TweetThe “Black Lives Matter” movement has sort of been hovering out there, an amorphous thing that no one seems entirely comfortable with. Not Republican presidential candidates, certainly (some less than others). But not their Democratic counterparts, either. And our governor is pretty adamant in her disapproval. Conservatives are uncomfortable with it, and some liberals seem […]
Tweet Today, the state of South Carolina leaped out into uncharted territory, launching itself from the 19th century right over the troubled 20th, and into the 21st. And it wasn’t even kicking and screaming. It is, without a doubt, a miracle that today, Gov. Nikki Haley called for the Confederate flag to come off the […]
TweetIn January 2012, I was invited to speak to the Senate Presidents’ Forum, a national gathering of state senate leaders, in Key West. I was on a panel with several others who were there to talk about that year’s presidential politics. They had the legendary David Yepsen from Iowa, and I was the putative South Carolina […]
TweetIn a headline today, The Washington Post posed the question, “Can Jeb Bush win the GOP nomination . . . by praising President Obama?” Here’s what they’re referring to: Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush supports President Obama’s trade deal, praises his management of the National Security Agency and agrees that Congress should have moved faster to hold […]
TweetI’ve never known quite what to think, much less say, about local attorney, former state GOP director and social media provocateur Todd Kincannon. Some of his detractors on the Web have less trouble labeling him, although they sometimes seem to be trying too hard, I suppose in an effort to match his own vitriol. The […]
TweetJust want to make sure you don’t miss Cindi Scoppe’s column today. The headline in the paper was “The anti-Medicaid argument unmasked.” It’s a bit more descriptive online: “What does it mean that SC Gov Nikki Haley’s chief anti-Medicaid lobbyist has changed his tune to match his new job?” (Which, of course, would not have […]
TweetChris Cillizza and/or Aaron Blake of The Fix (the piece is double-bylined, but keeps saying “I”) tell about a “prominent Republican consultant” who says that Ted Cruz is the most underrated potential presidential candidate in the GOP field, and has as good a chance as Jeb Bush. Of course, he’s challenged on this, and he […]
Tweet I mentioned earlier in the week that I was working, off-and-on, on an item for the ADCO blog about best Super Bowl ads of 2015. Well, it took me until Friday, because not only did I have a lot of much-higher-priority client work to do, but just to do this one thing meant finding […]
TweetAt first, I thought SC’s Mick Mulvaney had had an awakening, and was spurning the Tea Party fervor that put him in office. I thought maybe his views had matured as a result of four years’ exposure to political reality. I was misled by this headline in the WashPost this morning: “House Republican slams anti-Boehner […]
TweetYa se van los warrenistas… Porque vienen clintonistas… — paraphrase of ‘La Cucaracha” You would think that Democrats, horrified by the way the Tea Party has pulled the GOP to the extreme right, would immediately and utterly reject any efforts to pull their own party toward populist extremism. And yet, we keep hearing that there are […]
TweetWhen I saw this on Twitter: GOP's secret weapon: How right-wing churches turn the 99 percent into the Tea Party http://t.co/2Rl1yuGipW — Salon.com (@Salon) November 10, 2014 — Salon.com (@Salon) November 10, 2014 I clicked on the link for the purpose of delving into how the hopelessly ideological (by which I mean, whoever wrote that […]
TweetThis had social media buzzing this morning: Columbia, SC – The South Carolina Club for Growth, a network of fiscal conservatives, made history today by endorsing its first statewide Democratic candidate – Ginny Deerin – who is running for Secretary of State. “We are endorsing Ginny Deerin for three reasons,” said SC Club for Growth […]
TweetI was very glad to see this news out of Tennessee: Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) easily won his primary on Thursday, defeating a conservative challenger and effectively ending the tea party’s hopes of unseating a Republican senator for the third straight election cycle. Alexander beat state Rep. Joe Carr, a conservative insurgent who ran hard […]
TweetKristin Sosanie over at the state Democratic Party resurrects this from the archives today: Well, this could be awkward. Today Nikki Haley is holding campaign events with the SC Chamber of Commerce, but take a look at how she slammed them less than four years ago: “‘The state Chamber is a big fan of bailouts […]
TweetTyler Jones, spokesman for SC House Democrats, brings this to my attention: BREAKING NEWS! GOP Legislator Busted for Plagiarism On Monday, Berkeley County GOP Rep. Samuel Rivers, a Tea Party activist and pastor, published an op-ed in the Post and Courier that discussed new EPA proposals in Congress. The only problem? He didn’t write it. […]
TweetHaving heard my limit of cynical statements bordering on paranoia, I resolved, on live radio over the weekend, to do The Most Daring Thing a Journalist Can Ever Do. I decided to stick up for politicians. And for the media, for that matter. I learned long ago, well before I started blogging, that the surest […]
TweetStill catching up on stuff I saw over the long weekend, and was too lazy to comment on then. Did you take note of Thomas Ravenel’s formal announcement of his independent candidacy for U.S. Senate? Here it is: THOMAS RAVENEL ANNOUNCES U.S. SENATE CANDIDACY “Southern Charm” Star To Challenge Two-Party Status Quo in South Carolina […]
TweetThis came in today from the SC House Democratic Caucus: Rutherford to propose legislation allowing casinos in Myrtle Beach to fix roads Columbia, SC – House Democratic Leader Todd Rutherford announced today that he plans to introduce legislation next year to allow well-regulated, upscale casinos in the Myrtle Beach area and use the new tax […]
TweetAnd even though he says he expects people to make jokes about it, I’m going to resist the temptation to speculate that he’s been walking too close to the Tea Party. Because to me, there’s nothing funny about snakes: Rep. Kirkman Finlay, R-Richland, has been bitten by a snake but is doing fine and is […]
TweetMy first reaction was this: More humiliation for SC, on NYT’s homepage… “Mark Sanford’s Path of Most Resistance,” via @nytimes http://t.co/S4JZeHUAnP — Brad Warthen (@BradWarthen) June 27, 2014 And indeed, much of the 5,000-word magazine-profile-style piece (it took me three separate chunks of time today to read it) was a painful rehashing of a story […]