EDITOR’S NOTE: I initially posted this on Opening Day. I turned to start doing other things, but then looked back and didn’t like what I saw. I decided to take it down. But I was too late. At least a couple of you have tried to comment on it, but been frustrated. Sorry about that. But I looked at that original headline — “First nominee for worst political ad of 2026 so far” — and the prospect of provoking multiple discussions of perfectly sickening stuff just made me decide I didn’t want to go there. In the past, I have relished such debates, but I have found that in this new Age of Unreason, you get nowhere trying to preach sense to nonsense. Everyone just gets all dyspeptic and goes away muttering. So, I’m not going to invite nominees to offer ads that sicken them, too. Then we’ll all be unhappy. Anyway, I didn’t mean to deprive you of anything. I just decided not to go there. I turned to something that might spark more pleasant interactions with my fellow humans.
Happy opening day! Baseball has begun! The Red Sox face the Reds in Cincinnati at 4:10 today!
If there’s a drawback to the return of baseball, I suppose it’s that I’ll start seeing a lot of TV ads again. I seldom watch live broadcast TV otherwise — I prefer streaming. But watching sports means ads. The good news is that I generally watch through the MLB TV app, and they block out a lot of them.
Unfortunately, that is not the case with TV news, or the game shows that come on at about the same time. I don’t usually watch those on my own, but I see them frequently when I go visit my mother in the evenings. And last night, I hit my limit of tolerance with the repeated airing of the latest from Ralph Norman.
I’m not going into details, except to say that this is a particularly offensive example of one of the most tiresome tropes in American politics. It tends to go something like, “Politishuns is a bunch a crooks, so y’all gotta elect me so I can go set ’em straight!”
Donald Trump’s “clean up the swamp” nonsense is perhaps the best-known recent example of the genre, but this was a standard approach long before he befouled our politics. The approach dates at least back to Andy Jackson’s day. His election was the first landmark in the development of our country’s more offensive forms of populism.
Don’t think I’m exaggerating in describing it. The title of the ad is “Crooks.” That’s it. Nothing like “I will make South Carolina better by doing X or Y.” Just “Crooks.” You know, subtle…
I’m not going to go into details on Norman’s proposals, because they’re all things I’ve addressed many times before. Or at least I won’t go beyond this: The core of his campaign seems to be the oldy in which he offers himself as someone who, as a “businessman,” is obviously better than “politicians.”
I don’t know anything about his business or how it has endowed him with superior character, but I do know that he:
Was a state legislator from 2005 to 2007, and apparently liked it so much that he came back in 2009 and stayed until 2017, at which time he went up to Congress — that monument to character and rectitude — and has stayed there ever since.
And yet, somehow, things didn’t get better.
But don’t worry! It’ll all get fixed when he’s governor!
That’s all I have to say about this ad that’s irritating me so much at the moment. There are probably worse ones out there, although it sickens me to think so. I’ve seen some awful ones recently from Henry McMaster’s lieutenant governor, whose name it always takes me a moment to recall because Henry elevated her from obscurity, and I can’t think of anything she’s done since. Pam. That’s it. I’d have to Google her other name.
But this is the one bugging me right now.
Maybe some of you who see more TV ads than I do have worse examples. Share your own nominees, although I don’t know whether I’ll have the stomach to go watch them.
I’m going to watch some baseball. I hope I get back from class today in time to catch the last innings…
Related Posts
Looking back over this depressing post, I realized it wasn’t clear why I chose this as the “worst” so far.
Part of it is the sheer banality of it. He’s not trying to whip up the masses of less thoughtful voters by tossing out Culture War outrageous that have little to do with politics, but have everything to do with driving wedges between people.
This is mild by comparison, beyond the single-word label, “Crooks.”
What gets me is that, in addition to giving no positive reasons why anyone should vote for him, he wasn’t specific about what made every politician in Columbia a “crook.” He did mention something completely irrelevant: Lawmakers had raised their own compensation.
This implies that he expects voters to think that constitutes “corruption” — the thing he promises to stop (which I suppose he would argue is a positive — and perhaps it would be, if he had demonstrated that said corruption existed).
That would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. There is no way that voting themselves an increase is a corrupt practice, or justifies the term “crooks.”
Setting their own compensation is part of the job of legislators, and they do it in the open, as those unexplanatory TV news clips demonstrate.
From time to time, it would be their duty to adjust that compensation. In my lifetime, there has probably never been a time when a reasonable person would expect the pay to DECREASE. We’ve had inflation — generally mild to moderate — all this time, and I have been quite grateful that that has been the case. I thank God I’m not living in a time of DEflation. None of us wants to experience such shrinkage of our economy.
Here’s another reason why: Paying lawmakers nothing (which some seem to think is advisable) or close to nothing has one very predictable result — Only people of independent means would be able to hold office. This job eats up montrous amounts of lawmakers’ time throughout the year — not just when they are in session. You can’t do this and hold a normal full-time job. I couldn’t, anyway.
You notice I keep paying “compensation” instead of “pay.” That’s because the only recent discussion of raising payments to lawmakers I can find in a few minutes’ Googling has been about their expense allotments. The General Assembly voted last year to raise that amount from $1,000 to $2,500. The action was struck down by the state Supreme Court for not having followed correct procedure. So some lawmakers are having another go at it.
The $1,000 has been in place since 1995. Adjusted for inflation, that would have been $2,174.22 this February. (This does not include — if I’m reading these reports right — the $240 daily per diems they get to cover the cost of dining and lodging in Columbia, as well as mileage for a weekly round-trip.)
As for base pay, lawmakers’ salary is $10,400. Minimum wage is more than $15,000 for a full-time job.
Here’s the thing: If you want to, make a case that the people who make our laws should make less, or even roughly the same as (with expenses) kids who flip burgers. You might convince some people. Me, I think if I’m dissatisfied with the quality of lawmakers we have, I’d pay them more. But that’s me. It’s a point worth debating.
But don’t simply call EVERY officeholder at the State House is a crook because they get paid for this critically important work, and then smirk through the whole ad because you KNOW there are probably enough voters out there who will swallow such nonsense without questioning it for a second.
That’s what makes the ad disgusting.
Now you see how many words that took? And I just barely scratched the surface of things we should take into account on the subject. I just don’t want to spend that much of my life trying to explain things to people upon whom my efforts will have no effect.
Ralph was a high school contemporary of mine in Rock Hill and he’s still pretty much the same as he was then. Unexceptional. And the ad in question is classic political misdirection quoting a statistic out of context and a promise that cannot possibly be fulfilled by the candidate if elected.
“a promise that cannot possibly be fulfilled by the candidate if elected.”
That is pretty much every candidate isn’t it? Politifact tracked Biden’s promised and he finished at 33% completed and most of them are COVID related.. and some that are considered complete are very nebulous. “Improve Obamacare” Did that really happen? “Put US on a course to net-zero emissions by 2050.” That’s so vague that there’s no way to measure it. “Create a bipartisan commission to consider reforms to the Supreme Court” Really? They don’t have to actually do any reforms to consider this a win?
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/biden-promise-tracker/?ruling=true
Remember – it’s a part time job, not a full time job – so the comparison to a minimum wage full time job is inaccurate.
Anyway, 46% of the state senators are lawyers. They don’t get elected to supplement their likely high six figure salaries. They do it to have control of the laws that they will get rich off of in litigation. Then we have Todd Rutherford who has made a whole lot of money defending his fellow lawmakers in DUI cases… he’s got an evergreen population of customers around him. The majority of the rest of the legislators are real estate brokers, insurance agency owners, and other business owners. They don’t need $10K per year.. I’m sure they’d do it for free just based on the access to networks of lobbyists who can always be counted on to pick up a check or supply tickets to events. And who is best served by having a say in how the laws in the state are written? Maybe people who work in insurance, real estate, and own businesses? Just a coincidence I suppose.
I won’t call them ALL crooks.. but they’re not Boy Scouts either. I’ll just label the majority of them what they are: Self serving hypocrites with massive egos. They are responsible for devising some of the most brain dead laws that suggest either mental incompetence or purposeful nanny statism. Blue laws, tax laws, silly grandstanding on unenforceable laws like the recent cellphone nonsense… there is so much on the books that could be erased immediately if any of them had the guts to call out the stupidity.
Doug, first… you need to follow a legislator around for a year to get any idea of the hours they are on the job. I’ve had jobs with extremely long hours myself, sometime around the clock. But I would never do what legislators do. It’s not that the hours are bad; its the unbearable (to me) demands that they are under constantly, day and night, all year. They don’t have time off normally, and if they try to take some, watch how their constituents react. (I refer you to the way people have griped about various presidents, from Ike to You Know Who, playing a round of golf.)
I compare it to minimum wage not to compare hours, but to emphasize the absurdity of the amount, given the weight of responsibility.
You refer to lawyers. That’s right; they don’t need the money. Which was part of my point (setting aside all your rant about what crooks you think they are): People who can’t afford to spend all that time and trouble without a decent rate of pay can’t run for office. They wouldn’t be able to support families.
There are exceptions — but contrary to your assessment, they are the minority, not the norm. Those guys who got caught up in Operation Lost Trust were generally people who couldn’t afford a decent suit on their salaries, so they thought nothing of accepting a free suit or two from Ron Cobb. That might not have happened if they’d been paid properly. It might still have, of course, because there are people who get a decent wage and want more, and lack scruples.
But you know what? If you’re one of those people, you don’t do into the public sector. You go private, where there’s more money and less scrutiny of what you do…
Now, before you try to turn this into one of those pointless arguments you and Bud used to have about public vs. private, where one is all good and the other all bad, let me point out that there are probably no more, or not a lot more, “crooks” in the public sector than the private. There are more than you hear about — news media don’t watch the private sector the way they do the private, partly because they don’t see it as their mission, and partly they can’t get to the information needed for exposés.
But normally most people are not crooks, in the public or private sectors. That is somewhat less so right now, since the people running the country right now are so clearly in it (and in everything else they do) for themselves. But for whatever reasons, half the country right now doesn’t care.
I don’t know, but I believe, that ONE reason they don’t care is that they actually believe that “they’re all crooks,” so why shouldn’t their guys grab all they can? And they believe that because ever since Watergate, they’ve heard people around them saying the kinds of things you say all the time. And they’re not critical thinkers. That’s why they vote for a guy who goes by whatever “a lot of people say”….
OK, that was a bunch of time I just wasted, so we’re done, unless you or I come up with something original to say. Which would be a tall order, as much time as we’ve wasted on this problem. We’ve firmly established he fact that you despise government with a passion like what some people devote to God-given religion.
There are a number of reasons I deleted that post, one of the biggest being that I’m tired of dwelling on things that are hopelessly depressing, given the fact that so many Americans today are uninterested in constructive conversations, so why waste the time.
A smaller motivation was that I didn’t want to have an exchange like this one… Here I go now to do more constructive things…
Doug’s not wrong here.
If a lawyer needs a raise to be a legislator, resign and go back to your job as a personal injury attorney. None of them need raises. Real estate brokers and insurance agency owners do not need raises to serve as a legislator. They are extremely well off already. Serving as a politician helps pad their business.
To point out the obvious here: If anyone thinks making $47,000 as compared to 10,000 will make more “regular people” want to run for office is kidding themselves- for a reason I will never understand.
1st- No one that is not independently wealthy or already retired, can work in Columbia 3-4 days a week for 6 months of the year. You don’t work at the local plant as an electrician and ask the boss if you can go down to Columbia Tuesday-Thursday ever week from January-May. So that’s ridiculous.
2nd- the only people that can do this are retired, independently wealthy, both, or they are willing to be extremely poor and don’t care (no one).
I will correct Brad on one more thing- there are SOME legislators that do spend a lot of time on policy matters- meeting with various boards even when the legislature is out of session to learn more from the groups that they have some oversight over.
HOWEVER, this is not anywhere near a majority of the legislature. It’s a small minority- because one of those legislators (a lawyer) that chooses to attend those types of meetings and learning sessions told me that personally. The great majority are not attending those types of meetings. The great majority are doing no more than showing up to regular sessions- and even then- some of them don’t show up even to those.
I must not be expressing myself well.
The point is not that “a lawyer needs a raise to be a legislator.” It’s the opposite. Right now, ONLY attorneys, well-off businessmen who have plenty of people back home to run the business, and independently wealthy folks can afford to be legislators.
I said that before, but you (and possibly Doug) missed it. I hope I said it better this time.
I don’t have a problem with lawyers in the Legislature. They tend to understand the issues better than most (and that’s far too rare a thing in politics).
But if you don’t want all these lawyers, make the job affordable for people of modest means…
$47,000 isn’t going to do that Brad. if you want more “regular folks” to run for these offices, you are going to have to pay then north of $70,000 a year.
Who the heck is going to work 3-4 days in Columbia half the year for $47,000? Only people that are wealthy or own their own business and who have employees that will do their work for them can do that.
Electricians, plumbers, machinists, grocery store workers, etc- can’t spend half the year in Columbia at the state house.
A decent electrician at a plant will pull in $70,000+ in his sleep. Probably a lot more.
An HVAC tech who owns his own small company of 3-4 techs will make $100,000+ a year. But unless his company has 40-50-70 employees, he has to work in the field on jobs right alongside them. He can’t be gone 5-6 months.
A customer service rep working for a Verizon or an insurance company that has 3-5 years experience will make $47,000 or more- and have better benefits working for a private company.
I feel you are creating a straw man. $10,000 or $47,000 isn’t changing the result.
It’s like telling someone that can’t get off work to go to Disney World that you are lowering their price from $2500 to $1900. They still can’t go. Lowering the price $600 makes no difference.
Oh, I agree that’s not enough for the job.
Nothing to see here.. surely the trial lawyer lobbyists are working in the best interests of the people of SC.
Senator Tom Fernandez got taken to the woodshed by the good old boys/lawyers and was forced to retract his statement… No crooks there.,.. nope.
AI Summary:
In March 2025, freshman South Carolina Republican Senator Tom Fernandez alleged on the Senate floor that the trial lawyer lobby offered him $50,000–$100,000 in campaign funds to vote against a tort reform bill. Fernandez later walked back the claim of a quid pro quo, stating he did not believe the offers were directly tied to his vote, notes.Key Details of the Incident:The Claim: During a debate on a lawsuit abuse reform bill, Sen. Fernandez stated that the trial lawyer lobby offered him significant campaign contributions to oppose the bill.Initial Impact: The allegation caused a stir, causing the Senate to stand “at-ease” and prompting discussions about lobbying tactics in the South Carolina legislature.The Retraction: Within hours, according to and, Fernandez clarified his statement, stating he did not perceive the fundraising offers as a direct quid pro quo in exchange for his vote.Context: The incident highlighted intense lobbying pressures surrounding legal liability reform in South Carolina, with supporters and opponents of the legislation seeking to sway lawmakers.The incident highlighted intense lobbying pressures surrounding legal liability reform in South Carolina, with supporters and opponents of the legislation seeking to sway lawmakers.
Yep- that stuff happens all the time in Columbia. They are slime-balls. you have to be to be a politician.
It’s like Katrina Shealy telling a newspaper last year that the lobby of the state house was full of women looking to make an impact with the men in the legislature. She was speaking about those women and their lobby efforts related to those good ole Christian causes in the legislature – You know- the kind that require the legislator to act like he really wanted to be a Christian preacher and the women to act as if being a nun was something they once considered.
She then added she ran into some of those same women out of town at a political conference and they were dressed like the Navy had just pulled into port.
i’ve heard stories of some of those out of town political conferences. Let’s just say, they aren’t very Christian.
There are about 4-5 stories out in the last 5 months about legislators that are messing around on their spouses. Routine stuff at the state house- and those are just the ones people know about.
I use to be a Page at the state house. I saw legislators walk out or the Senate Chamber and right to a private room full of 2-3 industry lobbyists to get marching orders. Saw it many times.
Well, that’s ironic. Pages frequently go into politics later. Yet you don’t even vote (although I think you should.)!
The Senator I worked for told me to steer clear of political office.
I have to say, I enjoyed working for him, but I saw things that looked very sleezy when I was there (almost 2 years). I don’t think you can be an ethical person and be in elected office in Columbia. I’ll leave it at that.
No, proudly unregistered now. No regrets. In fact, there is a “Not Voting” movement that is growing and I’ve connected with some good folks in that community.
Well, as long as you’re committed to it, how about seeing if you can get some Trump supporters to join you in taking the pledge…
Well, others have to make up their own minds.
Most of the people I am meeting online in these groups don’t really share their previous votes or political opinions- and most of us don’t ask those questions.
That’s sort of the point of making the choice to not participate anymore.
I haven’t seen many political ads because both me and my wife agreed to turn the channel as soon as we see ANY ad come on.
Plus, given the way politicians act like fools (because they are fools), I can’t stomach the dishonest and unrelenting Republican adds trashing the super majority republican legislature and long-standing republican governor as “democrat controlled.”
Worse- is their political cheering squads- most of them political operatives- in other words- young attorneys in South Carolina who crowd into places like the Newberry Opera house after paying high prices for “debate tickets” to scream and holler for their favorite liar to try to make viewers dumb enough to watch an entire debate think a candidate has real support.
“If you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.” – Winston Smith, the protagonist of “1984”. George Orwell.
Dave Crockett; Thanks for that assessment of Norman. I don’t know Norman, but I laughed at your “unexceptional” assessment of Norman.
1994, I was in Cedar Rapids, Iowa from the Ides of April to the first first of November. The Democratic nominee, Bonnie Campbell, had a simple “PowerPoint” 4 slide presentation, three slides each listing an issue that that her opponent was wrong on; closing with “Wrong for Iowa”. The Republican candidate had the governor’s wife mentioning why Terry Branstad needs a third or fourth term to finish what he started in Iowa.
When I returned home to South Carolina in November, I had a severe shock of déjà vu. The Democratic ad had the same “PowerPoint” ad closing with “Wrong for South Carolina”. The Republican ad had David Beasley’s wife sitting on the front porch saying why her husband needed to be governor.
Over the weekend, I saw several ads from others seeking the same office Norman seeks.
It was depressing.
Worse, I was forced to watch some of them while trying to watch Easter Mass at the National Shrine in Washington, and the Vatican — both on YouTube. (My wife has a bad case of tonsilitis, so we didn’t go inflict germs on our own fellow parishioners.)
There was no “SKIP” button. It was awful.
All seemed to be TRYING to take the prize from Norman, but he still has the lead. Although maybe I’m saying that because I saw a minute or two of an SC GOP gubernatorial “debate,” and as bad as some were, he was worse. Anyway, that sort of warped my ability to say for sure whether his AD was the worst, or if it’s just that he’s a phenom all-around…
YouTube just gets more aggressive with its ads every day. That business of no “SKIP” button was appalling. I don’t think that happened on all the ads I saw, but it definitely did on one or two…
Corruption update this week:
Gavin Newsom’s PAC used $1.5 million to buy 67,000 copies of HIS OWN BOOK. Total book sales were around 97,400. His PAC’s purchase accounts for about two-thirds of all sold copies.
Two U.S. representatives resign from office due to sexual misconduct. Two other U.S. representatives facing similar fate. One due to stealing COVID money (just a few million, no big deal) for which the “ethics” committee found her guilty of 25 charges.
Eric Swalwell used campaign funds to pay for live-in nanny, hotel rooms where sexual assaults took place.
The billionaire who was letting Swalwell live in his mansion kicked him out after the charges. Swalwell also claimed to rent a room in the home of a staffer to pretend he was a California resident and be eligble to run for Governor. None of the neighbors said they ever saw him there.
When people ask why politicians work for salaries that are lower than they could make in the private sector, this is one of the key reasons. Access to campaign funds to use UNTAXED for all sorts of expenses. Access to wealthy people who can make deals off the books.
Here’s a link to a website that tracks misconduct by legislators.
https://www.govtrack.us/misconduct
The barchart show instances have more than doubled since the 1990’s.
It’s not one of the “key reasons.” It’s occasionally one of the reasons.
Ok. Just look at the net worth of politicians who spend decades in office and tell me how they end up increasing that net worth by many multiples while earning what would be the average pay of a mid level software developer?
Exposure. It attracts opportunities, especially after you leave office. And some guys going into politics for that.
I don’t have time for this story, but to tell it VERY quickly… when I covered my first gubernatorial campaign in 1978, I traveled with a dark-horse candidatem from our home town. I thought he had a chance. He didn’t. My father-in-law, who was a businessman and good at it, told me he figured the guy just ran to raise the profile of his security guard company. I was SHOCKED at such an idea.
I don’t know what Roger Murray (that was the candidate’s name) was thinking. But I have seen people who seemed to be looking for a higher profile, for whatever reason.
My father-in-law may have been right, but I still think he ran mainly because, even though his chances were thin, it gave him a chance to say some things he wanted to say to a bigger audience.
Roger wasn’t just a businessman from Jackson, by the way. He was a fairly prominent member of the Tennessee House, and had done some good work in Nashville. But sure, in the back of his mind, maybe he was also thinking about what my father-in-law said.
As I so often say, people are complicated. And so, very often, are their motives…
That happens all the time.
The Republican National Committee spent $100k of donor money on Donald Trump Jr’s book.
Interestingly, Trump Jr bought a book publishing company that publishes books that promote his dad, and his dad gets the money. The RNC, Turning Point, and the Trump campaign are the biggest customers of Trump Jr’s book publishing company.
Some estimates say Trump and Trump Jr have earned over $10 million from books that the RNC and Trump related PACS have purchased.
The strange ad to me is the Ralph Norman ad. I am trying very hard to avoid all of these ads. I don’t watch the debates either or even read about them as there is no reason for me to anymore. (Thank God).
However, the ad Norman is running says everyone in Columbia is corrupt. I agree with that.
But if Ralph won and stepped foot in Columbia, everyone in Columbia will still be corrupt- including him.
it seems like a strange ad for a party republican to call every republican in Columbia- ones he’d need to depend on, “corrupt”
if you call a friend “corrupt”- the friend will never speak to you again and never trust you- and never want to see you and might even be happy when they one day read your obit.
So I don’t understand any politician- thankfully. None of them are worth a nickel.
That’s not true. These days, the overall quality of politicians is probably at an all-time low point. But there are still quite a few fine people in politics, and they don’t deserve to be painted with that brush.
In fact, they deserve our thanks more than ever. Politics has always been an extremely demanding activity, never leaving you a moment’s peace, but right now it must be worse than ever…
We disagree. You have to be corrupt to be in this system. An ethical person would leave in second.
There was one legislator that I thought might be 5% ethical last year in the general assembly. But he now posts party approved spin on his social media feeds- clearly not written by him- and he reflexively posts stuff he knows to be spin at best, but obviously lying junk.
I was pleased to see former senator shealy call out one current senator (she didn’t name him though but mentioned what role he played in the senate- who says one thing on social media and in front of the cameras but votes the exact opposite. Shealy has got her bearings back now that she’s a former legislator. It’s amazing how being an ex-politician can often cure someone.
Yes, we’ll have to disagree. I just know too many good people in politics to accept your view. I worked to try to get James Smith and Mandy Powers Norrell elected in 2018 because I think very highly of both of them.
I’m quite happy with both of my state lawmakers at the moment — Micah Caskey and Russell Ott. I was very pleased when we managed to elect Russell instead of Dick Harpootlian or Jason Guerry in 2024, and he’s given me no cause to date to regret it at all. I like Beth Bernstein, too, but I don’t get to vote for her.
Many of the people I liked when they were in office are not OUT of office, which doesn’t make them any better or worse. They include Joel Lourie, Vincent Sheheen, Hunter Limbaugh — and unfortunately, Mandy.
Joel retired and Hunter left voluntarily, if I recall. But Vincent and Mandy were victims of the increasing partisan bitterness that has so severely damaged our state and nation over the past decade.
Mind you, I’m just mentioning the legislators I have liked most in recent years. Plenty of others are honest folk.
And why do honest people run? Because they want to serve their state and country. Also, they can see how badly we need people like them to run…
james smith and mandy powers norrell aren’t in politics Brad. They lost. They aren’t there to play any role, good or bad. They were rejected. But you mentioned that.
mandy couldn’t get elected in Lancaster in 2026. She’d lose to a 5th grade dropout who promised to investigate “chem-trails” and stop commercial airliners from flying over Lancaster, SC over fears of being poisoned.
But you fail to mention what it takes to stay in politics- and the people that stay in politics- the ones in the legislature play those dishonest games.
Joel has been gone for years and years. So has Vincent. Vincent couldn’t get elected in Kershaw County in 2026 to a statehouse seat if he raised and spent $100 million dollars. He’s fortunate that the only people that can vote for Camden mayor are those within town limits.
Then those esteemed legislators that worked alongside James portrayed him as someone who would singlehandedly ruin the legal system in South Carolina with his corruption if he got anywhere near a judge’s chambers. Your buddy Micah helped do that to him.
With friends like that, a man needs no friends.
I can’t stomach Micah. I can’t believe you do- probably because of his granddaddy. The absurd rationalizations that man makes would make a bum sound like a PhD level biochemist.
So yes, we clearly disagree.
James served in the House for 24 years. He’s not some guy who came and went…
And if you sat down and talked with Micah for an hour, you’d see what I mean. I didn’t actually know his grandfather and great-grandfather, but my mother did. Her family and the Caskeys were fairly close, back before I was born. The great-grandfather was — I think — the principal at her high school in Bennettsville, and the grandfather was later the football coach. I think. I get confused which did which.
However, with some of the others I mentioned, I DID know their fathers. I was proud to know Isadore Lourie and Fred Sheheen years before I knew their sons. They were fine men, who did a lot for South Carolina. I didn’t meet James’ father Jim until I joined Rotary, years after I first knew James. He’s a really good guy, too.
Having arrived at The State in 1987, I have since then been able to do something I never did in my life before — experience a community across generations. Growing up as a Navy brat, I would read books that would describe people and families over time, and I’d always sort of envy those people. They were rooted; they were really part of a community, and I had never known that. Sure, there are advantages to moving around — they help you perceive the broader world, and make you a better, more objective observer of communities in which you find yourself for a time. I think that’s why a lot of military brats became journalists, back in the days of newspapers.
But there’s a depth of soul, or something I can’t quite describe, that people who live in one place for generations develop. I got to experience a LITTLE of that during the 10 years I worked for The Jackson (TN) Sun right after college. I sort of wrote a column about that once, late in my tenure there. Maybe I’ll share it if I run across it.
But it’s happened more fully (although I suppose not completely like in multi-generational novels) over the past 39 years here. It’s helped that three-fourths of my family tree is rooted here.
And I value that. At the same time, I’m a Navy brat, who moved from port to port.
And I value that, too…
None of the people you mentioned ever had any real power in the state. What was the biggest accomplishment made by James Smith or Vincent Sheheen while in office?
Did you think Hugh Leatherman was ethical? Bobby Harrell? Richard Quinn?
If you think this is some post-Trump 2016 issue, you’re wrong. Richard Nixon. Bill Clinton. Ted Kennedy. Earl Butz. ABSCAM in 1980 took out 8 congressmen. The list goes on and on to the beginning of the country. If there is money and power on the table, it will draw corrupt people.
I have a simple solution (aside from term limits) to cut down on corruption. Require every elected official to submit their tax returns each year for public viewing as well as report all balances each year in every bank, brokerage, 401K, etc. Let us track how their wealth increases.
Yeah, ol’ Teddy was definitely in it for the money…
” You have to be corrupt to be in this system. An ethical person would leave in second.”
This is cynicism on testosterone. And cynicism is one of the toxins contributing to our dysfunctional politics.
Yup. It’s how Trump’s supporters excuse him.
“Oh, they’re all like that!,” they say.
But they’re not. Not even close…
One of your favorites, John McCain, wasn’t exactly a Boy Scout. Aside from cheating on his first wife, his involvement with the Keating Five situation showed he was willing to trade influence for money. He received $112,000 in political contributions from Keating and took nine free trips paid by him. That’s not an “oops, I screwed up” mistake. That’s a “I’ll never get caught” mistake. Corrupt people are rarely caught the first time they do something unethical. Or the last.
I’d hire John McCain to do any job, any time.
It’s 100% accurate.
Where is the evidence otherwise? Spell it out.
The General Assembly is right now, considering the death penalty for young women who have an abortion- for any reason- including rape and incest. It made it out of the Senate Medical Affairs Committee with a favorable report.
Under this law, a 21 year old young woman could be put to death for ending a pregnancy after being raped, while her rapist reads a newspaper article about the execution from his home.
Cynicism? LOL.
It isn’t 100 percent accurate, and the fact that there’s ONE bill out there that’s horrible (and of course that is, if you’re characterizing it accurately) doesn’t prove your point.
That’s enough on the eternal, silly question of whether politicians are “100 percent bad” or “100 percent good.”
I assure you that they are neither.
I’m REALLY sorry I went ahead and posted this post after spiking it. I knew it would lead to stuff like this, and that’s not what this blog is for….
I won’t do it again.
“Where is the evidence otherwise? Spell it out.”
That’s the sort of rhetorical question typically posed by demagogues — who are of course the main beneficiaries of cynicism about politics.
As for the bill you mention (S. 1095, introduced unfortunately by “my” state senator, Richard Cash), it’s somewhat ironic that this sort of reactionary ghoulishness is likewise a product of cynicism, because while cynicism causes some to turn to nihilism, it leads others to grasp onto ideologies of various stripes in hopes of making the world over again without the need of politics.
You have to be corrupt to be in this system. An ethical person would leave in second.
The South Carolina General Assembly recently voted down the idea of providing free breakfast and lunch to school children in South Carolina
The same people that voted against that “wasteful spending” for school children have not said one critical word about Donald Trump proposing spending $500 million dollars of taxpayer money for a bailout for a failing airline that has repeatedly been in and out of bankruptcy.
Reminder- You have to be corrupt to be in this system. An ethical person would leave in second.
“You have to be corrupt to be in this system.”
No, you don’t.
“An ethical person would leave in (a) second.”
No. Not if he or she had the guts and energy to continue. Being an honest person makes you obliged to keep at it, especially in this political age that started in 2016… We desperately need more such people.
………but has nothing to do with my post.
I am sure sitting “down with Micah for an hour” would result in anyone thinking “here is a reasonable guy.” That’s the politician in him. You could say the same exact thing about dozens and dozens of politicians you’d never dream of supporting.
Your buddy Micah screwed James Smith to the floor and as you mentioned, you are quite happy with Micah.
Per Micah, James Smith wasn’t worthy of being a judge in Richland County because of fear that he was going to ignore and rewrite South Carolina law.
How does a reasonable human being, which you think Micah is, come to such a blatantly nutty conclusion?
All Micah does now is reflexively post political party talking points on social media.
That’s the problem. People have a strong distaste for Congress and the general assembly but seem to always love their own reps.
No wonder the system never gets better.
Again, we’ll just have to disagree.
I’ll just say that there’s not a person on the planet I don’t disagree with sometime, just as I did with Micah over preventing James from getting that judgeship. And Micah knows that; I spoke with him about it quite frankly.
By the way, the last time I put up a sign for Micah, I called James first to see if he would take that badly (I don’t work for James any more, but I don’t believe in being disloyal to friends). I didn’t think he would mind, and he didn’t. He’d been pretty sore when the thing happened, but he was over it.
The thing is, when you work with people on issue after issue, you get to know them. They’re not one-dimensional (or, checking my math, two-dimensional) symbols to you any more. They’re people. And if over time you’ve come to trust them, you don’t just throw them on the trash heap if they do something you don’t like — even something personally important to you. Unless you’re Donald Trump, of course.
I guess you know who I admire most in SC politics. I’ve mentioned it many times. It’s Joe Riley. I wasn’t around when he was in the Legislature, but I followed much of his 41-year career as mayor of Charleston. I agreed with the late David Broder when he referred to him (I think — it’s been awhile, so I don’t recall the exact words) — as America’s best mayor.
And yet, sometimes I disagreed with him, too. I can’t even remember what the issue was, but I wrote about it, 25 years or so about it. I do remember being unsure of myself when I did it. I thought, Am I sure about this? If Joe’s on the other side, maybe I’m wrong…
HEY, Y’ALL!
Tnis post is CLOSED FOR COMMENTS
IT’S MY FAULT THAT I GAVE IN AND POSTED THIS TOPIC. THE KINDS OF COMMENTS I’VE SEEN ARE JUST THE KIND THAT MAKE ME WANT TO QUIT BLOGGING, THEY MAKE ME SO TIRED.
I’VE POSTED FOUR POSTS TODAY AND WHAT DO I GET — ONE VERY GOOD, INFORMATIVE THOUGHTFUL COMMENT THAT’S ON THAT TOPIC, AND HELPFUL. THAT WAS FROM DOUG ROSS.
EVERYTHING ELSE WAS ON THIS TIRESOME THREAD.
SO THAT’S IT.
OK, NOW the comments are shut down on this post.
While I was writing the above notice, Ken posted a couple of short comments, above and below. So I approved them, and THEN hit the “deny” button…