Uh-oh — Sheheen has conceded Texas!

12 Replies

Over the weekend, I missed this ominous development (it went out on Saturday):

SHEHEEN CONCEDES TEXAS

Camden, SC–Today, Vincent Sheheen directed his campaign to withdraw all staff and resources from the state of Texas, effectively conceding the state to opponent Nikki Haley.  Haley continued her nationwide tour of ignoring South Carolina today by campaigning in Austin, Texas, where she is a featured speaker at a national Republican convention.

Sheheen for Governor Communications Director Kristin Cobb said, “Campaigning in Texas shows Nikki Haley’s primary concern is promoting herself and not solving South Carolina’s problems. Her mentor Mark Sanford’s flirtation with the national spotlight proved disastrous and South Carolina needs a change.”

“While Vincent Sheheen campaigns in the Pee Dee and the Midlands today, Nikki Haley is again ignoring South Carolina by campaigning in Texas as she runs for governor of the United States.”

For more information, visit:

http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/09/16/redstate-gathering-2010-3/

On the one hand, I worry about Vincent conceding these major battlegrounds. What’s next? Ohio? Pretty soon, only SC would still be in play, and then where would we be?

On the other, I have to applaud him for his masterful application of the “Hit ’em where they ain’t” strategy. And in Nikki Haley’s case, the place that she ain’t is here. Even when she’s here physically, her mind, her focus, and every word she says is all about other places. Her aim is not on being governor of SC. In her mind, she’s won that, left office and moved on…

Debates are more necessary than ever

42 Replies

In the print version, the headline on this story in The State was, “Have debates become unnecessary?” (Why it’s different in the online version I don’t know; it happens sometimes.)

The story is about the fact that, as things stand, there will only be two debates between Nikki Haley and Vincent Sheheen before the Nov. 2 vote.

I take keyboard in hand to answer the question:

No, they have not become “unnecessary.” In fact, in this election, it is more necessary than ever to have as many debates as possible. Having only two is unconscionable, tantamount to flipping a huge bird at the electorate.

One of two relatively little-known candidates will become our governor for four years. After having twice made the awful mistake of electing Mark Sanford — who as a congressman was much more widely known than either Haley or Sheheen before he ran — it is critically important that voters get as many unscripted opportunities as possible to hear them questioned, and compare them side by side.

This would not be for my benefit. I’m not the typical voter. I’ve known them both for years, well enough that there is not the slightest question in my mind: Vincent Sheheen would be a far better governor than Nikki Haley.

I believe firmly that if voters had the opportunity to observe and/or interact with them as much as I have, the majority of them would reach the same conclusion. Multiple, in-depth, face-to-face sessions with each voter is impractical. The best we can do would be to have multiple debates — 10 (the number that Sanford and Jim Hodges had) would not be too many. Far from it — 10 would merely be a good start. While Nikki, who is a very charming and presentable person on first acquaintance, will likely come through a couple of debates all right, each additional debate makes it more likely that voters will know her, and her opponent, a little better. And that would be a very good thing.

Nikki knows this. Hence the two debates.

Yes, I understand the conventional wisdom, and it’s correct as far as it goes. But the fact that she leads in the polls as her motivation for resisting more debates distracts us from a deeper, more strategic motive. You may have noticed that the more information that dribbles out about Nikki Haley, the more she is shown to be something other than what she lets on to be. That’s a far better reason for avoiding debates than her poll numbers.

But as I say, let’s not have more debates for me — or for Vincent, or for Nikki. Let’s have them because the people deserve more information about these young people than they currently have. And the more information they have, the more likely they are to make a decision that they will not regret later.

A little Roland to kick off your weekend…

2 Replies

Apropos of nothing, aside from wanting to leave you with something really choice going into the weekend, I share with you the above video that I ran across moments ago.

Well, actually, I sort of went looking for it when I saw on Facebook that my good friend Jeff Miller was going to hear somebody named Robbie Fulks tonight, and I wanted to make sure he didn’t forget what truly awesome music sounded like.

God rest Warren Zevon. And Roland too, of course…

Virtual Front Page, Friday, September 17, 2010

3 Replies

And another week draws to a close, with the following headlines on our screen:

  1. Couple Charged in Nuclear-Weapons Secrets Case (WSJ) — No, their name isn’t Rosenberg, and it’s not about Russia. It’s Venezuela this time.
  2. Religion ‘marginalised’ says Pope (BBC) — This of course is a local story for the BBC. Meanwhile, NPR reports, “Six Arrested In London Over Possible Threat To Pope.”
  3. Drill reaches trapped men in Chile mine (BBC) — But it will still take weeks before it can be widened enough to get them out.
  4. Dueling rallies at the Mall (WashPost) — Looks like Jon Stewart is planning to steal a march on the UnParty, inviting all reasonable, moderate people in the country to march on Washington. Last person I’d expect it from, but he makes it sound good. Gotta tell you, I’m tempted.
  5. Afghan Voters Head To Polls Amid Threats, Fraud (NPR) — The voting is on Saturday.
  6. Legislature vs. the governor – again (The State) — Yeah, I know this was in the paper this morning, but I didn’t read it until this afternoon, so it feels fresh. To me. “All the transparent people want to be invisible,” complains House Ways and Means chairman Dan Cooper, R-Anderson. Which sounds like it’s not just about the present governor, but about someone that serious Republicans don’t really want to become governor.

GOP (and Dems, don’t forget) hurtling toward madness

10 Replies

Back on a previous post, Bud writes:

… (S)omehow Brad manages time and time again to confuse the idiot GOP with political parties in general. It really is pretty disgusting to have the Dems, who are at least attempting to address the nation’s problems in a meaninful way, with the imbecils who continue to distort, lie and weasel their way to power.

And what do they use this power for? For the good of the American people? Hell no. The bastards are merely trying to rule in order to feather their own nests. The GOP is about wealth creation for the super rich. And it’s worked. The poor and middle class have gotten nowhere for 30 years while the elitists in the GOP fool and fear their way into making the gullible believe there is a boogeyman behind every rock. And, inexplicably, they fool some poor school bus driver into thinking it’s in his best interests to give a billionare’s son his parent’s fortune TAX FREE! Unbeleivable.

But until the press gets it and starts calling the GOP out for the liars and scoundrels that they are we will continue to read about GOP idiocy in the name of political party partisanship. It’s NOT political party partisanship, it’s GOP fear mongering.

Bud, um… I’m pretty sure, without actually setting out the mathematical proof, that the set “political parties in general” DOES include the Republican Party. I’m not confused on this point. In fact, pretty much anyone who compiled a credible list of “Political Parties in the U.S.” would almost certainly list the GOP among the first two. I’m very confident in this assessment.

That’s why it’s such a problem that the GOP seems to have lost its frickin’ mind since Nov. 2008. Sensible Republicans are sort of walking around in shock as the screaming meemies take over.

Any other election, and Sarah Palin would have been relegated to the ranks of “unpersons” on the day after the last election, her name never, ever to been mentioned by any Republican who ever wanted another Republican to speak to him again. Instead, she is THE most mentioned Republican nationally, and it is widely accepted — among Republicans, and others — that her endorsement can make or break candidates running in races that have nothing to do with her. Yes, I’m speaking of the woman who as governor of Alaska repeatedly embarrassed the GOP ticket by how little she had learned from the experiences in her life about world affairs, and who since then has only added to her resume by… well, resigning as governor of Alaska. This is now the party’s queenmaker.

Any other election, and every Republican who ran against Nikki Haley for governor would have meekly lined up behind her on the day after the primary in a show of solidarity, all acting as though she was the one they really wanted to unite behind in the fall all along. This election, the GOP gubernatorial field is nowhere to be seen, with the exception of Henry “Good Soldier” McMaster, who’s doing his best to back her in spite of the vacant, confused look on his face. (He just doesn’t know what hit him, and is sufficiently dazed that he thinks this election is like other elections, and is acting accordingly.)

You may notice that the two examples I just cited describe OPPOSITE phenomena: One describes how the GOP is gravitating TOWARD its loonier, least credible fringes, while the other indicates how they’re moving AWAY from candidates they don’t trust, candidates who are trying to ride the Tea Party’s unfocused resentments right past the GOP into office.

Well, that’s just how crazy things are in the GOP these days. They’re about to win big nationally in November, and yet they don’t know whether they’re coming or going. That is to say, the sensible Republicans, the traditional core of the party, doesn’t know what’s happening. The Jim DeMints of the party know exactly where they’re trying to take the nation, and they keep confidently explaining it to us, but unfortunately what they say makes little sense.

Now you, Bud, may take solace in thinking that there’s a place for sensible people to run to amid the madness — the Democratic Party. I know no such solace, because I know better.

As Bart pointed out this week:

POINT: According to a recent Newsweek poll, “Some people have alleged that Barack Obama sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world. From what you know about Obama, what is your opinion of these allegations?”……52% of Republicans polled think that statement is either “certainly true” or “probably true.”

COUNTERPOINT: According to a Rasmussen poll taken in May 2007, …”Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know, and 26% are not sure.”

In other words, BOTH parties are rapidly rushing toward their crazier extremes. People who identify themselves as “Democrats” or “Republicans” have surrendered their abilities to think to their respective sides to such an extent that they no longer stop to ask, “Does this make sense?” If someone who identifies himself as one of THEIRS says it, there must be something to it. And if someone on the other side denies it, well then it MUST be true.

And the members of BOTH factions are being pulled, with increasing acceleration, toward those loony poles as though they were in the grips of the gravitational fields of black holes at opposite ends of the universe. (Yes, I know the universe doesn’t have “ends,” but THEY obviously think it does. Besides, it’s a metaphor. Sheesh.)

The only hope for the country lies, of course, with the UnParty. But we already knew that, didn’t we?

Waiting for Nancy, and trembling in anticipation

24 Replies

The last couple of days, I’ve been getting a flurry of releases from SC Republicans that I haven’t stopped to read, because they all seem to be about Nancy Pelosi, which doesn’t interest me since my area of concern is South Carolina.

But the headline on this one was just SO over the top, so indicative of a party (the GOP) just quivering in anticipation at the advent of an individual. You’d think this was the second coming of Ronald Reagan, or some other partisan messiah.

Here’s a sample:

NEWS RELEASE

Victory launches daily reminder of why

Palmetto Values don’t fit with Pelosi Values

(Columbia, SC – September 17, 2010) When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s jet touches down in Charleston a week from Saturday, you probably won’t see any South Carolina Democrat candidates welcoming her. When America’s most wildly unpopular official comes calling, it’s good to have something else on your agenda that day, because a political embrace from Nancy Pelosi is like getting kissed by Typhoid Mary.

Pelosi puppet-in-waiting Rob Miller and fellow liberal Democrat John Spratt, who juggles the books for Pelosi as chairman of the House Budget Committee, would prefer it if Pelosi’s visit went unnoticed.

But they don’t need to worry about that. Starting today and continuing every day next week, SC Victory 2010 will countdown until Pelosi arrives with a daily reminder of why her views are at odds with the majority of folks here in South Carolina…

… and so forth and so on… But I’ll give you a hint: At no time are we told WHY the woman is coming here, or in what way it bears upon our lives. Maybe she’s coming to see Jim Leventis, the godfather of her daughter, or for some other personal reason. I don’t know, and I don’t care.

Hey, ya got me convinced: This Pelosi woman is not popular in SC.

Good thing she’s not running for anything here, huh?

Now, do you have anything to talk about that’s worthy of my attention? You know, something having to do with South Carolina… If you have something critical to say about these Democratic candidates in SC, something about THEM, please share it. Or — if you can manage it — something persuasively positive about your OWN candidates. But don’t bore me talking about somebody from frickin’ San Francisco. I don’t vote in San Francisco. I don’t intend EVER to vote in San Francisco. Believe it; I wouldn’t kid you about this.

Political parties are just so unbelievably insufferable. They just get worse and worse and worse. Just when you think they couldn’t possibly insult our intelligence any more, they go a little lower…

Virtual Front Page, Thursday, September 16, 2010

7 Replies

We’re back today, and here’s what we have (that was the editorial “we,” of course — or perhaps we should say the royal we, since we no longer represent a board when we say it):

  1. 1 in 7 Americans lives in poverty (WashPost) — The poverty rate hits the highest level in the half-century the gummint has kept such statistics. Yeah, tell me about it.
  2. Senate Passes Bill to Aid Small Businesses (NYT) — Tax breaks and loans, over GOP objections.
  3. U.S. cybersecurity plans lagging, critics say (WashPost) — “More than a year after President Obama made a White House speech proclaiming that the protection of computer networks was a national priority, the federal government is still grappling with key questions about how to secure its computer systems as well as private networks deemed critical to U.S. security.”
  4. Sarkozy attacks Roma row critics (BBC) — “Eef we weesh to bash ze zhipsees, we weel bash ze zhipsees,” said the diminutive French leader. Or something like that. I don’t talk Paris talk.
  5. McConnell defends photograph (The State) — Yeah, I know it was in the paper already, but this just isn’t getting old. A timeless South Carolina tale…
  6. X Prize Marks Fuel-Efficiency Spot For Future Cars (NPR) — Some cool cars. I don’t mean cool like Steve McQueen’s Mustang in “Bullitt,” or like Doc Brown’s DeLorean in “Back to the Future,” but cool nonetheless.

OK, that’s ONE I’ve seen. Any others out there?

14 Replies

Today I saw my first actual “Republicans for Sheheen” bumper sticker on an actual vehicle.

And this was on an SUV, so it was definitely a real Republican, right? (Just kidding, GOPpers — can’t you take a joke?)

I’ve heard, privately, from a lot of folks whom you might otherwise expect to vote Republican who are backing Sheheen — both because they like Vincent, and because Nikki worries them a great deal.

And anyone who pays close attention will note that Henry McMaster sort of stands out these days, because there aren’t many other leading Republicans going out of their way to be seen with Nikki. (What we have is lots of people who don’t really know Nikki backing her in polls, while state business and political leaders who’ve actually dealt with her and know a thing or two about the issues generally aren’t too thrilled with her.)

But aside from the Chamber of Commerce endorsement, you don’t see a lot of visible, public demonstrations of intent to vote for Sheheen from traditionally Republican quarters.

At least, I haven’t.

Alas, I didn’t get to talk to this person, to get an elaboration on why he or she is taking this stand. This was in the drive-through queue at McDonald’s today. A couple of times I almost jumped out of my truck to run up and hand the driver my card and urging him or her to call me, but each time I put my hand on the door handle the line moved forward again.

So then I decided I’d follow the vehicle when it left Mickey D’s, and if it stopped anywhere nearby, try to cop an interview there.

But then, it happened again. I ordered a double quarter-pounder, without cheese (you know, because of my allergies). When I paid for it, I checked with the lady taking the money: “Without cheese, right?” “No cheese,” she said. Then when my food was handed to me in the bag at the next window, I said, “No cheese, right?” She said that was right. So I pulled up a few feet, and opened it up to check, and sure enough, each patty had welded to it one of those things that looks like a square of orange, molten plastic.

So I got out, walked back, squeezing between the car behind me and the window, knocked on the window and said, “THIS is with cheese.”

And then I was asked to pull over to the side and wait for what I had ordered, and had been assured twice I would get.

This happens to me roughly a third of the times that I go to McDonald’s. But McDonald’s isn’t special; I have similar problems at sit-down restaurants. That’s why I always check. It beats finding out five miles away (which has happened). What really gets me, of course, is when this happens after I’ve been assured, repeatedly, that it won’t.

Anyway, that’s why I didn’t get an interview with the Republican for Sheheen.

Do you have one of these stickers on YOUR bumper, or know someone who does? If so, send me your contact info at [email protected]. I’d like to chat with you.

Candidates owe it to us to debate, early and often

9 Replies

But which one would Nikki be?

This release from the Sheheen campaign…

Why won’t Nikki Haley agree to debate Vincent Sheheen?

CAMDEN, SC — Seventeen days ago, Vincent Sheheen challenged Nikki Haley to five substantive debates on five important issues in five different South Carolina locations.  She did not respond.  Six days ago, the Sheheen campaign called Representative Haley’s campaign and left a message, requesting a return call.  No response.  Four days ago, the Sheheen campaign called Haley headquarters again but were told that the appropriate staff could not be reached.

In a letter sent to Representative Haley on August 30th, Sheheen stated, “I challenge you to debates on jobs and the economy in Greenville, education in Columbia, governmental reform and transparency in Charleston, comprehensive tax reform in Rock Hill and infrastructure and tourism in Myrtle Beach. I propose the debates follow the Lincoln Douglas format as prescribed by the National Forensic League, the oldest and largest interscholastic forensic organization in the United States.”

“Voters, with such an important choice at such a crucial time, want the chance to fully know the candidates for governor,” he concluded in the letter.

Sheheen Communications Director Kristin Cobb had this to say: “Why is Nikki Haley afraid to debate Vincent Sheheen?  She is hiding her record from a public debate like she hid her tax problems and her income.  Maybe she would return our calls if we offered to debate her in Iowa or Arizona.”

###

… raises a question that is extremely easy to answer:

If she doesn’t debate, we’ll know its because she believes she’s more likely to win without doing so.

But you know what? There’s no way South Carolinians should allow anyone to become our next governor without hearing the competitors in multiple debates. Debates would allow us to hear:

  • Who would be the more credible and effective leader in building our state’s economy.
  • Who can more persuasively make the case for genuine governmental reform, beyond the soundbites.
  • How Nikki, as the “Transparency” candidate,  justifies her repeated failures to transparent in even the most elementary ways.
  • Whether Vincent is really committed to being governor, or is just a nice guy with good qualifications who will agree to be governor if we really want him to.

And other burning questions.

We deserve this. While it was kinda geeky and wonky, we would be well-served if Nikki would go along with the Lincoln-Douglas idea. Or if she’s got a better idea for multiple debates, let’s hear it NOW, so that we can make sure these things happen.

We’ve bought enough pigs in pokes lately. Let us get a really good look at these two.

It’s “a great statement” all right, Senator

28 Replies

I found this photo on thestate.com, courtesy of Thomas C. Hanson. If either The State or Mr. Hanson has a problem with my running it, they should contact me at [email protected]. I just felt it was important to give y'all a chance to discuss it.

Glenn McConnell says the above photo is “a great statement as to how far this state has come.” It certainly is, Senator. It shows that in the past 147 years, South Carolina has advanced at least several days, perhaps even a week, past 1862. I look at this photo, and I know in my bones that in South Carolina, 1863 has finally arrived!

I’ll say one more thing. The issue to me isn’t whether re-enacting or “interpreting” history is a good or bad thing. The issue for me is how into this stuff the senator, who is arguably the most powerful politician in our state, is. He was really pumped, wasn’t he? He really does love dressing the part.

You may have other things to say.

Last chance to walk with Doug, Kathryn and me

8 Replies

Last week when I put out the call for a blog team for the Walk for Life, Doug Ross and Kathryn Fenner generously volunteered immediately.

I had intended to keep the momentum going with a reminder each day, but I’ve had very little time for blogging this past week.

And now I see that the deadline for signing up is TODAY. I don’t know whether that means this morning, or noon today or midnight. But if you’d like to join the team, go to this link NOW and see if it will still let you in.

Here’s hoping I’ll see you on Oct. 2…

Nikki vs. Vincent, by the ounce

24 Replies

As I occasionally have to clarify here, I’m about commentary, not reporting. You want reporting, go someplace else. I haven’t been a reporter in 30 years. You want an opinion writer who’s primarily a reporter, see Cindi Scoppe. She’s one of the best. (Her column today is a good example of that quality; I may post separately about that later.) Sure, I “cover” events from time to time, just so I can get my own first-hand impressions. But mainly what I do is make observations based upon the existing body of available information.

Now Corey Hutchins with The Free Times is a reporter. You’ll recall that he was the only media type to go out and track down Alvin Greene before the primary. Too bad more people didn’t read his report at the time.

Now, he has a facts-and-figures report comparing the legislative records of Nikki Haley and Vincent Sheheen. One way to characterize what he found is in this observation he posted on Facebook:

If one were to print out the list of legislative bills in the past five years primarily sponsored by the two lawmakers running for governor in S.C., Dem Sen. Sheheen’s would weigh 9.5 ounces and GOP Rep. Haley’s would clock in at 2.4 give or take a botched staple.

Of course, that doesn’t tell you much. Maybe Vincent is just wordy. You’ll get more to chew on reading his full report headlined, “Legislative Records: Sheheen More Active, Successful Than Haley,” with the subhed, “Since 2004, Sheheen Has Sponsored 96 Bills, Haley 13.”

An excerpt:

There are several ways to detail the disparity, but the easiest might be to look at the number of bills for which each candidate was listed as a primary sponsor and how far along each piece of legislation made it through the sausage maker.

Sheheen was elected to the state senate in 2004, the same year Haley was elected to the House. (Sheheen served in the House for four years before being elected to the Senate.) The difference in their legislative accomplishments since then is staggering.

According to state House and Senate records, during the 2005-2006 session, Sheheen sponsored 35 bills and was able to get eight of them passed. That same session, her first in office, Haley went zero for one.

The following session Sheheen went six for 30. Haley scored one out of seven.

During the latest legislative session that took place from 2009 to 2010, Gov. Mark Sanford signed two out of the 31 bills that Sheheen primarily sponsored. That year, the governor didn’t put pen to paper on any of the five bills backed by Haley.

Given these numbers, it would be hard to overstate the extent to which Sheheen — a Democrat in a Republican-dominated chamber —was able to navigate the legislative process in a more effective fashion than Haley. But from a philosophical standpoint — Haley being a candidate who wants government to do less — her rhetoric is at least somewhat consistent with her legislative record…

That’s a bit simplistic, a measure of Corey’s reportorial wish to be as fair to her as he can. What her record really underlines is the problem that I keep pointing to. In terms of accomplishing ANYTHING in dealing with the people who write the laws of the state (and in a Legislative State like ours, that thought could almost be framed as “accomplish anything, period”), Nikki Haley’s record indicates that, if anything, she’s been less successful even than Mark Sanford. Which is a very low standard indeed.

And remember, Sanford started out with a honeymoon, with a legislative leadership eager to work at long last with a governor of their own party. Those same leaders already know they don’t like Nikki.

Doug, of course, will turn that around into an attack on the legislative leaders themselves, which is satisfying to him but gets us nowhere. When you and I walk into the booth on Nov. 2, for the overwhelming majority of us, those leaders won’t be on the ballot (and the few of us who do live in their districts will find they don’t have viable opposition). What we get to pick is the governor. That’s how we get to affect the future course of our state.

Virtual Front Page, Tuesday, September 14, 2010

11 Replies

OK, really fast now:

  1. Gates Announces Pentagon Cost-Saving Guidelines (WSJ) — A fairly soft lede, but it’s what I have today.
  2. Freed US hiker Sarah Shourd flies out of Iran (BBC) — So now that she’s out, what do ya think? Spy, or not?
  3. French Senate Approves Ban on Burqas (WSJ) — First, the cheese-eating fashion monkeys came for the women in the burqas. And I didn’t care because I wasn’t a woman and didn’t wear a burqa, or want to. Then they came for the guys in the bow ties, and I said WAIT A FRICKIN’ MINUTE! Looks like we all need to double-check our wardrobes before going to Paris.
  4. EU may take legal action against France over Roma (BBC) — Meanwhile, the EU sticks up for the pikeys. (Is it OK to say “pikeys?”)
  5. Ethics panel reprimands Knotts, orders contributions be repaid (thestate.com) — No, not about the “raghead” thing. About campaign finance. He’ll be out $24,000 — which, while I don’t have time to look it up right now, I think is even more than Nikki Haley has paid in penalties for back taxes.
  6. States Struggle To Share Cost Of High-Speed Rail (NPR) — This makes my front because I dig rail. Especially light rail. But high-speed is cool. Although the train in that picture is a little weird. Whaddya call that, Ah-nold?

Yeah, OK, I’ll help spread the truth

14 Replies

Just got this from the Sheheen campaign under the headline, “Help Vincent Fight Back with the Truth:”

Dear Brad –

This week, the race for governor changed. Vincent Sheheen’s second week of television ads have introduced him to a statewide audience and voters are impressed.  We learned that Nikki Haley, who claims her skills as an accountant qualify her to be governor, had even more problems paying her taxes, this time for her business.  The onslaught of bad news has the Haley campaign on the defensive.

Having already misled the public on her record, her positions and her business acumen, Nikki Haley has now resorted to false attacks on Vincent Sheheen rather than answering tough questions about her positions and her business problems.

In the last week, she falsely accused Vincent of wanting to raise taxes to solve the budget crisis but she is the only candidate who wants higher taxes; Haley wants to raise our grocery tax.

She claimed: “Vince Sheheen will kill our state’s competitiveness” but the Sanford-Haley philosophy of the last eight years has already left our job recruitment efforts in dismal shape and more of the same won’t improve them.

She even blamed Vincent for the fiscal problems of Washington DC and border security in Arizona.  Vincent responded that maybe Nikki Haley was running for governor of the United States that the last thing we needed was another governor focused on national office and not our state.

Then she called him “slippery.”  Her tactics are desperate and an embarrassment.  We need your help to fight back with the truth.  Donate today so South Carolina can elect a governor we can trust.

Thanks,

Trav

Trav Robertson
Campaign Manager
Sheheen for Governor

OK, all that is true.

But here’s some more truth: Nikki’s not on the ropes. She’s not on the defensive, even thought she should be, since every supposed strength she’s touted (transparency, business acumen) has turned out to be a weakness. She’s on a roll.

Today, I heard two different accounts of the appearance of the two candidates before the Palmetto Business Forum yesterday. Both said Vincent was fine and said the right things, but was low key and seemed to lack the fire in the belly.

Nikki, they said, was ON. She was in the zone. She had obviously been superbly prepared by her handlers, and recited everything perfectly. My witnesses knew, as I know, that Nikki’s understanding of issues is at best skin deep, generally not going beyond a bumper-sticker message. But she delivers the bumper sticker well.

This is a continuation of what I saw at the Sarah Palin event a couple of months back. I saw something that is unmistakable to me after my decades of observing politics and politicians closely: A candidate who was peaking, who was confident, poised, energetic and on message. She was ladling out stuff that that Tea Party crowd was lapping up, and she’s still doing it. Knowing that the business community doesn’t trust her, she has worked hard at learning key things to say to win them over. And that, according to my witnesses, was what was on display last night.

It is extremely important to South Carolina that Vincent Sheheen win this election. He is THE reform candidate, and the governor our state needs. But unless something happens to change the game, he’s not going to. Win, that is. And the business community, and the rest of us, are going to suffer another four years of a governor who fundamentally does not understand or appreciate economic development, and can’t work with key players to help move our state forward.

And we can’t afford that. But right now, that’s where we’re headed.

Twitter has broken my thumbs (I think)

16 Replies

I shoulda broke YOUR thumbs!

— Rocky Balboa

… and I didn’t even owe it money.

The really weird thing about this is the way I can pinpoint it in time.

When I went to bed on the night of Aug. 16, I was fine. No pain; everything functioning normally. No foreshadowing at all. Then, sometime during the night, I woke up, and as I got up out of the bed to head for the bathroom, I said “Ow.” Both joints in both thumbs hurt like crazy, and doing the most normal things — such as pushing myself up out of the bed, or even something as nonstrenuous as pinching the bridge of my nose with thumb and forefinger to rub the sleep out — caused the thumb involved to pop out of joint, quite painfully. And popping it back in was no picnic, either.

And even when I wasn’t trying to use them, the joints were painfully tender to the slightest touch. And if I did try to use them — which is pretty unavoidable; our species has pretty much built its daily activities around having opposable thumbs — to use them normally required forcing the joints past points at which they want to stop, and that forcing leads to a pop (which I think is actual dislocation), and pain. Both in the ball of the hand, and the other joint closer to the end of the digit.

I had always been double-jointed to the point that my thumbs naturally bent back, on their own, 90 degrees. No more. Now, once they hit the point where they are straight, they stop, and the slightest backward pressure on them hurts.

And it’s been like this ever since that day. This is really having an impact on my life.

There was no trauma that I can recall.

I don’t think I’ve contracted any bizarre illness that attacks the joints — at least, there are no other symptoms. All the other joints are fine — except for my knee that acts up sometimes, but that long predated this.

I haven’t taken in any exotic toxins that I know of. I remember reading once of an incident involving Allied prisoners in a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines. Once they were fed a dinner of rancid fish heads, and moments after the meal, suddenly all the prisoners’ heads flopped over because they had completely lost the use of their neck muscles. After a few hours, the effect wore off. Then the next night, more fish heads, and the men’s heads flopped over again. This really freaked out the guards.

But I hadn’t eaten any rancid fish heads.

At first, I thought it was the constant typing on the laptop, and I didn’t know what I was going to do about that — both for ADCO and the blog, it’s pretty unavoidable.

Then, I finally realized: It was the Blackberry. It was the fact that I increasingly answer e-mails on it, and work with photos on it, and send text messages, approve blog comments, and… constantly, constantly, keep up with Twitter. I Tweet, I reTweet, I click on links to see what they’re about. I do it anytime I’m sitting still and not actually writing or talking or driving. Sit me down and shut me up, and I dive into Twitter.

It’s called “Blackberry Thumb.” Some of my iPhone-loving friends have told me that it’s because I use the wrong device, but they think the iPhone is the cure to every ill known to Man.

So I’m thinking that’s it. But I’ve tried cutting back, to no avail. As for cold turkey — I’m not even sure it’s possible to do that and keep up with ADCO and family responsibilities. Sure, I can avoid Googling everything in the world that I’m curious about in the course of a day, and confine Twitter activity to the laptop. But there’s a limit. There’s a good reason I pay for this data service every month.

Since I live in the good ol’ USA, it would be prohibitively expensive with my current insurance to go on a quest through various specialists in search of a cure, so I’d really like to figure this out and cure it myself. I’ve acquired a couple of braces for immobilizing my thumbs to sleep in at least, and that keeps them from waking me up from the pain of normal movements during the night — but causes them to be even stiffer in the morning.

The biggest mystery, to me, and the one thing that makes me doubt the Twitter diagnosis? That it came on, full-blown, so suddenly. Seems to me that a repetitive-motion thing would be more gradual than that. But maybe not. My goal is just to make it go away just as suddenly, and for good…

Virtual Front Page, Monday, September 13, 2010

6 Replies

Another weekend passes, and here we are again — still waiting for local news to get over the summer doldrums. National news, too, for that matter:

  1. GOP vows to fight to keep Bush-era tax cuts (WashPost) — Well, you know things are really, REALLY slow when I lead with people TALKING about taxes on my front. Not even anything happening, which pretty much breaks the rules of what makes a lede. Bores the stuff outta me, I’m here to tell ya. (Seriously. Just do what you’re gonna do, and tell me how much I owe after I get my W2. I’ll pay whatever it is, just to get you to do away. I mean, I know you’re not going to do anything responsible. You’re going to raise less than you spend, no matter which party you’re in. Stop trying to waste my time with this, acting like all your tears and flapdoodle make a difference.) But it’s all the major papers are talking about, and I’m not seeing anything harder on the horizon.
  2. Cuba to cut one million public sector jobs (BBC) — Whoa. When the Revolution starts privatizing as a growth strategy, it makes you think, don’t it? ¿Qué pasa, Fidel?
  3. Aflac Growing in Columbia (CRBR) — Mike Fitts reports, “Aflac announced this morning that it will base its group insurance efforts in Columbia. That includes one floor, to start with, in space formerly used by AT&T at Huger and Laurel streets. About 120 employees will move to the 27,000-square-foot space in January, and the company expects to double its employees in the next three to five years as the company grows.”
  4. N.Y. imam: ‘Every option’ open (WashPost) — Including relocation, as it happens…
  5. Giant Sharks Swim Onto Species Watch List (NPR) — This is how slow things are. Man, I never even flippin’ heard of a “basking shark” before I read this. Big as a school bus?  Huh. I’ll say this for them: They are ugly scudders.
  6. Gamecocks meeting Obama today (thestate.com) — They had to put on their formal unis — ties and everything.

War and Peace in the hymnal on Sunday

20 Replies

Remembering “War is Hell” Sherman reminded me of our processional hymn at Mass yesterday. For the first time since I was a kid, I think, I found myself singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

It sort of snuck up on me. I had been scheduled as “alternate reader” — in English this time, so I hadn’t studied in advance (I always have to practice, to warm up the right muscles, before reading in Spanish) — but when I arrived, all the slots were filled on the sign-up sheet, so I went to take a seat with my wife for a change. Then, just as the processional hymn was starting up, Judy leaned in to our pew to hurriedly whisper that I was needed, after all. Apparently, someone had messed up and signed in on the wrong spaces at a previous mass.

So I moved quickly to line up for the procession, Debra handed me a hymnal/lectionary, I asked “Which reading?,” was told it was the first (Good! I love doing the first; not so much the second), and was flipping through the book to check it out when I was asked if I could “double up” and serve as a Eucharistic minister, too, and I said sure, just as we stepped off to start the procession.

So it was not until then, as the congregation was starting the second verse, that I realized we were singing “The Battle Hymn.” Not knowing that verse, I wisely suppressed the urge to sing the first lyrics that came to mind:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
We have tortured all the teachers; we have broken ev’ry rule…
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
I hit her in the bean with a rotten tangerine…

Finding the right page, I then sang with the others as we walked up the aisle:

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.

And the thought occurred to me, This is what it feels like to be a Yankee, self-righteously celebrating victory over us Southerners… (And no, we didn’t sing it in a medley with “Dixie,” Elvis-style.)

You may have noticed, church gives me a lot to think about on Sundays, but it’s not always what I should be thinking about. But I try.

I focused a little better when I went to the pulpit to do the first reading, which began:

The LORD said to Moses,
“Go down at once to your people,
whom you brought out of the land of Egypt,
for they have become depraved.
They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them,
making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it,
sacrificing to it and crying out,
‘This is your God, O Israel,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt!’
“I see how stiff-necked this people is, ” continued the LORD to Moses.
Let me alone, then,
that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them.
Then I will make of you a great nation.”…

You see why I like the first reading? Unlike all that theological abstraction you get with Paul’s letters (which is what you get on the second reading most of the year), there’s drama in the Old Testament. The readings we use from it are never boring or tedious. Lots of Sturm und Drang. You can really get into it reading it aloud. I especially like the flair in “Let me alone, then, that my wrath may blaze up against them,” like the Lord’s just beside himself, indulging in such a Shakespearean rhetorical flourish (as in, “Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, And I must pause till it come back to me.“)

I found myself thinking how like a divine editorial writer the Lord sounded there. I could imagine him haranguing SC voters for being a depraved, stiff-necked people for electing Mark Sanford twice, or nominating Alvin Greene. As I walked back to my pew, I started imagining how I could rewrite that as a political satire on the blog, but decided that would be just a little too sacrilegious.

So did I ever set aside idle digression and get into a proper, worshipful state of mind during that hour?

Actually, I did. I found myself blessed by one of those rare moments of transcendence that you always hope for, whatever church or other house of worship you attend.

I don’t know if it was the way our music director had arranged it, or the voices of the choir (only about five people at that Mass) lifting above the congregation’s, or the brilliance of Jean Sibelius, or the coffee I had for breakfast kicking in. But as we sang it yesterday, Finlandia sounded like the most beautiful hymn I had ever heard. It may sound trite, like something an envious Salieri would say about Mozart’s work, but it was as though the voice of God himself were leading us.

And as we sang, I realized the lyrics were every bit as strikingly beautiful as the music. Particularly the second verse, which was the most poetic evocation of the universal longing for peace that I have ever heard:

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
and sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
and skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
This is my song, oh God of all the nations;
a song of peace for their land and for mine.

Best line of all: But other lands have sunlight too and clover…

After Mass, I said something about it, and my wife said the same. Of course, she’s not a war-monger like me — quite the opposite, in fact. So it’s not as surprising that she liked it. But it’s a testament to the beauty of the moment that I did, too. Very much.

The original Finnish lyrics, by the way, are more run-of-the-mill nationalistic stuff. Whoever wrote the English version above (and there are many songs sung to this tune), was, I believe, divinely inspired.

And people say such awful things about him…

3 Replies

Bet you didn’t know that when he was passing through here (or perhaps sometime thereafter), W. Tecumseh bought a brick for Riverbanks Zoo.

Neither did I. I learned this quite inadvertently over the weekend during an outing with the twins. We happened to be closer to the bridge than to the tram station when we decided to head back to the car on the garden side of the river, so we walked, and discovered the above.

And to think, people say such awful things about ol’ War Is Hell. So he burned Columbia? A lot of those blocks were already messed up, as Chris Tucker, who apparently did NOT set the city on fire when he was here, might say…

Virtual Front Page, Friday, September 10, 2010

10 Replies

As the week draws to a close, here are our top stories:

  1. Obama Urges Israel to Extend Settlement Moratorium (NYT) — But will Israel listen? Within this context, I hope so.
  2. Obama awards living soldier the Medal of Honor (WashPost) — The U.S. casualties from a 2007 Taliban ambush would have been greater had not paratrooper Spec. Salvatore Giunta gotten up after being hit and plunged straight into the enemy fire to save three wounded comrades.
  3. California Gas Blast ‘Looked Like Hell On Earth’ (NPR) — This makes Hyundai’s unveiling of a new electric car all that more exciting. The whole fossil-fuel-extraction thing is looking more iffy by the day.
  4. SC nuclear plant shut down by turbine problem (thestate.com) — Looks like we need to build some new nuclear power plants; the old ones seem to be wearing out. We’ll need the new ones to power our electric cars.
  5. Iran ‘delays release of US hiker Sarah Shourd’ (BBC) — Notice how the BBC attributes, or puts in quotes, every assertion in their headlines? They don’t trust anybody, do they? They’re the embodiment of the journalistic proverb, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”
  6. County management of city police constitutional: McMaster (thestate.com) — Well, that’s one potential objection out of the way. Any others?