.) The BMW name is political magic, and she’s no doubt hoping some of that magic will rub off on Commerce.

Oh, one other thing of interest: I can’t really tell you for sure what Bobby’s politics might be. News people didn’t speak to each other about such things. But I know he’s Rob Miller’s uncle. Assuming Nikki knew that, kudos to her for not letting that get in the way.

I’m going to be listening with interest the next few days to what business leaders say about this pick. Not what they’re quoted as saying in the paper, but what they say more informally. They’ve mostly been VERY anxious for a new approach to ecodevo in both the governor’s office and Commerce, which is why a lot of them supported Vincent Sheheen against the Sanfordista candidate. Nikki knows that, and knowing it, she has made a rather bold and unconventional pick.

Bobby is a unique individual, from his thick Charleston accent to that slightly mad, conspiratorial, insinuating grin that explodes out of his scruffy red beard at the least provocation. He’s certainly not the standard-issue CEO type that one expects in the Commerce job. No man in the gray flannel suit is he. I feel confident he’ll grab ‘hold of Commerce with both hands, and make something happen or bust a gut in the attempt. His uniqueness will either blow up in Gov.-to-be Haley’s face, or pay off big time. I hope, for South Carolina’s sake, that the latter is the case. I’ll be rooting for Bobby (and Nikki for that matter — she’s the only governor we’ve got), and if I can ever help him get the job done, I’ll be glad to do what I can. We need a win. We need a bunch of ’em.

Karen had a slightly different reaction

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What was your reaction to this headline when it led the paper the other day — “Haley confronts Obama on health care”?

Yeah, me too. Cringe City. Like, Please don’t tell me she identified herself as being from South Carolina. I mean, think about it: The closest thing to a qualification that Nikki possesses on this issue is a stint as fund-raiser for a hospital, which didn’t work out so well. But now the Leader of the Free World is expected to sit still and be lectured by her on the subject.

OK, so the president invited her to. That doesn’t make me feel much better about her wasting the opportunity by going to bat for a national GOP priority.

Yeah, I know she was elected chiefly by pushing these national-issue hot buttons, and not for anything central to being governor. And that’s my problem with this. That’s what produces the cringe factor. The last thing we needed was another governor who was more interested in playing to a national audience than governing South Carolina, and look what we got.

But hey, that’s what we’ve got, so I wasn’t going to say anything. Y’all have heard all that before.

At least, I wasn’t until I got this e-mail from Karen Floyd over the weekend:

Dear Subscriber

Recently, Governor-elect Nikki made a trip up to Washington DC to speak with President Obama about the highly contentious health care legislation. We are so proud to have our next governor aggressively represent the views of so many Americans.
Below is an article about the event that appeared in the Rock Hill Herald [the same McClatchy piece that was in The State, linked above]. Please take the time to read it and let us know what you think by visiting our Facebook page!
Sincerely,
Karen Floyd
SCGOP Chairman

So proud, huh? I’m beginning to suspect that Karen and I look at things somewhat differently…

Oh, and by the way — I realize that this is just business to people like Nikki and Karen, this constant sniping at the president’s attempt (however flawed) to deal with the health care crisis in this country. They just use it to yank the chains of susceptible people, and get them to vote the way they want them to.

But if this foolishness actually leads to the federal government letting South Carolina opt out of health care reform, as Obama reportedly indicated to Nikki, well then I am going to take this personally. It may be just partisan politics business, but I’m going to take it very personally.

OK, now I’m going to switch directions on you… I hope this doesn’t give you whiplash…

Nikki did something else at that meeting that I’m very proud she did: Confront the president on Yucca Mountain. That actually is a very important issue to South Carolina, and one that the president has taken an indefensible position on, thanks to Harry Reid. Anything Nikki does to get the president’s attention on that short of slapping him upside the head is OK with me. You go, girl.

And to change my tune still further… I was just about to post this when I had a phone conversation with a thoughtful friend who said, you’ve got to read The Greenville News version of the Haley/Obama interaction. The tone was a bit different. In fact, it had this bit:

Haley insisted that she is more interested in a “conversation” with the White House over areas of disagreement than “confrontation.”

That’s nice, but not quite enough to make me do an Emily Litella. I still don’t want my governor posturing on national controversies, and Karen Floyd does. Therein lies the difference.

“Swamp Fox, Swamp Fox, tail on his hat…”

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A reader this week reminded me of something that I may have known, but had forgotten — that long before he was the funniest deadpan comic actor in America, Leslie Nielsen was … “The Swamp Fox” on TV. She wrote:

I occasionally post on your blog as Abba.  Would you consider posting this clip from YouTube showing Leslie Nielsen, who died this week, as South Carolina’s Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, in Disney’s series from the early 1960s – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vvQJ7ZDg1Y.  Here’s a longer version – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVGN1pDzYAY&feature=related.  Leslie Nielsen never looked so good!  This clip has the catchy theme song that I remember so well from my childhood.  We used to play the Swamp Fox on the playground at school, and many of the boys in my class had tri-cornered hats with fox tails attached.  Hear the song once, and you’ll be humming it all day long!  A fitting tribute to Leslie Nielsen from our corner of the world, I think.

I loved that show, which ran from October 23, 1959 (right after my 6th birthday) to January 15, 1961 — hardly more than a year.

Like the far, far more successful “Davy Crockett” series and generally forgotten “Gray Ghost,” these shows inspired me and other very young kids to run out and play at being actual figures from history. (Anyone remember that goofy, overly elaborate way Col. Mosby saluted? I thought it was cool, and used to go around imitating it. Wouldn’t you like to see video of that?)

Actually, to take that a bit farther… to this day, whenever I hear the words “Tory” and “Patriot,” I think of first hearing them used on “The Swamp Fox.” So while my understanding of the term was to grow and expand later, I actually had a minimal working knowledge of what a “Tory” was at the age of 6. If I ran into a 6-year-old who used a term like that today, I’d be shocked. But it was common currency among fans of “The Swamp Fox.”

I can also remember a conversation I had with my uncle about “The Gray Ghost.” I was confused about the whole blue-vs.-gray thing (especially since I was watching it in black-and-white), and I asked him during one show, “Are those the good guys or the bad guys?” My uncle, who was only a kid himself (six years older than I) could have given me a simplistic answer, but instead, he said, “Well, they’re both Americans…” and went on to suggest that a case could be made for both being good guys. That sort of rocked my world. There was no such ambiguity on the Westerns I watched. This was my introduction to the concept that in war, in politics, in life, things can be complicated, that there are many shades of gray. Perhaps the track that set mind on has something to do with why I don’t buy into the whole Democrat-vs.-Republican, left-vs.-right dichotomy that drives our politics. After all, they’re all Americans. And in the wider world, they’re all humans. Even the Nazis. (Of course, this doesn’t keep me from understanding that when humans’ actions go beyond the pale — as with Nazis, or terrorists — they must be opposed, with force if necessary.)

Also, while at first I didn’t think I remembered the “Swamp Fox” theme song, as I listened to it repeated over and over on that clip above, I had a dim memory of being struck by the odd syntax of that second line, “no one knows where the Swamp Fox at” — I didn’t know WHY it sounded odd (I was just learning to read, and hadn’t gotten to grammar yet), it just did.

In other words, these shows — which presented very simplistic, often inaccurate glimpses of history — not only helped feed a lifelong interest in history, but helped foster the ability to think.

So… TV doesn’t actually have to be junk, although it’s often hard to remember that these days.

A pre-session legislative discussion

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CRBR Publisher Bob Bouyea, Chamber President Otis Rawl, Rep. James Smith, Sen. Joel Lourie, Rep. Nathan Ballentine. In the foreground is former Rep. Elsie Rast Stuart, now chairwoman of the the Richland-Lexington Airport Commission. / grainy phone photo by Brad Warthen

I meant to post about this yesterday, when it happened, but better late than never.

ADCO had a table at the Columbia Regional Business Report‘s (that’s the outfit Mike Fitts is with) “Legislative Lowdown” breakfast at Embassy Suites. It was a good table. Lanier and I were joined by Alan Kahn, Jay Moskowitz, Bob Coble, Butch Bowers, Cameron Runyan and Grant Jackson.

We were there to hear a discussion by a panel featuring Otis Rawl from the state Chamber, Rep. James Smith, Sen. Joel Lourie, Rep. Nathan Ballentine and Rep. Chip Huggins. Joel was a few minutes late, and Chip had to leave just as Joel arrived, but it was still a good discussion.

Here’s Mike’s description of the event, in part (I’d quote the whole thing, but I don’t know how Mike’s cohorts feel about that Fair Use thing):

By Mike Fitts
mfitts@scbiznews.com
Published Dec. 2, 2010

Lawmakers speaking at the Business Report’s Power Breakfast this morning said they see major difficulties ahead in the new budget year, but they also said there are new opportunities for bipartisanship.

The event, hosted at the Embassy Suites, featured Reps. Nathan Ballentine, R-Chapin, Chip Huggins, R-Columbia, and James Smith, D-Columbia; Sen. Joel Laurie, D-Columbia; and Otis Rawl, president and CEO of the S.C. Chamber of Commerce.

With a new Legislature and new governor coming to Columbia in January, much of the discussion focused on the budget crisis that will greet them.

Ballentine, a member of Gov.-elect Nikki Haley’s fiscal crisis task force, drew a stark picture of the challenges facing lawmakers. Ballentine compared the situation to a lifeboat with a limited number of seats. There won’t be enough dollars to take care of students, the elderly, the disabled and law enforcement, Ballentine said.

“Somebody’s going to get left out, and that’s going to hurt,” he said…

To Mike’s focused report I will add the following random observations:

  • I don’t know if this would have been the case if Chip Huggins had stayed, but the general consensus, or at least lack of overt conflict, between James, Joel and Nathan on issue after issue was quite noticeable. Nathan alluded to it, saying he was sure that the business people in the room were probably wondering why a pair of Democrats and a close ally of Nikki Haley were agreeing about issue after issue. (And some of the agreements were remarkable, going beyond mere civility, such as when Nathan volunteered his acknowledgement of the problems with Act 388.) Nathan further speculated that the audience might reasonably wonder why, in light of what they were hearing, the General Assembly had so much trouble getting anything done. He explained that the reason was that there were these 167 other people in the Legislature… And he was completely right. If we filled the Assembly with Jameses, Joels and Nathans, South Carolina would see a Golden Age of enlightened governance. These are reasonable young men who, despite their disagreements on some points are reasonable, deal with others in good faith, and truly want what’s best for South Carolina, and want it more than their own advancement or the good or their respective parties. If only their attitude were catching.
  • I’ll add to that point the observation that if all discourse about issues were on the intellectual level of this one, we’d see a very different, and much better, South Carolina. The conversation was wonderfully devoid of partisan, ideological, bumper-sticker cliches. For instance, I never heard anyone mention “growing government” or “taking back our state.” Observations were relevant, practical, and free of cant. I used to hear discussions like that regularly when I sat on the editorial board, because intelligent politicians did us the courtesy of leaving the meaningless catch-phrases behind. It was good to hear that kind of talk again. (It occurs to me that the fact that over the years I’ve been privileged to hear politicians at their best, trying to sound as smart as possible, may help to explain why I don’t have as jaded a view of officeholders as Doug and others do.) I’d be inclined to say that the discussion was on this level because the lawmakers were paying this assembly the same compliment of respect — but these particular lawmakers pay everyone that sort of respect. Which is why we need more like them.
  • Otis Rawl, incidentally, was slightly more confrontational — something you don’t usually see in a Chamber leader. He exuded the air at times of being impatient with the air of civil agreement in the room. When Nathan said that he had not realized when he voted for it the harm that Act 388 would cause — Otie challenged him directly, saying he knew good and well that his group had informed lawmakers ahead of time, and there was no excuse for anyone to claim innocence (I think he’s right in the aggregate — the body as a whole knew better, but ignored what they knew it order to scratch a political itch — but if Nathan says he didn’t understand, I believe him; he was a relatively inexperienced lawmaker at the time; and I appreciate greatly that he’s learned from experience). Awhile back, I chided Otie for not being more frank about what he thought on an issue. The Otis Rawl I saw Thursday morning could not be chided for the same thing. I suspect this reflects a growing dissatisfaction with Sanford-era fecklessness in the State House, which helped lead to the Chamber’s endorsement of Vincent over Nikki.
  • Speaking of Vincent, Nikki, Otie, James, Nathan and Joel … It struck me as interesting, just because language and civility interest me, that everyone speaking of Nikki Haley referred to her carefully as “Governor-Elect Haley.” It was notable partly because it was stilted coming from people who know her quite well as “Nikki,” but also because (and this might have been my imagination) there was a slight change of tone when the speakers said it, a shift to a formality mode. It seemed natural enough that the Democrats present would use that highly formal construction — it’s important to them (particularly since the two Democrats in question are Vincent Sheheen’s two best friends in the General Assembly) to sound scrupulously neutral and respectful in this post-election period. It’s a way of papering over their feelings about her election, and perfectly proper. It was also perfectly appropriate for Nathan to refer to her that way; it just sounded odder coming from him. They were seatmates, and allies in her fights with the leadership. But being a gentleman, he wasn’t going to top it the nob in a public setting by assuming excessive familiarity. Bottom line, just over a month ago ALL of them would have called her “Nikki.” But now they are the very pictures of proper Southern gentleman. Which I like. But then I’d like to see a return of the sort of manners I read about in Patrick O’Brian and Jane Austen. We just don’t see that very often nowadays.
  • As civil and intelligent as this discussion was (in fact, probably because it was so intelligent), it offered little hope for the General Assembly effectively dealing with any of the important issues facing our state in the foreseeable future. Everyone spoke with (cautious, on the part of the Democrats) optimism about Nikki — excuse me, Gov.-elect Haley — being able to work better with the Legislature than Mark Sanford has (a pitifully low bar). But I heard little hope offered that this, or anything else, would likely lead to the reforms that are needed. The institutional and ideological resistance to, say, comprehensive tax reform is just too powerful. The most hope Joel Lourie would offer is that steady pressure over a long period of time might yield some small progress. He cited as an example his and James’ long (eight-year) battle to get a sadly inadequate cigarette tax increase. The terrible truth, though, is that the cigarette tax was such a no-brainer — it shouldn’t have taken two days, much less eight years — that if IT took that long, much less simple and obvious reform seems unlikely in our lifetimes. But perhaps I’m not being as optimistic as I should be. It’s just that I’ve been fighting these battles, and hearing these same issues discussed, for so very long…

Big Lindsey is watching you…

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Today I was cleaning pictures from the last couple of months off my Blackberry, and ran across this one, which appealed to me — the colors, the looming image of Sen. Graham, the worship attitudes of Steve Benjamin and the other much-smaller dignitaries on the dais at right, some other undefinable qualities that perhaps an art major could better describe. There are certain tensions, or something.

It seemed like a good one for my much-neglected “Write Your Own Caption” category.

Anyway, I shot this at EngenuitySC’s IGNITE! program in the Innovista on the evening of Nov. 17 — which was a great event, by the way. The emphasis was on entrepreneurship, and the keep the energy going, there were 9 speakers, each of whom was kept to six minutes and 40 seconds, so it never got dull. And there was free beer, and there were these tasty sausage things.

To learn more about it, you can check out this Powerpoint presentation that Neil McLean gave at the conference:

Ignite 2010 on Prezi

Where in SC is he seeing government “grow”?

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Glenn McConnell and other who say stuff like this completely mystify me:

“Today, I again introduced a joint resolution that would limit the growth of government.  My desire was to give the people of South Carolina the opportunity to decide at the ballot box if government should grow faster than their wallets.   I have introduced this bill every session since 2007, and hope that it will pass this year.  The need for this legislation has been made clear by the current crisis we are in.  I believe that we should have manageable growth that allows for providing core services of government.  We do not need a feast or famine approach to budgeting for our core government functions.  I also believe that what the government does not need should be returned to those who paid the bill in the first place.  Sadly, I have seen that government, when faced with a buffet of tax dollars, could not control its appetite.  Therefore, I felt compelled to introduce a legislative way to staple its stomach.”

That’s from an e-mail release I got today from Senate Republicans. Set aside the overuse of weary cliches. My point is this: Where, oh where in the state of South Carolina is Glenn McConnell seeing government “grow,” or indeed do anything other than retrench, shrivel, stumble and limp along? Where is the “problem” that his is allegedly addressing? I see it nowhere in this state, and haven’t in the 23 years I’ve been closely watching.

If this were anyone but McConnell, I would say it was just mindless GOP rhetoric. Since the Republicans have decided to nationalize all politics, since we’ve seen expansions of such programs as Medicare and Homeland Security under Bush, and other medical programs and the stimulus under Obama, a state senator of GOP persuasion might spout such nonsense reflexively.

But we know that McConnell is particularly a South Carolina creature, and he knows this state inside and out. He thinks SC thoughts, in SC symbols. There’s nothing generic about him.

So in his case, it really makes no rational sense at all.

Of course, he’s not alone. I hear Tom Davis has done the same. I like Tom, and he’s certainly right about some things, but he definitely loses me when he puts forward such Sanfordesque legislation as trying to create a formula limiting future spending to an arbitrary formula:

Tomorrow, I will pre-file a bill that caps general fund appropriations to a “population growth plus inflation” increase over the amount spent the prior year, with revenues above this cap returned to taxpayers, pro-rata in accordance with their payments. Time to draw the line.

The problems with such proposals should be obvious. To name four of my favorites:

  1. There is no solid reason to believe (except that it sounds like it might apply) that such a formula will bear any accurate relationship to the future requirements of government. There’s no way you can know that a formula based on population growth and inflation will be more relevant than one based on a function of the ERAs of left-handed pitchers in the American League.
  2. The Framers who handed down our system of republican government (of which our SC system is a sort of Bizarro World parody, but hey, it’s what we’ve got) intentionally placed such decisions as taxing and spending in the hands of regularly elected representatives who are delegated to decide how best to address the needs of the moment. They most assuredly did NOT set up a system that would make future Congresses’ (or in our system, Legislatures’) decisions for them, much less try to substitute present or future representatives’ deliberation with a mathematical formula. It’s hard to imagine any decision that lawmakers make that is more central to their responsibility as stewards, or more sensitive to the particular factors of the given year, than the annual budget.
  3. No one who believes in any sort of democracy, representative or otherwise, should support anything like this. Basically, a proposal like this arises from a desire to use a momentary political advantage to bind all future elected representatives to follow the proposer’s philosophy. The idea is, get a momentary majority, and then you don’t have to win elections in the future — even if your philosophy is completely rejected in future elections, you have prevented those elections from having consequences. And that is unconscionable if one believes at all in the American way of democratic republicanism.
  4. Finally, we return to the objection I raised initially above: This is South Carolina, gentlemen. At no time has there been any indication that there is a problem for which this proposal might be even an imperfect solution. “Time to draw the line?” Really? On what, Tom, on what?