Brad Warthen's Blog

Sheriff Lott back in the day

This previous post got me to thinking that some of you might be interested in traveling down memory lane a bit with regard to Sheriff Leon Lott, since he's recently become nationally famous.

As y'all know, I feel a certain kinship for the sheriff (whom we endorsed in the last election). We call each other "twin" because we were both born on the same day in the same year in South Carolina. Also, he has been named "Toughest Cop" twice, and if there were such a thing as a "Toughest Editorial Geek" contest, y'all know I would have won it at least twice by now. (He's also won the Miss Vista Queen drag pageant, but there I can draw no parallels to myself. It seems we are not identical twins.)

As for the controversy in which he is currently engaged, I'm not as stirred up as a lot of folks one way or the other. I sort of go back and forth on it. I think the law should be enforced equitably -- but I also wonder how many people who were not white and famous have been prosecuted when they weren't at the very least caught holding. I most emphatically do NOT agree with the folks who see this as evidence that the War on Drugs is stupid or useless or whatever. I think it's a good thing this stuff is illegal. But I also doubt that this particular case is really worth the resources devoted to it thus far.

Anyway, wherever you stand on all of this, I thought I'd provide this reminder that Leon has never been shy about going after people who break our drug laws. He's devoted a career to it, done it with a great deal of dash, panache and personal courage, and has often been controversial.

Here is a profile Clif LeBlanc wrote for The State when Leon was on the way to unseating his ex-boss as sheriff. I pulled and scanned some photos from our pre-electronic files by way of illustration.

THE STATE
LEON LOTT: UP FROM 'MIAMI VICE'
Published on: 10/30/1996
Section: FRONT
Edition: FINAL
Page: A1
By CLIF LeBLANC, Staff Writer
Illustration: PHOTO: color & bw

Editor's note: This is the second of two articles examining the candidates for Richland County sheriff.

Leon Lott lives to catch the bad guys. He revels in the nitty-gritty and the glitz of being a cop. He may like it a little too much.

The 43-year-old Democratic challenger in Tuesday's election for Richland County sheriff believes in working hard and getting his hands dirty.

The way he went about busting pushers and users earned him a reputation and awards. But his boss, the incumbent sheriff, said it cost Lott the job he loves.

The long hours he put in as a narcotics detective for nine years also claimed his marriage and hurt his relationships with his daughters.

Nearly four years after reaching the depths of his personal and professional life, Lott feels he is a better officer who has grown enough to become the forward-looking "sheriff for the 21st century."

Dirty Harry and Sonny Crockett were personas Lott once wore with relish during high-flying days when he drove seized Porsches, sported an 18-carat Rolex, worked choice undercover cases with federal agents in Florida and postured for cameras.

Now he blames the Hollywood image on the media, though his best friend admits Lott enjoyed playing the role to his advantage. Lott still wears the $2,650 watch.

Citizens or celluloid? Lott has been chief of the tiny St. Matthews Police Department for three years. That has helped him appreciate real-life role models.

"I see myself as a combination of Frank Powell, Chief Austin as far as PR, and Sheriff Wells as far as being involved in investigations."

Powell is the former five-term sheriff of Richland County who hired Lott in 1973 and has come to epitomize, for Lott, the lawman unswayed by political influence.

Chief Charles P. Austin is known for his ability to sell the community policing philosophy that has brought him and the city of Columbia success.

Union County Sheriff Howard Wells won national recognition for his handling of the Susan Smith case.

But Lott's critics don't buy that he is anything but the hot-dog narc who fashioned himself after make-believe cops and tried to live by rules that work only on the screen.

"He actually thinks he's Don Johnson. He actually thinks this is 'Miami Vice,' " said GOP opponent Allen Sloan, refering to the freewheeling fictional narcotics officer from the TV police drama that ended in 1989.

"That still exists today," Sloan said of Lott. "All the rules apply, except to Leon."

Two law enforcement officials who worked years with Lott in Richland County share a similar concern.

"He has an ends-justify-the-means mentality," one said, requesting anonymity because he would have to collaborate with Lott if he wins the election. "That's frightening in any law enforcement officer and especially in the top person."

Lott says he is a college-educated professional who can breathe new life into a tradition-bound agency.

"I never considered myself a hot dog," Lott said, wearing a tie and chatting from an easy chair in his modest living room. "The Sonny Crockett thing ... I think I fed off what the news media created. I turned it around and tried to use it to our advantage."

Lott's best friend, Jon Fins, said the brash label comes from people who don't know him.

"To me, Leon is a guy in sweats who works out real hard to stay in shape, grabs a sandwich at McDonald's and goes right back to work," said Fins, co-owner of an Assembly Street pawn shop where Lott bought his Rolex.

Fierce or fair? Lott's detractors say his zeal often overrides good judgment.

Just before Christmas 1987, for example, his aggresiveness got the best of him, said Jim Anders, then-5th Circuit solicitor and now a strong supporter of Sloan.

Anders produced a blistering order from a federal judge over the seizure of a new, black BMW convertible during a drug bust.

Judge Clyde Hamilton ordered the car returned to its owner and blasted the U.S. Attorney's office, the FBI and then-Capt. Lott of the sheriff's office. The judge cited "many irregularities" and "questionable motivations" for taking the BMW.

"Captain Lott's testimony raised the possibility that he had sought forfeiture ... for an improper purpose, specifically to serve as his private vehicle," the judge's ruling said. It appeared, Hamilton said, that Lott wanted to drive the care to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va.

Lott was scheduled to leave for coveted training at the prestigious academy in about the time the BMW was seized.

The car had only the remains of a marijuana joint, Anders said, adding he refused to seize the car because state law required a minimum of 10 pounds of pot before government could move to confiscate a vehicle used in the drug business.

"That's the kind of reckless behavior that I'm concerned about," Anders said. "It's less character than ability. A smart police officer doesn't get himself involved in cases like that."

Lott's explanation? "That's not pointing any finger at me. It's pointing fingers at the Richland County Sheriff's Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Attorney's office. They made the decisions to move forward. I didn't force them to do that."

But Lott initiated the seizure and pressured the young woman who owned the car to voluntarily turn it over for forfeiture.

Caught in middle? Lott's most publicized criticism as a narcotics agent occurred in 1991. A circuit court judge threatened him with contempt for changing agreements with drug suspects, for ignoring a court order to arrest a father- and-son drug-dealing team from Miami and especially for not adequately supervising drug peddlers who were out on bond so they could help police make cases.

Enrique and Fabian Valencia were busted at Owens Field in February 1990 with 11 pounds of cocaine. In exchange for reduced sentences laid out in written agreements, they pledged to help Lott lure bigger dealers into South Carolina.

Judge Carol Connor stung Lott for his actions, but didn't punish the pushers because they met their terms.

Anders said he doesn't remember the agreement and Sloan publicly backed Lott when the deal made news in March 1991.

Lott produced his records of the case, which show that Anders' chief narcotics prosecutor signed the agreement. A Feb. 19, 1991, memo from Lott to then-5th Circuit Solicitor Dick Harpootlian, who disavowed the deal after suceeding Anders, indicates that Sloan "had been advised of the situation."

Lott maintains he was caught in the middle between officials who made an agreement in writing and a new prosecutor and judge who took a different view after the fact.

"If I did violate it," Lott said of Connor's order. "It was with the approval of the sheriff."

Harpootlian was so concerned about Lott's judgment at the time that he announced he would review all his drug deals and recommended to Sloan that Lott be taken out of narcotics enforcement.

Sloan moved him to what Lott calls a do-nothing administrative position, where he stayed until he was fired in December 1992.

The demotion and dismissal was the bleakest time in Lott's life. His marriage fell apart during that time and he had to try to explain to his three daughters why he was out of the profession he loved.

It took Lott six months to land the chief's job with the seven-member St. Matthews department.

Harpootlian and Lott have made peace and the prosecutor-turned-defense-lawyer is backing Lott's campaign.

"I think Leon had a life-changing experience," Harpootlian said. "He lost his wife. He lost his job. He's somebody who realizes he's screwed up. He's matured. The guy's real talented. He gets up every morning wanting to be a cop."

Lott doesn't agree with all of that. "I don't think I made immature or bad decisions," he said.

But asked if he would OK the BMW and Valencia decisions if he were sheriff, Lott responded, "I would approve."

Lott conceded that he has changed and plans to continue his professional growth. "I guess age matures you. I feel like I'm a more rounded law enforcement officer now."

But controversy has followed Lott to St. Matthews.

Before the June primary, Lott ran afoul of the federal Hatch Act, which limits political activity by employees whose agencies get money from Washington. Federal officials said Lott should not run for office because as chief of the Calhoun County town he administered nearly $59,000 in federal grants.

The dispute was settled this month after Lott agreed to drop the title of chief and sever any ties to supervision of the grants. But Lott remains chief in every other way after the town named him police "administrator."

Lott has built his campaign on the theme of higher standards. He said he will be fairer, he has the energy to be an administrator as well as a street cop, and he has fresher ideas.

He promises a network of 24-hour, full-service substations, a lower crime rate and all without a tax increase

The making of a cop. Lott fell into a career in law enforcement. More accurately, he threw himself into the job.

It was a boring summer evening just before his senior year at Aiken High School. Lott and some friends decided to egg cars from an overpass on I-20, which was under construction.

"I think the first car we egged stopped. We had egged the chief investigator for the sheriff's department," Lott recalled. "Me, being a (baseball) player ... I had been the only one to hit the car."

The teen-agers tried to get away, but the detective pulled them over. He didn't rough them up or charge them, but he did behave professionally as he called their parents.

"It made such an impression on me ... it just grabbed a hold of me," Lott said. The job appealed to his sense of rooting for the underdog (crime victims), to his interest in untangling things that are puzzling and to his restlessness with monotony.

The work also served as an outlet for his competitiveness.

Lott is media savvy and at ease before cameras, having appeared dozens of times in local newspapers and TV as well as nationally on "America's Most Wanted." But that self-assured image clashes with the quiet, reserved teen-ager Lott said he was.

He finds it odd that he's called a hot dog now when that was the kind of athlete he disliked in high school. "I thought actions spoke louder than words," Lott said.

The words have been loud and harsh in the Sloan-Lott race.

"There's been a lot of talk that this is about revenge," Lott said. "It's not. When he fired me ... he gave me a chance to go out and show - prove to myself - that I could be more than just a narcotics officer. I got my revenge by being successful, by showing I could be a chief.

"I want to come back to Richland County, personally, so I can see my kids everyday and, professionally, because I can do a better job."

In case you're wondering, here's a key to the five photos on this post:

1. Top: The original cutline from August 1986 said, "Columbia's version of 'Miami Vice'...Narcotic investigator Lt. Leon Lott shows off his sports car, a Porsche 944"
2. Mug shot: The notation on the back of the print, dated May 24, 1984, says "Richland Sheriff's investigator Lt. Leon Lott (chief narcotics deputy)"
3. On a bust: The July 2, 1986, cutline said, "Leon Lott before entering trailer of suspected grower."
4. In coat and tie: Dated Nov. 11, 1988, the cutline says "Capt. Leon Lott displays some seized equipment."
5. Below: Photo taken by me during the sheriff's endorsement interview in May 2008.

In praise of good ideas, starting with school district consolidation

You know, I sort of damned the good news about the growing DHEC consensus with unfairly faint praise earlier today. (Or darned it, at the very least.)

I need to start looking more at the bright side. I don't spend enough time looking at things that way these days. We're all so overwhelmed by the economic situation -- and if you are in the newspaper business, you are steeped in it (nothing is more sensitive to a slowing economy than an already-troubled industry that is built on advertising revenues). It's very easy to dwell on such facts as this one that has stuck in my head since last week: That not only did the U.S. economy lose 2.5 million jobs in 2008, the worst since 1945, but 524,000 of those jobs lost were in December alone. To do the math for you, if the whole year had been as bad as the last month, the total would have been over 6.29 million. And there's no particular reason to think January won't be worse than December.

I'm not a big Paul Krugman fan, but stats like that make me worry that he was right in his column, which we ran on Sunday, saying that the Barack Obama stimulus plan, overwhelming huge as it is, won't be nearly big enough.

And these are not cheery thoughts. Nor is it cheery to reflect, as I did in my Sunday column, about how resistant policy makers in South Carolina are to policies that make sense -- even the more obvious policies, such as increasing the cigarette tax to the national average, or restructuring government to increase accountability, or comprehensive tax reform.

That's what we do in this business. We harp. Year in, year out. We can be tiresome. We can, as I suggested Sunday, get tired of it ourselves. But little victories such as this emerging consensus on DHEC, or the signs that we saw last year that even some of the stauncher opponents of restructuring in the Black Caucus are coming around on the issue (which is a real sea change) are worth celebrating, and encouraging -- like putting extra oxygen on an ember.

So it is that I applaud Cindi today for, instead of doing her usual thing of mocking the stupider ideas among the prefiled bills, giving a boost to the better ideas. There were some good ones on her list.

In fact, I was inspired to do a little followup on one of them:

H.3102 by Reps. Ted Pitts and Joan Brady would shut off state funds to school districts with fewer than 10,000 students, in an attempt to make inefficient little districts merge.

Now that's the beginning of a good idea. Like most obviously good ideas, it isn't new. We've been pushing for school district consolidation as long as we've been pushing restructuring and comprehensive tax reform, etc., and with even less success. Everybody says they're for it in the abstract; no one lifts a finger to make it happen. Even Mark Sanford gives lip service to it (but won't work to make it happen, preferring to waste his energy on ideological dead-ends such as vouchers).

So it's encouraging that Ted Pitts and Joan Brady (and Bill Wylie and Dan Hamilton) want to at least set a starting place -- a numerical threshold, a line that the state can draw and say, "We won't waste precious resources paying to run districts smaller than this."

Mind you, I'm not sure it's the RIGHT threshold. I've always thought that the most logical goal should get us down from the 85 districts we have now to about one per county -- which would be 46. The 10,000 student threshold overshoots that goal, as I discovered today. I asked Jim Foster over at the state department of ed to give me a list of the sizes of districts. The latest list that he had handy that had districts ranked was this spreadsheet (see the "TABLE 1-N" tab), which showed that as of 2006, only 18 districts in the state had more than 10,000 pupils. One of those -- Kershaw County -- has since risen over the magic mark, so that makes it 19.

Maybe we should have only 19 districts in the state, although I worry that a district that had to aggregate multiple counties to be big enough might be a little unwieldy.

But hey, it's a starting point for discussion on an actual reform that would help us eliminate ACTUAL waste in our education system, and provide more professional direction to some of our most troubled schools (which tend to be in those rural districts that just aren't big enough to BE districts to start with).

So way to go, Ted and Joan (and Bill and Dan).

I was particularly struck that Ted was willing to put forth an idea that would have an impact in his own county (although perhaps not, I suspected, in his actual district). That's the standard reason why district consolidation gets nowhere -- lawmakers balk at messing with their home folks districts, because voters tend to be about this the way they are about other things; a reform is great until if affects them.

I suspected, and Jim's spreadsheet confirmed, that while Lexington 1 and District 5 were big enough to retain state funding under this proposal, Lexington 3 and 4 were not. More than that, Lexington 2 falls below the threshold, and at least part of Ted's district is in Lexington 2. (Unless I'm very mistaken. Ted is MY House member, and my children all attended Lexington 2 schools.) As for Joan Brady -- I think her district would be unaffected, as Richland 1 and 2 would be untouched (even though they shouldn't be -- they should be merged). But I still applaud her involvement.

Anyway, way to get the ball rolling on this, folks. Let's keep talking about this one.

Nikki vs. the Speaker

One day last week (I'm thinking it was Monday the 10th), Nikki Haley called to say she wanted urgently to talk with me. She came by later that same day. With her approval (she had initially asked just to speak with me), Cindi Scoppe sat in with us. (I TRY not to meet with sources alone, on account of the fact that it's pretty much a waste of time if someone OTHER than me needs to write about the subject, which is usually the case. Also, in case the meeting leads to an editorial, it helps if more than one board member hears the pitch.)

She didn't want us to take notes, though, so what I'm writing here is from memory. At the end of our meeting, she agreed to go on the record -- which meant that, since Cindi and I had to get back to work that day, Cindi had call her back another day and go through the whole thing AGAIN in order to write her column today, which  I hope you read. Antsy sources can be a problem that way.

Cindi's column deals with the main conflict between Rep. Haley and her leadership in the House. This post is to provide some additional context from what she said -- according to my memory (Cindi and Rep. Haley are welcome to berate me for any errors, which I will be happy to correct). Mind you, since I'm writing neither a column nor (perish the thought) a news story, I'm NOT spending a week running down reactions from other parties the way Cindi had to do to write her column. If anyone, including Speaker Harrell or Harry Cato, would like to ADD their comments to this post, they're more than welcome. I'm just trying to offer as faithful an account of what Rep. Haley said as I can, before I forget it entirely.

When she first called to request the meeting, she didn't tell me what it was about, but referred to what had happened when she ran against incumbent Larry Koon back in 2004. She mentioned that again when she arrived. In retrospect, I see only two things the previous incident had in common with this: Both were instances in which Ms. Haley felt embattled, and in both cases she was initially reluctant to go on the record. There was a third potential commonality: I DID write about what happened in 2004, and she seemed to hope I would see my way clear to do so this time. For what it's worth, here's a copy of what I wrote in 2004.

Anyway, last week Nikki began her tale by harking back to her chairmanship of the subcommittee that tried to pass a payday lending reform bill. What she tried to do did not go far enough in the opinion of this editorial board -- she wanted regulation, not a ban. She can present all sorts of pro-biz reasons WHY regulation is better, and did so at the end of this video I posted here back during the recent election. Probably the most pertinent part is the very end of the video, when she says she had really, really wanted to pass a bill, and so had others on the subcommittee who had worked hard on it -- but that was not allowed to happen. That struck me as interesting at the time, but she added to the story last week. She said the bill died after she was called in to meet with the speaker and Chairman Harry Cato and another member of the leadership (I want to say Jim Merrill, but I could be misremembering), and she was told that's not what they wanted.

But that anecdote was sort of a warmup. She says that's not why she's at odds with the leadership now. She says the current conflict is all about her having become a champion, over the summer, of the notion that all House votes should be recorded. That led to various machinations aimed at denying her the chairmanship of the LCI committee, culminating in the speaker wanting to change the rules so that HE appoints committee chairs directly. Currently, the speaker appoints members to the committees, and the members choose their chair.

Speaker Harrell, as you'll see in Cindi's column, disputes Rep. Haley's version of events, and says she's making herself out to be more important in all this than she is. But they agree about one thing: The House leadership didn't like it a bit when she went gallivanting about the state with the governor promoting her recorded-votes bill. Note that he says he's for more recorded votes and all that (you may recall his recent op-ed on the subject). He prefers to portray Ms. Haley's main sins as being a) working with the governor, and b) setting herself up as holier-than-thou.

Another House member who's apparently gotten a bit too big for his britches in the leadership's view is Nathan Ballentine, who has been writing about this all on his blog, here and here. He's not the only one, by the way. So has Earl Capps, here and here. So has Will Folks.

Interesting, huh?

Election results certified (finally)

Cindi has a column for tomorrow about early voting, in which she more or less expresses support for the idea, and mentions me as the elitist, paternalistic mossback who doesn't like the idea.

You just can't get good help these days.

Anyway, I'll write more about that tomorrow, after she's had her say. Suffice it to say that my reasons for opposing it (aside from the fact that I am just at heart a traditionalist, which doesn't change anyone's mind about me being a mossback) are related to why I oppose the way people like Mark Sanford look at public schools. That will bear explaining, and I will explain it -- later. Basically, I look at this as a communitarian, while Cindi is looking at it as a small-d democrat. Or at least, as somewhat more of a small-d democrat than what I am.

But speaking of outmoded ways of doing things, a few minutes ago I got the regular notice that the state election commission has certified the election results:

SEC CERTIFIES 2008 GENERAL ELECTION RESULTS

COLUMBIA, S.C. - (November 12, 2008) – The State Election Commission met at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, November 12, 2008, as the State Board of Canvassers to certify the results of the November 4, 2008 General Election.  Official results can be found at www.SCVotes.org.  No recounts were necessary in any federal, state, or multi-county contests.
    The certification, protest, and appeal schedule is attached.
            ###

Every election year, I am struck by how LONG that takes.

Mind you, I'm not being critical. Far as I know, the folks at the election commission have really been busting their humps getting the results certified. And I DO want them to get it right, even if it takes more time.

But it still always strikes me as very horse-and-buggy to take so long -- especially with electronic voting. Part of it is that in my business, it's about getting it right away (AND getting it right, of course). Even long before we used computers for this stuff, we moved Heaven and Earth to get complete election results to the reader the very next morning, moving back deadlines, holding the presses to the limit then holding them some more, to get the job done. And if there were results we could NOT get you in that news cycle (often due to the fact that the poll workers didn't have our same sense of urgency), you got them 24 hours later.

So it still strikes me as ... anachronistic to get the certification a week later. Not that I'm complaining; it's just something I always think about.

Here's how 'our' candidates did

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
THE TIME for reckoning has arrived. No, not the election; we just did that. I speak of my traditional post-mortem, in which I look back on the candidates this newspaper endorsed, and how they did.
    First, the obligatory disclaimers:

• Endorsements are about who should win, in the judgment of The State's editorial board, not who will win. Predictions are another thing altogether. You want predictions, go to my blog. On this page, we do endorsements.
• Political party is an unimportant consideration to us. We do our best to eliminate it from our considerations entirely. In fact, nonpartisanship is a quality we actively look for in candidates, and those who possess it are more likely to win our nod than those who don'€™t, other things being equal.

    There was a time when I contented myself with the disclaimers, and airily brushed aside any thoughts that ran against them. But even those of us who have grown accustomed to referring to ourselves by the editorial "€œwe"€ are human --€” when you prick us, do we not whine? And a human can take only so many years of people saying "€œYour candidates always lose,"€ and "€œThe State'™s endorsement is the kiss of death,"€ or that we are part of the "€œliberal media" cabal or "€œthat right-wing Republican rag"€--€” especially when said human can offer objective data to the contrary, on all points.
    So, several elections back, I spent some time in our musty archives calculating just how many candidates we had endorsed had won and how many lost, and what the partisan breakdown had been -- going back to 1994, the year I joined the editorial board. (No one else who was on the board then is on it now, so elections before that year did not concern me.) I just wanted to know.
    I was gratified by what I found, which was the same as what I had suspected: First, most of "€œour"€ candidates had won --€” which bodes well for policies we advocate, and also helpfully indicates that we are not "€œout of touch"€ with our community (to cite yet another tiresome accusation). Secondly, we had pretty much split down the middle between Democrats and Republicans --€” although we had endorsed slightly more Democrats, which will no doubt shock those Democrats who only remember our presidential endorsements, which have uniformly been Republican.
    The trend continues.
    Each year since I put those numbers together, I have added the latest election'€™s numbers to them. I'€™m always careful to do this after we've made all our endorsement decisions, to avoid being influenced by the wish to keep our numbers good. While sometimes we form a rough impression --€” one of my colleagues observed several weeks back that it felt like we were headed for a "losing season,"€ and at one point I remember thinking we were flying in the face of the Obama Effect with each Republican we chose --€” we'€™re careful not to keep a count. Not doing so is a tricky mental exercise, rather like a pitcher telling himself, "€œDon'€™t think about the fact that you'€™ve got a no-hitter going," but election seasons are so busy for us that it'€™s easier than you might think to avoid stopping to calculate.
    Anyway, I went through our endorsements (all of which you can read at thestate.com/endorsements) to do the partisan count the week before the election, and indeed we were defying the Obama Effect: We had endorsed eight Republicans and five Democrats. (And Elise Partin, running in the nonpartisan race for Cayce mayor.) That brought our eight-election running total (every two years, starting in 1994) to 60 Democrats and 54 Republicans, or 53 percent to 47 percent. Back in 2006 we had backed 12 Democrats and only five Republicans. (Since we don't consider party when choosing a candidate, it'€™s sort of random -- one election year we might be lopsided for Democrats; the next year for Republicans. So it'€™s nice to see this running total, if you value nonpartisanship the way I do.)
    And as always, once I added them up after Tuesday'€™s results, we had a "winning season"€--€” although, to be brutally honest, "€œour"€ candidates didn'€™t dominate quite as much as usual.
    This time, nine of our candidates won their elections, and five lost. That'€™s a winning percentage of 69. That brings our running record since 1994 to 85-31, or a .733 batting average -- which is down from .753 as of four years ago, but still satisfactory in my book.
    That's the strictest way to look at it, and the way I'm going to keep it on my running spreadsheet. If I wanted to be generous to us, I'd say that John McCain did win in South Carolina, and surely you can'€™t hold us responsible for what the rest of the country did? But I won'€™t let myself do that. And if we included ballot questions, on which the voters agreed with us four-to-two... but that would be inconsistent with the way I counted past years.
    Looked at another way, the voters agreed with us on four of the Democrats we endorsed, and four of the Republicans, and disagreed with us on one Democrat and four Republicans. That'€™s counting McCain as a loss, of course. And they agreed with us in the one nonpartisan race (if only there were more!) for Cayce mayor.
    So I'€™ve told you what I know about our stats -- except for one thing. You might still wonder, what if he had been making predictions? Well, I did, on my blog, on Tuesday before the polls closed. You can go look. I got 13 predictions right, and one wrong, and on that one I had been tentative, hoping more than believing Mike Montgomery would keep his seat on Richland County Council.
    So that'€™s how we did. How'€™d you do?

Come tell me about it at thestate.com/bradsblog/.

Graham likes Obama's 1st pick

Thought y'all might find this interesting:

Graham Statement on Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today made this statement on the news Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel has accepted the job as White House Chief of Staff.  Graham spoke by phone with Emanuel earlier today.

Graham said:

“This is a wise choice by President-elect Obama. 

“Rahm knows Capitol Hill and has great political skills.  He can be a tough partisan but also understands the need to work together.  He is well-suited for the position of White House Chief of Staff. 

“I worked closely with him during the presidential debate negotiations which were completed in record time.  When we hit a rough spot, he always looked for a path forward.  I consider Rahm to be a friend and colleague.  He’s tough but fair.  Honest, direct, and candid.  These qualities will serve President-elect Obama well. 

“Rahm understands the challenges facing our nation and will, consistent with the agenda set by President-elect Obama, work to find common ground where it exists.  I look forward to working with him in his new position and will continue to do everything I can to help find a pathway forward on the difficult problems facing our nation.”

            #####

After reading of Mr. Emanuel being a hard-ball operative from Clinton days, and how he was expected to play "bad cop" to Obama's "good cop," I was prepared not to like him. I mean, didn't we choose Obama over Hillary Clinton to get away from that stuff? But if Lindsey likes him, I need to reconsider.

By the way, I'd have included a picture of Graham from our recent interview with him, but MY LAPTOP GOT STOLEN, so all those pictures are gone!

Just in case you didn't know.

Does the gender of lawmakers matter to YOU?

Just got a post-election e-mail from the Southeastern Institute for Women in Politics, which had also hit me with releases a number of times before Tuesday. Here's the gist:

Congratulations to all of the brave female candidates running in South Carolina and their support teams. Women made progress in the South Carolina House of Representatives, increasing their numbers from 13 to 17, though still down from a peak of 20 in 1992. Women were elected across South Carolina to local offices including solicitor and the first female mayor for Cayce, Elise Partin.

While South Carolina women offered for federal, state and local offices in record numbers during the 2008 election cycle, fewer than hoped succeeded at the polls in November.

The list of winners includes 10 incumbent representatives and 6 newcomers:

Candidate	Seat	Party
Anne Peterson-Hutto Chandra Dillard Deborah Long Cathy Harvin* Gilda Cobb-Hunter* Jenny Horne Joan Brady* Nikki Haley* Rita Allison Shannon Erickson* Vida Miller* Wendy Nanney J. Anne Parks* Laurie Slade Funderburk* Patsy G. Knight* Annette D. Young* Denny Neilson*	House District 115 House District 23 House District 45 House District 64 House District 66 House District 94 House District 78 House District 87 House District 36 House District 124 House District 108 House District 22 House District 12 House District 52 House District 97 House District 98 House District 56	D D R D D R R R R R D R D D D R D

The Challenges Ahead

No women were elected to the South Carolina Senate, returning that chamber to an all-male bastion not seen in more than 30 years. South Carolina is also the only state in the nation lacking women in its senate.

The Southeastern Institute for Women in Politics, a non-profit organized to attract, encourage and train women to run and win, delivered hundreds of thousands of email messages about available candidates in an effort to create visibility for female candidates. Biographies and responses to specific questions were posted on the Institute's website to help educate South Carolina voters regarding choices.

Members of the Institute's board of directors vowed to move into the 2010 and 2012 election cycles aggressively, beginning with recruitment and training as early as February, 2009.

---

Support the Institute. Become a member today.
Interested in future training events? Tell us about it.

And I find myself wondering. Does it make a difference to YOU that there are no women in the Senate, or that there are four more in the House? If so, why? If not, why not?

I ask because I just don't generally think in these terms. If the best candidate is a woman that's who we endorse. If not, we don't. We certainly wouldn't choose a candidate BECAUSE she's a woman, any more than we'd reject her on that basis. Nikki Haley was a stronger candidate that Ed Gomez. Margaret Gamble was strong, but not as strong as Nikki Setzler. Based on the evidence, I guess you'd say we're more likely to endorse a candidate on the basis of whether his/her name is "Nikki," rather than gender.

Gender doesn't matter any more than party, in terms of determining which is the better candidate.

Not that I don't believe men and women are different. I noticed a while back that they are. In fact, when folks try to equate gender issues to race issues, I tend to object by saying, "Boys and girls are different; black people and white people are not." I'm not arguing necessarily for doing like Will Stockdale in "No Time for Sergeants" and saying I don't notice whether it's a man or a wawmun; I just see a lieutenant.

But I'm not recalling offhand when gender ever caused me to pick one candidate over another.

Biggest disappointment of the night: Mike Montgomery's loss

Looking at both our endorsements AND my predictions I made yesterday, you might have already figured out that my biggest disappointment in last night's results was Mike Montgomery's apparent loss of his seat on Richland County Council.

Actually, last night was a bad one all around from you folks who live in Richland County, whether you know it yet or not. In the only other contested race, Gwen Kennedy -- remembered mainly for her Hawaiian junket at taxpayer expense (and for almost nothing else because she basically accomplished nothing in office that I can recall) when she was on the Council before -- won. But we expected that -- there was no way a Republican was going to win that seat against a Democrat with name recognition, even BAD name recognition.

But Montgomery was arguably the best, brightest, hardest-working member of council, a guy who truly had the interest of everyone in the county, regardless of party or anything else like that, at heart. On a council that had lost its way recently -- putting $30 million for parks ahead of transportation and other critical needs -- he was one guy who was right on those and other issues, an extremely level-headed pragmatist with his priorities straight. This is a deep loss for anyone who cares about the future of the county.

And he lost to a guy who -- and I kid you not -- had exactly two reasons for running:

1. He didn't think Decker Boulevard was getting redeveloped quickly enough.
2. He thought there should be a Democrat on the ticket to take advantage of the Obama Effect. Really. That was his reason. When his wife, who lost to Montgomery in the last election, wouldn't run again, he put his own name on the ballot. That's pretty much his story.

So basically, we have here a monument to party line voting over merit, the most stark that I saw in this election. And it's a real shame.

Oh, and I would have given you some pictures of these two guys on this post, BUT MY LAPTOP GOT STOLEN LAST NIGHT. But perhaps I already mentioned that.

Post comments on returns HERE

Y'all, I just got home and I'm going to go into the kitchen to get some of the dinner that Mamanem fixed, and then start paying attention to returns. But I thought I'd go ahead and put up this post in case y'all can't wait.

On my way home from the office, right after the polls closed, I saw on TV over at my daughter's house (where I had stopped to check on the twins) that one of the networks was reporting exit poll data that indicated the black turnout in Virginia was 22 percent. It was 21 percent in 2004, they said.

Data such as those cause me to say to myself, I'll wait for some real numbers...

My predictions

Here are my predictions as to what I think will happen on the contested races that we dealt with in our endorsements. As always, endorsements are about who should win, not who will win. To fill that vacuum -- and to help you see the difference -- here are my prognostications (in which I place far less faith, because they are not nearly as carefully considered):

• Obama will win the presidential election -- the real one (electoral college, with at least 300 electors) as well as the popular vote. He'll win it decisively enough that we'll know by midnight. BUT McCain will win in South Carolina, probably 55-45. We endorsed McCain.
• Lindsey Graham will easily win re-election. No prediction on the numbers; I have no idea. In fact, I'm only doing numbers on the presidential, because I really have no idea on any others. We endorsed Graham.
• Joe Wilson will win against Rob Miller, but it will be close. We endorsed Wilson.
• Jim Clyburn will have a blowout victory over his GOP opponent. We endorsed Clyburn.
• John Spratt will win with a margin somewhere between Wilson's and Clyburn's. We endorsed Spratt.
• Nikki Setzler will survive the challenge from Margaret Gamble, and thanks to the Obama Effect, it will be the first time it helped him to be a Democrat in 20 years. We endorsed Setzler.
• Anton Gunn will beat David Herndon, but it will be fairly close. We endorsed Gunn.
• Joe McEachern will cruise to victory over Michael Koska. We endorsed Koska.
• Chip Huggins will roll right over Jim Nelson, who will NOT benefit appreciably from the Obama Effect. We endorsed Nelson.
• Nikki Haley will win big, again in spite of Obama. We endorsed Ms. Haley.
• Harry Harmon will again be Lexington County coroner. We endorsed Harmon, although we again made the point that this should NOT be an elective office.
• Elise Partin will -- I hope I hope -- win the Cayce mayor's office (this is the one I have the LEAST feel for, since we've never endorsed for this office before). We endorsed Ms. Partin.
• Gwen Kennedy, despite being best known for a Hawaiian junket the last time she was on Richland County council, will ride the Obama Effect to victory over Celestine White Parker. We endorsed Ms. Parker.
• Mike Montgomery should prevail (note my hesitation) over challenger Jim Manning, who seems to be running as much as anything because he felt like there should be a Democrat in the race with Obama running. We endorsed Montgomery.

Oh, and Ted Pitts will roll to victory over his last-second UnParty challenger. We didn't endorse in this one, but if we had, we would have endorsed Ted.

UnParty makes its move (better late than never)

Sometimes when I see someone running unopposed -- even someone I like, such as my state Rep., Ted Pitts -- I feel prompted to make silly gestures. I did so today. Yes, I wrote in my own name for House District 69, partly just to try out that function on the electronic machine.

That makes Ted Pitts the first incumbent of either of the dominant parties to feel the wrath of the mighty UnParty machine. Such as it is. Sorry, Ted; I couldn't resist the temptation when it popped into my head. I could have made my empty gesture on one of the other unopposed offices -- but I don't want to be sheriff, for instance. I just didn't vote at all on any of the unopposed slots -- except the House seat.

No, I won't win this impromptu campaign -- I started it just a tad late, even I will admit. But we're looking at this strategically. (Who's "we?" Just me. You may or may not have noticed that candidates often refer to themselves as "we" when they mean "I," and I believe in observing the conventions when they don't violate my principles.)

I'm building name recognition. Sure, we're not liable to win this one. But the experience losing to Ted will help me get ready to lose a last-minute run for governor in 2010. Then, who knows -- I could decide to become an extremely minor obstacle to President Obama's re-election plans.

A lot of quixotic candidates start off losing at the top -- Ralph Nader, for instance. But I think that's just presumptuous. As I keep telling Doug, experience is important. I need to lose races for lower offices before fumbling the brass ring.

Anyway, I gotta run now, and make the last-minute arrangements for my unvictory party....

Your voting anecdotes here

It took me an hour and forty minutes to vote at the Quail Hollow precinct -- most of it standing in the breezy fine mist of rain, which gets cool after awhile even in a camel-hair sport coat. This was the first day in more than a week that I did NOT wear a sweater, which was stupid. I had looked at the weather report on my Treo -- mid-60s, it said -- and it simply never occurred to me that I would spend 90 minutes of the day standing outside.

But it was OK. Here are some pictures. The one at top was looking toward the front of the line, just after I joined it. The blurry one at right is a little later, showing all the way to the front of the line. (That's my wife in the white sweater and dark hair about halfway up, although I didn't know that until I called her on the phone and she told me she was there; I had thought she was in Shandon watching the twins. If it had been any other sort of line, I would have gone up and cut in to join her. Somehow that seemed a violation of electoral etiquette, though.) The one below is from about 15 minutes later, at which point the line stretched back about twice as far as the point where I had joined it at 10:08. Note that the mist was falling when those behind us got out of their cars, so they had umbrellas. Many of them did anyway; the lady colonel in the foreground did not, but she was dressed for inclement weather.

All during this there was a steady flow of old folks being escorted to the front of the line, and after a while, I must confess, I was tempted to say, "Oh yeah, right! Like you really need a walker -- I'm onto you!" But I didn't think it would be nice, so I didn't say it.

When we finally got inside the little building behind the church, the line waiting to check in consisted of about 10 people. Then there was a long, undulating space for a line after registering with only four or five people standing in. Apparently it didn't occur to the poll workers that they weren't managing the flow as well as they might. The lady checking in the first half of the alphabet was moving people along pretty well -- story of my life; if there's a way to screw over the W's, it will be found and acted upon. My half of the alphabet had to wait while our worker was distracted by the old folks bypassing the line. (The whole curbside voting thing seemed very haphazard. They had a van for awhile, but that left. Some cut to the front of the line; some went to a side door, and I got the impression that each person who did so was a bit of a surprise, and was dealt with in an ad hoc manner. But perhaps I didn't fully perceive what was happening.)

At the front of the line, there were seven machines (not counting the young lady holding the curbside machine -- why she was in there, waiting for people to check in and then accompanying them out to the voter in the car, I don't know). But only five were in use. One of them was specially equipped, I overheard, for the hearing impaired (what role hearing played in the process I don't know). Maybe it was rigged for sound for the blind, and I misunderstood -- it appeared to have headphones attached, which for all I knew was so that the "Rock the Vote" kids could hear loud music while voting.

Why the seventh machine wasn't in use, I don't know.

So how did it go for you?

Our 2008 endorsements favor GOP; overall record still tilts to Dems

This is an all-things-to-all-people post.

Those of you who think we're just another bunch of wild-eyed liberals who only back Democrats, just read this paragraph! I've done the count on this year's endorsements (which you can go read here), and here's the final count: We endorsed 8 Republicans (John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Joe Wilson, Nikki Haley, Michael Koska, Mike Montgomery, Celestine White Parker and Harry Harmon), 5 Democrats (John Spratt, Jim Clyburn, Nikki Setzler, Anton Gunn and Jim Nelson). And one independent (Elise Partin, in a nonpartisan election for Cayce mayor).

Now, those of you who think we're that right-wing rag that only endorses Republicans, just read this paragraph! As you may recall, I started keeping score a couple of election cycles ago, and our running total in general elections, from 1994 through 2008, is 60 Democrats, and 54 Republicans, so we've endorsed Democrats 53 percent of the time.

As I've explained about a gazillion times, party is not a consideration for us. The only reason I know the numbers above is that I got tired of people constantly accusing us of being one or the other, so I went back through all of the general elections since I had joined the editorial board in 1994 (and everyone else currently on the board joined later than that).

Since then, I have kept the count up-to-date. But I only total up the numbers for the current year after we've decided all our endorsements. That makes for some pretty lopsided years in which someone might think we were pushing mainly for one party or the other. For instance, in 2006 we endorsed 12 Democrats and only five Republicans.

Here's the year-by-year breakdown (and here it is on a spreadsheet):

Year      Democrats  Republicans Independents
1994          10                  4              1
1996            2                  5
1998            8                 11
2000            7                 10
2002            9                   4
2004            7                   7
2006           12                  5
2008            5                   8             1
TOTALS      60                54            2

Looking back at this, I wonder about the low number of independents, and then I remember that most of our opportunities to endorse nonaligned (or at least NOMINALLY unaligned) candidates have come in Columbia city elections, and these are not counted. I'm just looking at the November elections here. I think that one independent in 1994 was Bubba Cromer.

Have fun trying to find patterns, if you're so inclined. I notice that, except for 1998, we have a tendency to go for Democrats in years when we elected statewide officials to S.C. government, and Republicans in presidential election years -- except for 2004, which was a tie. I'm no statistician, but I sort of doubt that someone who IS a statistician would think a trend that involves only 8 elections and has two exceptions is much of a trend.

You could also compare the time BEFORE I became the editor (when the makeup of the board was quite different) to AFTER (I became editor in 1997), but you don't get a dramatic difference. In the two elections before I was promoted we went for 12 Democrats and 9 Republicans, since then it's been 48 Democrats and 45 Republicans -- indicating that I have kept it closer to even than previous leadership did! Which of course is also statistically meaningless.

If we were trying to create a trend, it would be to aim for a 50-50 breakdown, so neither party could claim we were biased against them. But we're not trying, so the results are imperfect.

You know what's most startling to me? That in all those years, we've endorsed only 116 fall candidates. Seems like a lot more. But then, the primaries are always busier than the general.

Our congressional endorsements today

Yesterday, I wrote the editorial that I dread each election year -- the one dealing with Congress. (Actually, some years we do separates on the individual districts, but this year I decided to do it all in one piece -- like ripping off a Band-Aid suddenly.) I put it off until it became the VERY LAST endorsement we did. I'm the one who had to write it, and I took advantage of being the editor to keep postponing it.

Now, before anyone gets all huffy about my dismissive attitude -- I think Joe Wilson is a really nice guy who tries hard, and I know that Jim Clyburn is deeply and passionately committed to his constituents. But they are both, to me, emblematic of what is wrong with Congress and with our system for apportioning districts.

They are both deeply committed to the agendas of their respective political parties, and you know how I feel about that. Joe is just breathlessly eager to implement GOP initiatives, and Mr. Clyburn (I don't feel I know him well enough to call him "Jim"), as the Majority Whip, is the very embodiment of Nancy Pelosi's House. And I don't like any of that one bit.

So why don't I do what Doug always says I should do, and endorse the challengers? Because I have too great a sense of responsibility. (As you know, I'll make a futile gesture with my own personal vote, but I wouldn't feel right indulging myself that way on behalf of the newspaper.) For all their partisan flaws, Messrs. Wilson and Clyburn are obviously more knowledgeable and better qualified than the people running against them. I have the greatest respect, admiration and appreciation for young Rob Miller's service as a United States Marine. (As some of you know, the very first thing I wanted to be as a kid -- and one thing I could never be, for medical reasons -- is a Marine. So the Corps has a particular mystique for me.) But I can't see where serving as a captain in the Corps has equipped Mr. Miller for the very different duties of a congressman. I'd like to see some other things on his resume -- such as service in some lower elective offices. I have a great reluctance to send people off to Washington before we've had a chance to see how they serve in office a little closer to home, where we can keep more of an eye on them.

And from what little I've seen of the lady running against Mr. Clyburn, I am deeply unimpressed. Watch the debate on ETV if you doubt me.

Now John Spratt is a somewhat different story. I've never been conflicted about endorsing him, because he seems to have so much competence, and his partisanship has been far more muted than either of the aforementioned gentlemen.

Those three are the only districts we endorse in, because those are the areas where we deliver the paper.

Anyway, here's the endorsement(s).

2nd Congressional District debate last night

Excuse me forgetting, but these things I do -- I failed to let y'all know in advance that I'd be on the panel of the 2nd Congressional District debate on ETV last night. I know y'all would have stopped what you were doing to watch and all, what with the World Series being delayed another day....

In case you'd still like to see it, here's the video below. And here's the ETV page with links to all of the congressional debates. I only did the 2nd District one because it was the only one in the Midlands that looked like any sort of a competition. And whether it is or not is hard to say. I think ex-Capt. Rob Miller, USMC, is well positioned to take advantage of the Obama Effect. But you just can't count out a Republican incumbent in the 2nd District.

As Blease Graham said to my Rotary the other day, if you want to beat Joe Wilson (or, back in the day, the late Floyd Spence) in that district, you'd better come into Lexington County with a 26,000-vote lead. That's a tall hill to climb, even for the Marines.

Anyway, here's the video. And thanks to Chris Berry of The State's photo staff for the photo above, in which you get to see just how geeky I look in my Jimmy Olsen sweater vest and bowtie. He apologizes for the quality of the photo, by the way -- says if he knew I'd have been asking for an overall shot such as this, he'd have made sure to get a better one. I told him not to worry; this is way better than what y'all are used to on this blog, and that anything better would just spoil all of you.

Endorsing Lindsey Graham

It is perhaps ironic that while his buddy McCain is struggling so, Lindsey Graham is coasting to easy re-election. Of course, if McCain only had to win South Carolina, he'd be sitting pretty, too. (Although I don't for a moment believe he'll win by 20 points, as that poll said the other day.)

Anyway, for your perusal, here's our endorsement of Graham from today's paper.

And just to give y'all a little extra something for coming to the blog, here's a video clip from an interview we had with Sen. Graham in our offices on Oct. 6. This was just before the second presidential debate -- in fact, the senator was on his way to Nashville to help McCain with debate prep -- and I had just asked him about Sarah Palin. Essentially, I'd aked why her and not Joe Lieberman, and did he not think she had hurt the ticket?

This could be a 'bad' year for our endorsees

Turning away from the presidential endorsement to the endorsements that we here on the board actually spend more of our staff time on -- the state legislative and county races -- this may not be a good year for our endorsees.

Now mind you, "not... a good year" is a relative thing. Typically, close to 75 percent of the people we endorse in general elections in South Carolina win. A "bad" year for our endorsees is 50 percent. There is a chance that this year, it may be even lower than that.

I should pause at this point to say, as I always do, that our endorsements aren't about naming the person we think WILL win, but the person we think SHOULD win. You might say, "Duh!," but the fact is that a lot of people don't seem to understand that. How else does one explain the people who say, when one of our endorsees loses, that we got it "wrong?"

But that doesn't keep me from thinking about whether someone is going to win or not. I'm usually conscious of a candidate's chances as we're making the decision, and we tend to know when we're backing a Don Quixote and when we're not.

But the other day Cindi said something I hadn't thought of -- that we may be backing more losers than winners this time. That was based on the endorsements we had decided on up until that point (we've decided some more since then). If so, so be it. That won't change our decisions. But I thought I'd share the thought with y'all.

Consider the ones we've done so far:

• Jim Nelson -- LIKELY TO LOSE -- Conventional wisdom heavily favors the incumbent, Chip Huggins, in House District 85. This is the Irmo area, and Rep. Huggins is the Republican. Of course, the Irmese are quirky and can surprise you. Also, a Democrat could benefit from the Obama Effect, which is expected to pull up down-ballot Democrats even though Obama will lose the state himself. But not a Democrat who, like Mr. Nelson, is given to going up to strangers and telling them he thinks his taxes are too low. Not in this district.
• Michael Koska -- LIKELY TO LOSE -- There is no incumbent in this race, which should make it more of a toss-up. But Mr. Koska's opponent in House District 77 is the closest thing you'll find to an incumbent -- Richland County Council Chairman Joe McEachern. Mr. McEachern is a strong candidate whom we've endorsed multiple times, including in the primary for this seat. Add to that the fact that Mr. Koska is a little-known white Republican in a district long held by a black Democrat (John Scott), and the usual math of elections in South Carolina runs against him. Mr. Koska has the ability to win over voters who sit down and listen to him at length as we did, but few voters ever do that. No, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that Mr. Koska will pull this off, but he would need greater-than-usual help from his national ticket to do so, and that's just not happening this year.
• Nikki Haley -- ALMOST CERTAIN TO WIN. I could have told you before our interviews that Rep. Haley would hold on to her District 87 House seat. After talking to her and opponent Ed Gomez, it was a dead certainty. Yes, the McCain-Palin ticket may be imploding, but not so much as to deny re-election to this highly engaging Republican incumbent, not in Lexington County.
• Anton Gunn -- DON'T KNOW, although I suspect GUNN HAS THE EDGE -- What makes this one uncertain for the better-known and stronger candidate -- Mr. Gunn -- is that this has been a Republican district. In fact, Democrat Gunn lost to the incumbent, Bill Cotty, two years ago. But Mr. Cotty isn't running, and the district has been evolving. Most of all in Mr. Gunn's favor is the fact that if anybody is going to benefit from the Obama Effect, it would be him. He was Obama's state political director. So I think he has the edge, but it's just impossible to know without polling info, which I haven't seen. All we know for sure is that we prefer Mr. Gunn to his opponent, David Herndon.

As always, you can look at all our endorsements from this year (going all the way back to the presidential primaries in January), plus columns related to endorsements, on this Web page.

Rob Miller's new TV ads

Still catching up on e-mail, I ran across this from this afternoon:

Miller Begins TV Advertisement Blitz

Democratic Congressional Candidate and Iraq War Veteran Rob Miller began his TV advertisement blitz today. The campaign is running two introductory commercials that feature Miller's service in the US Marine Corps and outline his platform of reducing wasteful spending, balancing the budget and protecting American jobs.

Miller Campaign Manager Lachlan McIntosh said the ads are designed to introduce Miller to voters and emphasize the change he represents. "Voters understand that to get out of the mess we are in, we've got to change Washington. Rob represents the new ideas and new leadership we need," McIntosh said.

He promises to "fight for us" in Washington. Arrrghhh. You know how I hate it when that happens.

Our first endorsement ran today

A couple of weeks ago, I came up with the idea of doing something different with endorsements this cycle. Back during the campaigns for the June primaries, I became frustrated that we had so many candidates, and so little time and space, that we didn't serve readers as well as we should have. After hours and hours and hours of interviews, research and discussion, in some cases our explanations of endorsements were absurdly abbreviated, in extreme cases amounting to less than a sentence. And as I've always said, to me the endorsement is ABOUT the explanation, so I was very dissatisfied. All of that work, and so little of it shared with readers.

So I said to my colleagues at the time, we either needed to do better in the future, or quit endorsing altogether. Our staff is too small to spend that much time on something that produces such thin gruel for readers.

Of course, being obsessive, we resolved to keep doing it, but do it better. Fortunately for that purpose, we had far fewer contested races to deal with in the fall. This fact is UNfortunate for democracy -- the fact that primary contests are far more numerous than general election ones is a testament to the power of incumbency and partisanship in redistricting. But at least it offered us a chance to be somewhat more thorough in our presentation, to make it more reflective of our preparation.

A couple of weeks ago, I thought of a way to do even better: Do our endorsements earlier. In the past, we've held them as long as we can, given the number we have to do -- the theory being that that's when voters are paying the most attention. Also, it meant we had as much information as possible, preventing post-endorsement "surprises" about the candidates.

But I proposed to Warren and Cindi that we start doing them as soon as we can. It keeps them from being jammed up, thereby allowing us more space. It also frees us up as commentators. Increasingly, I have found it hard to write the summaries of interviews without going ahead and saying "this is the guy for us" or "no way on this one." You'll note that I haven't written anything from the interviews with the candidates in today's endorsement of Anton Gunn, because the choice was so clear, and I hate to scoop my colleagues. Now, I'm free to go back and write those blog entries from the interviews -- which I will, perhaps today -- as well as to write columns. I suspect that Cindi and Warren will find additional things they want to say about their candidates once the ice is broken with an endorsement. Maybe not, but we'll see.

In any event, I've been pleased with the first two endorsements (one running today, the other tomorrow), even if that's all that is written. They flow better, they're less cramped and hurried in their style. They're more thoughtful. And that's supposed to be the point -- provoking thought.

Anyway, here's the endorsement of Anton Gunn. More commentary on that contest will be forthcoming.

Video: Ed Gomez vs. Nikki Haley

First, I apologize for the length of this video clip, but I think it gives a pretty fair glimpse of what our interviews were like with the two candidates in S.C. House District 87.

You have newcomer Democrat Edgar Gomez challenging Rep. Nikki Haley. Four years ago, Nikki was the longshot going up against a very Old School incumbent in Larry Koon. If anything, Mr. Gomez is probably a longer shot, if only because Rep. Haley is hardly the symbol of entrenched seniority that Mr. Koon was; hers is still a very fresh face on the S.C. political scene.

On the video, you will see the candidates' respective remarks about or answers to questions about several issues, starting with an open question about what they consider the top issues to be, then moving on to taxation, school "choice" and payday lending.

And yes, I will still be doing separate posts on these two interviews, just not today. In the meantime, you have the video.

David Herndon, S.C. House District 79

Sept. 11, 1 p.m. -- OK, I'm really going to try to keep these endorsement interview posts shorter so that I can get them done and not fall behind the way I did in the last couple of election cycles (resorting to such cheap tricks as running nothing but pictures when I ran out of time).

David Herndon should be a good one for me to practice this new resolution on, since he didn't have that much to say different from what he said in our primary interview. (And that's not a bad thing at all, since we ended up endorsing him then.)

An overview of what we talked about:

• He said he was better qualified for the House because of his experience in business and in life.
• He said opponent Anton Gunn -- a "super nice guy" is less qualified because he's spent his work life out of the private sector, in politics and the community organizer field.
• He feels very comfortable with his district. He said that (like Caesar's Gaul), there are three distinct communities within the Kershaw-Richland district, and at various times he's lived in all of them.
• He thinks the governor's trying to get the Legislature to come back to prioritize budget cuts is political posturing.
• On education, he agrees with most of Jim Rex's proposals. He sees himself as having a broad perspective on the issue, with one child in military school, another home-schooled, and one in public elementary school.
• He sees his job as maintaining his district's attraction for economic development and as an attractive place to live.

I'm going to force myself to stop right there.

Michael Koska, S.C. House District 77

Sept. 11, 11 a.m. -- When he first came to see us during the primaries, Michael Koska made a good impression -- an especially good impression given that he was a newcomer to electoral politics. He had made himself expert on the issues that had gotten him involved -- especially Richland County road needs -- and showed a passion for learning about more.

He made an even better impression this time, and here's one of the reasons why: As he said himself a couple of times in the interview, he's learned and grown on the campaign trail. For instance, he expressed a tendency toward supporting vouchers. But it was fairly obvious at the time that he hadn't really thought the issue through. Now, he doesn't see himself supporting either vouchers or tax credits (last time he didn't know the difference between them) "in the foreseeable future." He believes that our first priority should be fixing the public schools that need fixing.

Mr. Koska is the Republican nominee in a district that has long been strongly Democratic. But his views are not inconsistent with those of moderate South Carolina Democrats, and he goes out of his way to praise such Democrats as Joel Lourie and Anton Gunn (regarding a recent op-ed by Mr. Gunn in our paper, he said "ditto.") He maintains that if voters elect him instead of opponent Joe McEachern, he will be more likely to get things done, being a member of the majority party in the Legislature.

About the only other time he said anything about his party affiliation was when he expressed enthusiasm for his party's vice presidential nominee. Much as Democrats have spoken of an Obama Effect this year, he predicted that Sarah Palin would do a lot of good for down-ticket Republicans such as himself.

But mostly he talked about his passion for better roads and affordable health care. His advocacy for fixing Hard Scrabble Road had won him a position on the citizen's panel on transportation that recommended the sales tax hike, and he feels betrayed that County Council (led by Mr. McEachern) didn't put the issue to a referendum. He said he believes the $550,000 spent on the study, not to mention the "valuable time, time spent away from their families" by the volunteers like himself, to have been cavalierly wasted. He is also critical of Mr. McEachern and the council for having bungled the county's representation on the Council of Governments that doles out what road money there is in the area, allowing Lexington County to get the lion's share of the funding for the next 10 years.

The council's decision to borrow $50 million for new parks (including one in his area), and to do so without a referendum, while people are still dying on Hard Scrabble is to him an outrage.

He has a small business owner's perspective on health care. His own personal experience and that of his acquaintances convinces him that the state must act now to make health care more affordable (he has no patience for waiting for the feds to do anything). It was like deja vu when he told about his daughter's recent $1,800 x-ray, which sounded an awful lot like the x-rays for MY daughter, the one that ate my "economic stimulus check," if you're recall. He was particularly incensed that when he asked the folks at the hospital in advance what the x-rays would cost, no one had any idea. Speaking of outrages, he thinks (as do I) that the stimulus checks were "the stupidest thing." If only, he says, that money had been devoted to upgrading the nation's infrastructure...

Energy is another area where he has no interest in waiting on the federal government to act. He says the state should push to have natural gas filling stations built around the state. Natural gas, he maintains, is "probably going to be our bridge off foreign oil," but you can't get anywhere without the retail infrastructure.

Michael Koska is a good example of what you get when a regular citizen not only gets worked up about an issue, but goes out of his way to get informed and try to do something about it. That's why we endorsed him in the spring. Of course, we also endorsed his general election opponent, so that makes this race particularly interesting to us.

Chip Huggins, S.C. House District 85

Sept. 10, 2 p.m. -- Chip Huggins has represented this Irmo-Chapin district since 1999. And folks there must like him pretty well, because in all that time he hasn't had opposition for re-election. And in that area (think District 5 school board, the battles over development in northwest Richland County), not many officeholders can say that.

Since he's the Republican in this race, given the district, I suspect he's about to get elected again.

But perhaps because he hasn't had occasion to explain or defend his positions on issues in past election years, he doesn't communicate very well where he stands, or where he is likely to stand in the future. It's difficult to tell at times for certain whether he's just not all that good at communication, was having a bad day (nervousness, which is common enough in a first interview, could account for some of the mangled syntax that kept posing a barrier for me) or he just did not want to be pinned down on anything. Unfortunately, by the end of the interview, I felt quite sure that that last explanation was most valid -- he seemed to have a tremendous aversion to taking definite stands.

The most definite thing he said to us -- the most specific, helpful fact that he provided with regard to his record -- had to do with how he voted on Mark Sanford's video of the cigarette tax increase. He indicated that he favored the tax increase (which contrasted with his general belief, also clearly stated, that he believes South Carolinians are overtaxed), and indeed voted for it. In light of that, I asked him, what were we to make of the charge by his challenger, Jim Nelson, who told us Mr. Huggins had supported the governor's veto of that legislation? He said quite clearly that what Mr. Nelson said was incorrect -- that in fact he had voted to override. He offered to get the clerk's office to back him up on that, but I said no need. Of course, Cindi will check that out to confirm, but it seems highly unlikely that he would assert that so definitely were it not the case -- especially since he was so loathe to be pinned down on much else. (Cindi speculated that this could have been an honest mistake all around, because she had noted that the VoteSmart organization, which she normally swears by, had reported that vote in a confusing way. She noted that she has informed VoteSmart, and they're supposed to be doing something about it.)

As for the rest of the interview -- well, I deeply regret that I was having multiple technical difficulties today. I had lent the camera with which I usually shoot video to one of my daughters; I didn't realize the memory in my digital sound recorder was full until after the interview started, and after shooting three still photos and three short, low-quality clips with my Treo, it refused to record any more, claiming that it, too, was full. (And my dog ate my homework.) But let me try to give you a sense of what it was like.

Early in the interview, he indicated that he favored Gov. Sanford's campaign to restructure state government, which was fine by us, of course: The governor's positions on that subject are almost word-for-word straight out of our "Power Failure" agenda. But later I asked him to be a little more specific, and ran into a wall of reluctance: He had no specific ideas about how the government's structure could be improved, beyond a vague desire to avoid "duplication." So I asked him to tell me, specifically, which of the constitutional officers did he think should be appointed rather than elected? When none seemed to be forthcoming, I started listing them: The commissioner of agriculture -- should that be appointed (that seemed like the easiest on to start with)? How about the adjutant general? The attorney general?

He wasn't saying. "There's just a lot of duplication," he said. "Going to continue to look at that. I'm not going to be specific about that." When I looked for this quote in my notes, at first I started to copy from the wrong page, because on the page before that, talking about education, he had said, "I don't have any direct answer on that... continue to look at that."

Mr. Huggins is hardly alone in his fondness for the phrase "look at that" -- it's a favorite among candidates (especially incumbents) who don't want to take a position, as in "We'll continue to look at that." It may be a defensible way to talk about a complex issue that's just come up and you haven't had time to study in adequately. But there's no excuse to answer that way about issues that you yourself cite as important, and which have lain more or less unchanged on the table before you for years on end. And Mr. Huggins did that repeatedly. When candidates do that, I tend to think What do they think this is, a weather report? I don't want their predictions of what the Legislature will continue to look at, I want to know what they think the Legislature should do.

The more frustrating exchanges, for me, were later in the interview, after my Treo was full. But I think you can get the idea if you watch the phone video clip below (again, I apologize for the quality). About halfway in, we get to the subject of the state's automobile sales tax cap. Mr. Huggins seems to want the cap changed in some way, a way that would be "fair," but when we try to find out what he believes would be fair (simply tax the full value of cars at the rate at which we currently tax the first $6,000? exempt the first $6,000, but charge the full rate on the value over that? some other approach?), but he avoids answering.

And, as I say, that was the pattern of most of the interview. I came away knowing that he disagrees with his opponent's politically suicidal assertion that we don't pay enough taxes, but not much else.

Usually I find these interviews quite helpful in forming an impression of a candidate. This time, not so much. If anyone has any further information to offer regarding Mr. Huggins or his opponent, now would be a good time to bring it to my attention. Because we're continuing, as one might say, to "look at that..."

Surfing in Minnesota

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
LISTENING to John McCain’s acceptance speech Thursday night was like surfing. That is, it was like surfing if you’re me:

    Paddle, paddle, here comes the wave, can I catch it, paddle, paddle, I’ve got it, I’ve got it, I’ve got it, can I get on my feet, yes I’m getting up, I can’t believe it I’m standing, I’m doing this, can I straighten up, yes this is it, whoa, whoa, yow, WIPEOUT, long fall forward, interminable period way under water, scraping on coral, pop back up, swim to board, paddle, paddle, paddle....

    Exhausting.
    I haven’t surfed since 1971, because that’s the last time I was in Hawaii, therefore the last time I saw a wave worth the effort. A long wait. But I’ve waited my whole life for someone to give the speech Sen. McCain set out to give Thursday night. And, in stretches that practically made my heart stop — stretches where I thought, he’s going for broke, standing up, can he ride it all the way? — he actually gave it.
    Earlier in the week, I had thought I’d have to settle for Joe Lieberman's paean to post-partisanship, the best bits of which went over like a lead butterfly with that partisan crowd. Most of the week was just like the week before in Denver, the usual party pooge. Sarah Palin did a great job for a rookie her first time at bat, but hers was the usual veep role — take down the opposition.
    But in the hours leading up to the McCain speech, the word went out that he was going to try the thing that had not been tried before: to accept a major party’s nomination while simultaneously rejecting and opposing all the vicious nonsense that parties have stood for over the past 16 years. Just minutes before he started, I read on The New York Times Web site: “McCain Plans to Speak of Dedication to Bipartisanship.” He was going to try the thing that I had hoped Barack Obama would try the week before — but which, except for a few encouraging passages, he passed on, delivering a pretty standard crowd-pleasing acceptance in Denver.
    McCain was better positioned to attempt the unprecedented. Poor Obama had to please all those Clintonistas who hadn’t wanted him. McCain had greatly appeased those in his party who least wanted him with his choice of Gov. Palin, which freed him to reach out over the heads of the convention delegates to the rest of America.
    And for the first 26 minutes and 44 seconds, he delivered a speech that was all that I’d hoped for. “I don’t work for a party,” he said, and you knew he meant it.
    Then, just when you thought he had decided to give a speech that told all partisans where to get off, wipeout, he’d spend several moments underwater. But then he’d climb back up and gamely start paddling again.
    There were so many indelible impressions to be gained from that speech, but here are some of the highs and lows for me:

• He mentioned, as so many had before him (to the point of monotony), his reputation as a “maverick,” saying “Sometimes it’s meant as a compliment; sometimes it’s not.” That was a mild way to describe the central ironic tension of the moment. That hall was filled with people who had long despised him for going his own way, and now he was their nominee, and what could they do but grin and bear it?
• The passage about education was just embarrassing, a wipeout of stupendous proportions. In almost the same breath, he promised the ideologues who hate public schools their “choice” and then implied he’d improve public schools by renewing the teacher corps — attracting and rewarding the best, running off the worst. Let me give you two clues, John: First, the American taxpayer will never foot the bill for both turning around failing public schools and paying people to leave them; it’s one or the other. Second, Ronald Reagan had it right — the federal government has no business trying to run our schools.
• “Despite our differences, much more unites us than divides us. We are fellow Americans, and that’s an association that means more to me than any other.” No one could doubt that this man truly believed that. He has lived it.
• “His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government-run health care system where a bureaucrat... stands between you and your doctor.” Oh, spare me. The one thing wrong with what Obama wants to do on health care is that he doesn’t have the guts to say, “single-payer” — and nothing short of that will solve the problem. At about this point, I started thinking how Obama and McCain are a complementary pair: One can sound dangerously naive on foreign affairs, the other on domestic.
• The very best part was the part that could have gone very bad: talking about his own heroism. He made it a parable of why radical individualism is a dead end. “I thought I was tougher than anyone. I was pretty independent....” But God sent him misfortune as a gift. “I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even feed myself. They did it for me. I was beginning to learn the limits of my selfish independence.” And that’s when he truly learned to love his country.
• At other points he vacillated between the self-centered ideology that Obama has decried as “you’re on your own,” and assurances that he’d make “government start working for you again,” even extending New Dealish assistance to those workers displaced in the shifting global economy.

    On the whole a noble effort, but the occasional dunkings in waves of cold ideology left me worn out. I’m so glad these conventions are over. Maybe once they escape the suffocating embraces of their respective parties, both Obama and McCain can better remind me of why I wanted them to win those nominations to start with.
    McCain made a good start on that Thursday.

Go to thestate.com/bradsblog/.

Jim Nelson, S.C. House District 87

Sept. 4, 9:30 a.m. -- Our first endorsement interview of the 2008 general election cycle was Jim Nelson, a Democrat who's opposing Rep. Chip Huggins in this Irmo-Chapin district. This was the first time I'd met Mr. Nelson -- and come to think of it, when Mr. Huggins comes in it may be the first time I've met him (and I beg his forgiveness if I'm wrong about that), even though he's been in the House since 1999.

Mr. Nelson is an easy guy to get to know, an affable character of moderate temperament. Speaking of moderate, he was a Republican when he moved here from New York many moons ago, but was turned off by the insistence on some Kulturkampf-style resolutions at a party convention here. (When we asked for specifics, abortion was mentioned.) On another occasion, he saw an anti-tax protester at a polling place -- this was the early 90s, I believe he said -- and told him that in his opinion, he, Jim Nelson, didn't pay enough taxes here in South Carolina. (He still hasn't quite gotten over how low property taxes are here.) Around that time, he went to work for Bud Ferillo, who remarked that he couldn't be a Republican because they agreed on two many things. (One area of disagreement he chuckled over: Bud is convinced that desegregation launched the economic growth of the South in the 60s; Mr. Nelson insists it was air-conditioning.)

Evidently, Mr. Nelson and I don't agree on abortion, although he is not necessarily at odds with out editorial board on the subject. But we found many areas of agreement -- on his opposition to vouchers, his opposition to the tax swap for school funding from the property tax to sales taxes, his support of a cigarette tax increase and his support for the governor having wider responsibility for the executive branch. He contrasted his views on vouchers and the cigarette tax with what he said were those of Mr. Huggins, but that's all I know about that at this point.

He presents himself as a business-oriented pragmatist, who thinks South Carolina is undercutting itself by trying to do everything on the cheap: "In business, we would do it the cheap way first, and go back and do it again the right way," which he notes is wasteful. He believes this particularly applies to education. He said he told that tax protester that where he worked at the time (before Ferillo-Gregg), all the South Carolinians worked out on the loading dock. Why not, he posited, educate the S.C. kids properly so they can have the good-paying jobs "so you don't have to import people like me."

Mr. Nelson says that demographic changes in the district make it viable for a Democrat. We'll see.

Here's Mr. Nelson's campaign Web site.

TIME magazine features Anton Gunn

Just got a heads-up that Anton Gunn -- Democratic nominee for Bill Cotty's House seat, S.C. political director for Barack Obama -- has been featured in TIME magazine. A sample:

Anton Gunn is a first-time delegate to the Democratic National Convention from South Carolina, and he has never so much as watched a political convention on television before. Even Barack Obama's famous keynote address in 2004 didn't grab his attention (he sheepishly admits he still hasn't listened to it). In fact, until two years ago, when Gunn ran for a state house seat in Columbia and lost by 298 votes, he'd never been involved in electoral politics.

Obama's candidacy has brought a wave of new voters and volunteers into the Democratic Party, but even among them, Gunn, 35, stands out. In addition to being a Democratic delegate and a candidate once again for the state legislature, he now has a line on his political résumé few can match: political director for the Obama campaign in South Carolina, the state that more than any other launched the Illinois Senator's successful candidacy.

You know, I don't think I would have singled out Anton as one of those people brought into politics like Obama. I saw a number of such folks back in the state primaries, and some of them were real novices. Anton was relatively NEW to politics, but he was already in it before he met Obama. That doesn't take away from his achievement helping Obama win the primary, a job for which he was quite inexperienced.

I guess this sort of exposure is kind of hard to match if you're David Herndon, Mr. Gunn's opponent in November. Of course, it remains to be seen to what extent TIME magazine readers are a factor.

That Howie -- he just can't meet a deadline, can he?

Ross Shealy over at Barbecue and Politics has been busy compiling some interesting facts on some of the individual races in our recent state primaries.

Actually, it's just the same fact over and over, but it's an interesting one. Howard Rich -- that star of video, thanks to Katon Dawson -- funneled thousands of bucks to candidate after candidate, right AFTER the final deadline for pre-primary campaign finance reports. So did some other out-of-state voucher supporters.

By Ross' reckoning, Katrina (no relation) Shealy (to name one) got $97,000 in out-of-state funding, of which voters only had the chance to know about $5,000 before they voted.

Here's the result of Ross' labors with regard to Ms. Shealy. Here also is what he's put together on the following candidates:

• Priscilla Robinson, House District 66 (Gilda Cobb-Hunter's opponent)
• Sheri Few, House District 79
• Lee Bright, Senate District 12 (defeated Scott Talley)
• Wendy Nanney, House District 22
• Roger Nutt, House District 35
• Trey Whitehurst, House District 3
• Scott Singer, House 81
• Ken Roach, House District 34
• Deborah Long, House District 45
• Ed Rumsey, House District 2
• Curtis Brantley, District 122
• Dee Compton, Senate 10
• Raymond Russell, House 31
• Zina Manning, House 55

Our boy Ross has been busy. So has Howard Rich.

If you're one of Howie Rich's GOP targets, how do you feel about Katon Dawson right about now?

For a very short news item in today's paper, this one raised more than its share of questions and observations:

    The New Yorker pouring money into South Carolina’s political races in a push for school choice says he won’t give up anytime soon.

    “I am not going away, and my groups are not going away,” real estate investor Howard Rich says in a video released Thursday by South Carolinians for Responsible Government.

    The Rich-funded school choice group taped the conversation at the Columbia home of state Republican Party chairman Katon Dawson on Monday. The GOP has written into its platform support for school choice, vouchers and tax credits.

Of course, we all knew about what the first sentence says -- this is one New Yorker who doesn't give a flying flip what people in South Carolina think or want; he's determined to make us do what he wants. His way of doing that is to finance misleading campaigns ostensibly based on other issues, since his issue doesn't sell with the voters, until he gets enough people in the Legislature to back his boy Mark Sanford, and he can remake South Carolina to his liking.

As for the other two grafs:

• Does this sort of behavior remind you of anybody? You know, a guy with deep pockets, an extreme vision of how the world ought to be, and the willingness to go to extreme lengths to make it so? A guy you never see, except that periodically he puts out these videos through his faithful followers, and the message in the videos is along the lines of "I'm still alive, and still committed to the cause, and I'm not going away?" Isn't there somebody this reminds you of? Sheesh. Some of y'all were so sensitive about the link I put on that last sentence, that I cut it out, even though it was simply a straightforward link to what this video reminded me of. So I'll try the subtle approach, and ask YOU again: What does the above description remind YOU of? (Man -- if a guy can't do free-association type HTML links, what's the point in blogging?)
• This was taped at Katon Dawson's house, and with his willing participation? Katon, the chairman of the same party that most of Howard Rich's targets are in -- the very lawmakers he wants to take out -- is part of the Howard Rich conspiracy? If I'm one of a number of GOP officeholders this guy has paid for lying ads about, I've got a lot of questions to ask Katon right about now. I don't have a lot of respect for political parties anyway, but even I thought they didn't do stuff like this to each other. If you're chairman of a party that is split between Mark Sanford and Jim DeMint on one side, and Lindsey Graham and the majority of legislative incumbents on the other, in what way is it considered kosher to do something like this?
• Howard Rich was in town, and he didn't drop by to see me or even call? Kidding aside, there are a lot more straightforward ways to get your message out than funneling money through surrogate entities and taping subterranean videos. That is, if you are at all interested in open, honest political debate. Which some people aren't.
• How come I can't find the video on the SCRG Web site? Am I looking in the wrong places?

Jeanette McBride's underwhelming endorsement interview performance

Week before last, I posted video from our interview with the other local runoff candidate who should not have won but did -- Gwen Kennedy. If you'll recall, I said at the time that getting her to provide a rationale for her candidacy was "like pulling teeth."

Today -- a bit late to do any good, but then I wasn't able to accomplish much with Ms. Kennedy even though it was ahead of time -- I provide a similar clip of Jeanette McBride, who just ousted longtime Richland County Clerk of Court Barbara Scott. Here's what I had to say about that outcome in my Sunday column:

    In the primary on June 10, we endorsed incumbent Barbara Scott, since — and we saw no clear evidence to the contrary — she was doing an adequate job running the courthouse, collecting child support payments and overseeing the other routine duties of the office. She was judged clerk of the year by the S.C. chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates, which surely knows more about the quality of her day-to-day work than we do.

    Before making that decision, we considered endorsing Gloria Montgomery — who had worked in the clerk’s office for years and seems to understand it thoroughly (certainly better than we or most voters do) — or Kendall Corley, who offered some interesting ideas for improving service.

    But we never for a moment considered endorsing Jeanette McBride. That’s not because Mrs. McBride is married to former state Rep. Frank McBride, whose political career ended in 1991 when he pleaded guilty to vote-selling in the Lost Trust scandal. We didn’t consider her because she offered us no reason whatsoever to believe that she would do a better job than Ms. Scott. She didn’t even try. She did not display any particular interest in what the clerk of court does at all.

    She said, quite simply, that she was running because she thought she could win. She did not explain what went into that calculation, but so what? She was right.

    Her victory will inevitably be compared to the defeat of Harry Huntley — regarded by many as the best auditor in the state — in Richland County in 2006. And it will be suggested that both of these incumbents were the victims of raw racial politics. Mr. Huntley and Ms. Scott are white; Ms. McBride and Paul Brawley are black. A candidate who can pick up most of the black votes in a Democratic primary is increasingly seen as having an advantage in the county.

    I hope voters had a better reason than that for turning out qualified candidates in favor of challengers who seemed to offer no actual qualifications. In fact, I’m wracking my brain trying to think of other explanations. Ms. McBride, in her interview, didn’t help with that. And Mr. Brawley didn’t even bother to talk to The State’s editorial board, so I have no idea what sort of case he made to voters. I hope he made some really compelling, defensible argument. I just haven’t heard it yet.

Mrs. McBride was somewhat more forthcoming in her interview than Ms. Kennedy was, but still rather vague. She seemed to be going through the motions with fuzzy observations about the clerk's office having poor communication, or not being "inclusive" enough. One was left with the distinct impression that she was running, not because she had any clue how to run the courthouse better, but because she believed she could win. And of course, she was right.

Note how, at the end of the clip, she brightens considerably as she explains, with a contented shrug, that "I think the people will elect me." And that seemed to be what really motivated her.

Updating how our endorsees fared

Here's the final count on how candidates we endorsed did in the primaries, now that the runoffs are over. You'll recall that I wrote right after the primaries June 10 that, depending on how runoffs and recounts went, between 66 percent and 88 percent of our preferred candidates won their parties' nominations.

In the end, the official count is 19 out of 24, or 79 percent. As usual, here's my disclaimer: Endorsements are NOT predictions. They are about who SHOULD win, not who WILL win. But since there are critics out there who persist in saying erroneously that our endorsees tend to lose because we're "out of touch" with the voters, and because there are others out there who are merely idly curious, I've started doing these counts the last few elections years. So there you go.

Here's the recap:

WON -- We endorsed Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who won easily.
LOST -- We said Michael Cone was slightly preferable to Bob Conley. Conley won -- slightly.
WON -- GOP Rep. Joe Wilson. 
LOST --  We favored Democrat Blaine Lotz in the 2nd District, but he lost to the less experienced and less knowledgeable Rob Miller.
WON -- Democratic state Rep. John Scott seems to have squeaked by Vince Ford.
WON -- Democratic Sen. Darrell Jackson will keep his seat.
WON -- Asserting that the pro-voucher/anti-government groups that are trying to intimidate our Legislature would claim credit if so powerful an incumbent as GOP Sen. Jake Knotts were defeated, we reluctantly backed Jake for the first time ever.
WON -- Richland County Council Chairman Joe McEachern wins the Democratic nomination for the seat Mr. Scott is vacating (District 77).
WON -- Michael Koska was much more knowledgeable than his opponent for the Republican nomination in District 77.
WON -- Republican David Herndon survived his runoff.
WON -- Democratic Rep. Joe Neal’s (District 70) depth of knowledge in education and health care is impressive, to us and to the voters.
WON -- Democratic Rep. Jimmy Bales’ (District 80) work as a high school principal gave him the real-life understanding of the challenges of educating poor children that most legislators lack.
WON -- Democratic Rep. Chris Hart beat back an attempted comeback from the incumbent he beat last time in District 83.
LOST -- Republican Mike Miller seemed to us slightly preferable to the incumbent in District 96.
WON -- Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, a Democrat, won easily.
WON -- Ditto with Lexington County Sheriff James Metts.
WON -- Democratic incumbent Damon Jeter has the experience in Richland County Council District 3.
LOST -- This was a double loss -- first Johnny Bland in the primary, and then Kiba Anderson in the runoff. But it's a bigger loss for the voters in Richland CountyCouncil District 7.
WON -- Republican Val Hutchinson was the better candidate in Richland District 9.
WON -- In Richland District 10, Democrat Kelvin Washington will keep his mother-in-law's seat in the family.
LOST -- Richland County Democratic Clerk of Court Barbara Scott lost in the runoff to perhaps her LEAST qualified opponent.
WON -- Richland County Coroner Gary Watts (Democrat)
WON -- Lexington County Republican Auditor Chris Harmon
WON -- Lexington County Republican Clerk of Court Beth Carrigg.

Sanford? Jake? No Republicans here

One more thing I meant to say before this runoff was over, and AFTER the Sunday page was done sort of wish I'd written my Sunday column about...

There are few things more ridiculous than Mark Sanford and Jake Knotts arguing over who is NOT a "real Republican."

Folks, neither of them is. Jake certainly isn't. He is a populist, and will act in accordance with that philosophy, or non-philosophy, pretty much all the time. Once, that would have meant he would have been a Democrat. In recent decades, white populists in the South have flocked to the Republican party.

And Sanford? Come on. Do a poll of the real-life Republicans who serve in the State House -- in the aggregate, a pretty good cross-section of the party today -- and ask them if they think the governor's a "real Republican." They'll laugh in your face. And they probably haven't been privy to some of the gestures of contempt toward the party that he used to exhibit to me back when we were closer, I suppose because he knew the degree to which I held all parties in contempt. It was sort of a bond between us. Still is, I suppose. Here's one of those anecdotes, which I wrote about at the New York convention in 2004:

    I got a floor pass every night so I could mix with our delegates, but the truth is, the South Carolina delegation could hardly be said to be "on the floor." They were at the very back, up off the floor, where the risers begin their climb up to the nosebleed section - behind Vermont and Idaho, right next to that other crucial electoral factor, the Virgin Islands.
    "Obviously, what they've done is put the battleground states up front and personal," says Rep. Harrell from Charleston. He quickly adds, "I want to be clear, it is fine with all of us."
    Besides, "I'm closer to the floor than I am during Carolina basketball games." Which is saying something. I've seen where he sits.
    But on the big night, the night the president speaks, South Carolina was no longer in the cheap seats. In fact, now only New Mexico was between South Carolina and the president as he spoke. It was a choice spot, looking straight into the president's right ear from about 20 feet away. Any closer -- say, where New Mexico was sitting -- would be too close. You'd have to crane your neck too much.
    ...
    That night, Gov. Sanford was standing in the shoulder-to-shoulder aisle, quietly observing the process of whipping up enthusiasm before the acceptance speech. Suddenly he leaned over to me to say, in his usual casual tone, "I don't know if you've read that book, Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds . . .."

    It was a classic Sanford moment.

Folks, I know Republicans. I've known Republicans all my life. As my father has told me, the one thing he knew about HIS father's politics was that he was a Republican. One of his earliest memories is of Granddaddy Warthen arguing with the man down the street about FDR.

My Granddaddy wouldn't have recognized either of these guys as members of his party.

NOW DeMint's making things LESS clear

Remember last week when Jim DeMint took Mark Sanford's side in tomorrow's Senate 23 primary runoff, and I said that helped clarify things a bit on one of those endorsements that I couldn't possibly feel good about either way?

Well, forget the clarifying part. Now I learn from the Spartanburg paper that in this Upstate race, Jim's making like Lindsey Graham and supporting the Republican officeholder, rather than joining the gov in trying to do remake the state GOP in his (Sanford's) image:

     The District 12 race has been the most contentious over the past two weeks. Talley has hit Bright for receiving support from "out-of-state special interest groups" such as the S.C. Club for Growth and South Carolinians for Responsible Government and for having two tax liens -- one as yet unresolved -- placed against his business, On Time Transportation. Bright has painted Talley, a real estate attorney and the co-owner of three Marble Slab Creamery ice cream shops, as a trial lawyer.
    Both candidates have garnered some high-profile endorsements. U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint came to town Saturday to stump for Talley, while Gov. Mark Sanford gave his nod to Bright on Monday.
    Bright said he wants to go to Columbia to support Sanford's agenda. That agenda includes using taxpayer money for parents to send their children to private schools and a one-school-district-per-county system. Bright said the consolidation issue is one on which he disagrees with the governor.

Of course, if the gov didn't come out for this Bright guy until last Monday, that one is nowhere near as important to him as getting rid of Jake Knotts. Sometimes when you whack a guy, it's just business. Other times, it's personal, so you have to do it yourself, as Tony had to do with "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero, or Michael with Sollozzo and McCluskey. And you want to make really sure that your capos are with you.

In a way, that's what makes the Lexington County race so unusually interesting. It's SO personal for both Jake and the gov, and Republican capos have had to choose sides in a difficult war. And it's interesting for the rest of us to see how they line up.

What’s a ‘Good Old Boy’ to you?

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
MORE THAN THREE decades ago, I saw a “B” movie that was a sort of poor cousin to “In the Heat of the Night.” It was about a newly elected black sheriff in a racially divided Southern town, and the white former sheriff, played by George Kennedy, who reluctantly helps him.
    At a climactic moment when the two men seem to stand alone, a group of white toughs who had earlier given the sheriff a hard time show up to help. Their leader gruffly says that they’re doing it for the sake of the old white sheriff, explaining that, “You always was a good old boy.”
    Or something like that. Anyway, I recall it as the first time I heard the term “good old boy.”
    It got a good workout later, with the election of Billy Carter’s brother to the White House. But the first time I recall hearing it used prominently as a pejorative by a Southerner was when Carroll Campbell ran against the “good old boy system” in the 1980s.
    The usage was odd, a fusion of the amiable “good old boy” in the George Kennedy/Billy Carter sense on the one hand, and “Old Boy Network” on the other. The former suggests an uncultured, blue-collar, white Southerner, and the latter describes moneyed elites from Britain or the Northeast, alumni of such posh schools as Cambridge or Harvard. Despite that vagueness, or perhaps because of it, the term remains popular in S.C. politics.
    Which brings us to Jake Knotts, who represents District 23 in the S.C. Senate.
    Jake — pronounced “Jakie” by familiars — could have been the prototype for that George Kennedy character, had Hollywood been ready for something with a harder edge. He is a former Columbia city cop who by his own account sometimes got “rough.” He offers no details, but a glance at his hamlike hands provides sufficient grist for the imagination. According to a story said to be apocryphal, he once beat up Dick Harpootlian for mouthing off to him. (The mouthing-off part gives the tale credibility, and longevity.)
    After Jake was elected to public office, he further burnished his “rough” reputation with a legislating style seen as bullying by detractors, and tenacious by allies.
    This newspaper’s editorial board has always been a detractor. You see, we are high-minded adherents of the finest good-government ideals. Jake’s a populist, and populism is common, to use a Southern expression from way back. In our movie, we’re Atticus Finch to his Willie Stark. (See To Kill A Mockingbird and All the King’s Men.)
    We were against video poker; Jake was for it. We were against the state lottery; Jake was for it. We were for taking the Confederate flag off the State House dome; Jake was against it.
    We were for giving the governor more power over the executive branch; Jake was against it.
    In 2002, we endorsed a candidate for governor who agreed with us on restructuring, and didn’t seem like anybody’s notion of a good old boy. He styles himself as the antithesis of back-slapping, go-along-to-get-along pols, to the extent that he doesn’t go along or get along with anybody.
    That’s fine by the governor, because his style is to set forth an ideological principle, see it utterly rejected by his own party, and then run for re-election as the guy who took on the good old boys.
    Jake’s notion of the proper role of a lawmaker isn’t even legislative; it’s helping — he might say “hepping” — constituents on a personal level. This can range from the unsavory, such as helping out a voter charged with a crime, to the noble, such as paying out of his pocket for an annual skating party for kids who’ve gotten good grades.
    Jake’s slogan is “for the people,” as simple an evocation of populism as you will find. To him, the proper role of the elected representative is to make sure government “heps” regular folks rather than working against them.
    That means he will take a bull-headed stand against the concerted effort to undermine the one aspect of government that does the most to help regular folks — public schools.
    This brings us to what caused us to do something we thought we’d never do — endorse Jake Knotts, the sentinel of the common man who doesn’t give two figs for what we think the proper structure of government should be.
    We’re endorsing him because he stands against the Old Boy Network (see how different these terms are?) of wealthy out-of-state dilettantes who don’t believe in government hepping folks at all, and want to make our state a lab rabbit for their abstract ideology.
    We are not comfortable with this. We’ve had some terrific arguments about it on our editorial board. It was not one of your quick decisions, shall we say.
    Occasionally, when we have a really tough endorsement in front of us, I quietly call a knowledgeable source or two outside the board, people whose judgment I trust, to hear their arguments.
    On this one, I talked to three very different sources (one Democrat, two Republicans) who shared values that had in the past caused us to oppose Jake. All three said he had won their respect over time. All said he was a man you were glad to have on your side, and sorry to go up against. All three said that between Jake and his opponent who is backed by the governor and the Club for Growth and the rest of that crowd, they’d go with Jake.
    Not that they were proud of it. All three spoke off the record — one got me to say “off the record” three times. I complained about this with the last one, saying it was all very well for him to urge us off-the-record to endorse somebody on-the-record, and he said all right, he’d go public.
    It was Bob McAlister, Carroll Campbell’s chief of staff back in the late governor’s glory days of fighting “good old boys.”
    “I don’t agree with Jake on a lot of issues,” Mr. McAlister said, but “at least you don’t have to wonder where he stands on anything, because he’ll tell you.” In the end, “There’s a place in politics for his kind of independent thought.... I think Jake Knotts has served his constituents well.”
    In his own staid, doctrinaire-Republican kind of way, I think Bob was saying he thinks Jake is a good old boy.

What the Knotts endorsement is really about

On today's page, you saw our endorsement of Jake Knotts in the runoff in the Republican nomination in Senate District 23. You also saw Cindi Scoppe's column that was her way of thinking through, and explaining to readers, what was for the whole board a difficult decision. (And despite the little bit of fun I had about DeMint "clarifying" things, it was and is a difficult one.)

It's worth reading, if you only get one thing out of it: This isn't as simple as being about whether this person is for vouchers (or, worse, tax credits) or that one is against them. This is about what video poker was about -- whether a group that does not have the state's best interests at heart is allowed to intimidate the Legislature into doing its will.

It's easy to say that, but very hard to communicate to readers. It's hard to understand if you don't spend as much time as I have, and as Cindi has (and she has a lot more direct experience with this than I do) observing lawmakers up close, and watching the ways they interact, and the way issues play out among them. I know it's hard for readers to understand, because all these years later, folks still seem to have trouble understanding what the video poker issue was about for the editorial board, and why we took the position we ultimately did (to ban the industry).

I know we'll be explaining this one for the next 10 years, and possibly longer. It's just tough to communicate, and made tougher in this case because video poker was at least unsavory on its face. The face of this campaign funded by out-of-state extremists appears to be perfectly nice, ordinary people like Katrina Shealy and Sheri Few.

But it's not about them. And it's not about Jake Knotts, either. It's certainly not about whether one or two candidates who favor (or might favor) vouchers get elected to the Legislature. By themselves, those one or two candidates can't change the fact that spending public funds on private schools is (quite rightly) an unpopular cause. What this is about is the fact that if Jake Knotts loses, Howard Rich and company win, and that will play in the Legislature this way: Our money took Jake down. We can do the same to you. And at that point, lawmakers who don't believe in vouchers and know their constituents don't either can be induced to vote along with those interests anyway.

We saw it happen with video poker -- until the industry was put out of business, cutting off the flow of cash that was corrupting the legislative process. We're seeing a similar dynamic here. And that's what this is about.

Anyway, as I mentioned, Cindi had a column about that. On Sunday, I'll have a very different column about this endorsement. At one point in the column, I refer to one of the big differences between our editorial board and Jake Knotts -- his populism. So it is that I post the video below, which features Sen. Knotts talking about that.

DeMint helps clarify things

This has happened twice now, and it was helpful both times.

As is my usual pattern with these either-way-I'm-unhappy endorsements, I came in on the morning of June 4, the day the original Jake Knotts endorsement ran, with my usual now-it's-too-late sense of buyer's remorse. Not that I wished we'd endorsed Katrina Shealy (or Mike Sturkie), it was just one of those that I wasn't going to be happy any way you looked at it.

Fortunately, Gov. Mark Sanford came to the rescue, making me feel so much better, so much more confident that we did the right thing -- or as confident as I could be. We had said the governor was too fixated on getting rid of this guy -- meaning that if he succeeded, it would intimidate the whole Legislature -- that it was best to re-elect him. And right on cue, the governor stops everything, on the day before the end of the legislative session, to write an op-ed about why Jake's got to go. It was highly vindicating.

Then this morning, after we've gone through Round Two of the Jake wars here on the editorial board, and endorsed him again in the runoff (not doing so was actually on the table, yes), and I pick up my paper today wondering whether that really was necessary, and along comes Jim DeMint to the rescue.

Things are so much clearer now. Let's see:

• Jim DeMint is for Katrina Shealy. Jim DeMint was for Mitt Romney, right to the bitter end.
• Lindsey Graham is (by logical extension, at least) for Jake Knotts. Lindsey was for John McCain, all along, even in the darkest days. So was Jake Knotts.
• Mark Sanford, for whom there is no greater priority apparently than defeating Jake Knotts, was never for anybody but himself and the Club for Growth, his cheerleaders -- that is, not until John McCain had it sewn up, at which point he weighed in with an insulting, desultory, offhand "me, too."

This makes everything so much clearer. Oh yeah, in case you didn't know: We endorsed McCain in the GOP primary. That's one we were utterly sure of. And unlike the governor, we actually did so when the outcome was in doubt.

Like pulling teeth: Interviewing Gwen Kennedy

Trying to get Gwendolyn Davis Kennedy to provide a rationale for her Richland County Council candidacy was like pulling teeth. She basically could not provide any good reason why voters should elect her back to the body she left under a cloud a decade ago.

Ms. Kennedy is best remembered for a taxpayer-funded junket she and another council member took to Hawaii. And that's about it, really. To get further details, I had to search the database, and came up with this editorial from our editions of Dec. 8, 1997:

We should have known Richland County Councilwoman Gwendolyn Davis Kennedy wouldn't leave quietly after her failed re-election bid.
    At her last regular meeting, Mrs. Kennedy and three of her children were up for appointments to county boards or commissions. Surprised? You shouldn't be. This is the same councilwoman who took a $3,000 jaunt to Hawaii on county money to a conference for Western counties only to return with nothing constructive to share. Then, faced with a runoff bid she wouldn't win, she had a change of heart and admitted the trip wasn't a good idea.
    Mrs. Kennedy obviously is intent on having a lasting impact on Richland County by getting family members appointed to boards. Sadly, other council members didn't see the folly in it all and appointed two of Mrs. Kennedy's daughters to positions. Kim Kennedy and Fay Kennedy were appointed to the Music Festival Commission and the Building Board of Adjustment, respectively.
    The lame duck council, four of whom are on their way out, might have selected Mrs. Kennedy and her son, a Richland County sheriff's deputy, to a position had the two not withdrawn their nominations after they were challenged. Mrs. Kennedy had applied for a spot on the county Planning Commission and her son, Theodore Kennedy Jr., had applied for a position on the Building Board of Adjustment.
    This was an obvious attempt by Mrs. Kennedy to try to stack county boards with herself and her family members as she leaves the council. Council members should have known better and left all of these appointments to the next council.
    Shame on them all. It's these sort of shenanigans that have residents angry over the way the county is operated. The new Richland County Council, the membership of which will be completed in tomorrow's election, can't be seated soon enough.

The good news is that the new council was somewhat better. No trips to Hawaii, anyway.

But the truth is that bad candidacies are frequently marked by the lack of good qualities as much as bad ones. And the things that strikes me as I review video of our interview back in April with Ms. Kennedy is her utter inability to articulate why anyone should support her.

Please excuse the length of the above interview. I just included a lot of unedited footage (except for transitions between my camera's three-minute-maximum clips) so you could see -- if you were patient enough -- just how far you can go in giving a person every possible opportunity, without that person rising to it. It's tedious, but telling. In fact, some of you who are accustomed to the contrived theater of TV interviews will wonder, "Why were you so patient and easygoing with this woman?" The answer is that, contrary to what many of you believe, we really do try to go the extra mile to allow candidates a chance to make their case in their own way -- particularly the candidates who come in with apparently little chance of gaining our endorsement. Some candidates make the most of the opportunity, and are impressive -- an example of that would be Sheri Few, who didn't think we would endorse her but to her credit wasn't about to make that decision easy on us. Ms. Kennedy made the decision very, very easy.

Unfortunately, Ms. Kennedy managed to squeeze past a couple of more attractive candidates to make it into a runoff next week. One nice thing about runoffs -- it gives me time to present you with more info about the candidates that I was able to do during the crowded initial vote.

If you don't have the patience to make it through the long video above, here's a shorter and more interesting one. After having given her every opportunity to deal with her checkered past -- a simple, "I did wrong when I was in office before, and have learned my lesson" would have been good -- we finally had to confront her (politely, of course, that being Warren's style) about the incident that lost her the position on council.

Basically, once she was specifically asked about "The Trip," she tried lamely to deflect. She tried to allege that the controversy was over her husband going, and that wasn't at taxpayer expense. She noted that she's been to Hawaii a number of times, and only once at taxpayer expense -- as though that established anything other than the fact that she likes Hawaii. She tries to make us believe that she believes that if elected, we would falsely report that the European trip she's saving up for was on the taxpaper's dime.

But what am I doing describing it? Just watch the video.

Classy response to defeat

Candidates who lose elections seldom do this sort of thing, so when they do I am favorably impressed. After a fairly bitter campaign that featured mutual character attacks, it struck me that D.J. Carson was moved to send this out:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA ADVISORY

June 15, 2008
    D.J. Carson congratulates Joe McEachern and challenges South Carolina to continue to make public education a priority.…
    Richland Co. - I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Joe McEachern and offer my support to him and all Democrats running for office in November. Though the media has reported our differences on the issues the past three months, we now must come together as a party, a community, and continue to find solutions to the many challenges facing District 77 and South Carolina overall.
    When I started this journey nearly three months ago, I did so on the foundation that our public schools are the single most important factor to making South Carolina a more successful and more productive state. I truly believe there is a direct link between public education, low crime, and economic development. I am pleased to see that through this campaign private school vouchers, tuition tax credits, and home-school tax credits and their negative impact on public education came to the forefront.  These types of misguided solutions would take valuable resources away from our public schools and put our children at a disadvantage. I along with all residents in District 77 challenge Mr. McEachern and the South Carolina General Assembly to champion public schools and public education over the next two years.
    Finally, I offer my sincere appreciation to the educators, parents, volunteers, campaign staff, and most importantly the voters who believe in my message and vision. Though we came short in our ultimate goal, we were able to push the message of supporting public education to the center of the debate. Working together we will bring needed change to District 77 and South Carolina as a whole.

Thank you all and God Bless!

D.J. Carson

Yeah, I know -- you can call it just crass "party loyalty" or some such (he doesn't wish any Republicans or independents well, you'll notice), or a CYA move to keep his political options open in the future, or both. And yeah, it's kind of preachy for a congratulatory message.

But when a guy does something more generous than I expected, I tend to want to make note of it. If we don't encourage good sportsmanship, we can expect it to die out completely.

Nowadays, there are so few classy gestures that I care less about why they are extended; I'm just glad to see them.

Hey, Lindsey, if you thought THAT guy was a nativist, wait until the fall

We knew Buddy Witherspoon had his problems with people who are different coming into the country. Yeah, yeah, he said the usual stuff latter-day nativists say, about how it's just because they broke the law, but he was pretty frank that he was worried these folks would "weaken our common culture and national identity." And we know about his past associations.

But hey, at least ol' Buddy did limit himself to the illegals. Here's what Bob Conley, whose thin vote margin over Michael Cone for the Democratic nomination to this very same Senate seat will likely trigger a recount, has to say on his Web site:

The legal importation of foreign workers is also driving down wages, and placing Americans in unemployment lines. This is wrong, and must end.

He elaborated on this in our interview. He complained in particular about foreign engineers coming into the country, making it hard for American engineers to get jobs. Mr. Conley describes himself as "a Commercial Pilot and a Flight Instructor as well as a licensed Professional Engineer," so apparently he knows about these things.

Rob Miller's victory speech

Sorry I haven't had time to blog today, folks. Not much to say -- or at least, nothing that needs to be said immediately -- about the primary results. The overwhelming majority of our endorsees did well, I see. More about that later.

Right now, I'm playing hooky from a meeting (Bob Coble and Charles Austin are talking about Columbia city budget matters with Warren Bolton in our board room) to try to catch up on all sorts of neglected work, such as reading the live page proofs that I have to have to Mike in 18 minutes.

This is e-mail I got last night, and am just now seeing. I can't stop to read it, but I'm sure it will be of interest:

June 10, 2008
News Release – For Immediate Release

Rob Miller's Victory Speech

Victory Speech:
First, let me thank everyone who helped us win our first battle for change tonight, especially my wife Shane and my son Robert.
    Blaine Lotz called me a few minutes ago.  Blain is a good man, and he ran a good campaign.
    Three-and-a-half months ago, I was a Captain in the US Marine Corps.  On February 16, we began our campaign for change.
    Tonight we celebrate this win, but tomorrow the real battle to change Washington begins. 
    The incumbent is a proud card-carrying member of the status quo. He’s been in Washington for years voting for ballooning deficits and out-of-control spending. He took money from and had fundraisers with corrupt and dishonest politicians like Tom DeLay, who he still says is a man of integrity.  Joe Wilson has been in Washington too long. He doesn’t believe in change and is out of touch with the people he is supposed to represent.
    This campaign, our campaign, is all about change. Unlike the incumbent, we understand that times are tough.
    We’ll work for change by developing a sensible exit strategy for Iraq and reinvest those resources here at home to rebuild our infrastructure because we need good jobs, we need safer neighborhoods, and we need more affordable health care here in South Carolina.
    We’ll work for change by pushing Congress to do more to develop alternative forms of energy so we can say goodbye forever gas that’s to $4.00 a gallon.
    We’ll work for change by making the politicians in Washington balance the budget. Families all over South Carolina live within their means and it’s time for Congress to do the same.
    The forces of the Status quo will not stand down without a fight. But, after serving  13 years in the Marine Corps, to include twice in Iraq, I’ve never been afraid of a good fight.
    I understand I can’t win this by myself; I need all of you fighting with me.
    Go to my web site at RobMillerForCongress.com and join our battle for change.
    The battle for change begins tomorrow.
    Thank you.

Noticing the last line, I should point out: "Tomorrow" would be "today" now, since this was sent last night.

Did you go vote? Less than 90 minutes left

Go vote, people. In all too many of these races, the primary is all there is; this is the election.

If you forget what you're voting on, here's the recap of our endorsements, and a link to the endorsements themselves. Whether this helps you remember who you wanted to vote for or wanted to vote against, just go vote.

Here's the brief endorsement recap from today's paper:

The State’s
endorsements
IT’S PRIMARY DAY — the only chance voters will get to pick who represents them in many offices. Here’s a recap of The State editorial board’s endorsements:
-- Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, the quintessential conservative Republican, is an erudite advocate of reason and sound policy, taking courageous stands that make him a leader in the Senate. Michael Cone appears to be the stronger of two weak Democratic candidates for the same office.
-- GOP Rep. Joe Wilson is dedicated to the service of the 2nd Congressional District, and his views come closer than his opponent’s to those of his constituents.
    Democrat Blaine Lotz, also seeking the 2nd District seat, is an Air Force veteran and former assistant secretary of defense, and well grounded in both foreign and domestic issues.
-- Democratic state Rep. John Scott and his opponent have similar positions, and electing his opponent to succeed Sen. Kay Patterson in District 19 would seem like a reward for the unacceptable state of the Richland 1 schools he has overseen for 16 years.
-- Democratic Sen. Darrell Jackson (District 21) understands our state’s challenges and is focused on fixing the way we fund education, and improving public health and financial literacy. He has a good track record of working across party lines to get things done.
-- The pro-voucher/anti-government groups that are trying to intimidate our Legislature would claim credit if so powerful an incumbent as GOP Sen. Jake Knotts (District 23) was defeated, strengthening their hand in a battle that goes far beyond their immediate issues.
-- Richland County Council Chairman Joe McEachern, a Democrat running to succeed Mr. Scott in House District 77, would work to free local governments from the constraints of meddling legislators, overhaul the broken tax system, restructure state government and provide a good public education for all children.
    Michael Koska’s campaign for the Republican nomination in District 77 grows out of his grassroots involvement in local transportation issues. He would be more effective than his off-putting opponent.
-- Republican David Herndon seeks to replace Rep. Bill Cotty in District 79 to make sure an avid voucher proponent doesn’t win. He is committed to improving the public schools, in part to strengthen the economy, and he’s fairly knowledgeable about tax policy.
-- Democratic Rep. Joe Neal’s (District 70) depth of knowledge in education and health care is impressive, and he fights effectively for equal educational opportunity for children regardless of their address, to force attention to the medical needs of those too sick to care for themselves and to promote civil justice.
-- Democratic Rep. Jimmy Bales’ (District 80) work as a high school principal gave him the real-life understanding of the challenges of educating poor children that most legislators lack; and he appreciates the need to overhaul our tax system and to give the governor more control over state agencies.
-- Democratic Rep. Chris Hart (District 83) is focused on the big picture that his challenger shows little interest in, and he is committed to creating a stronger public education system to help transform our state.
-- Republican Mike Miller understands our state’s problems, wants to bring more services to District 96 rather than more parades and seems more supportive of improving public schools than the incumbent.
-- Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, a Democrat, established a cutting-edge DNA testing lab, has been in the forefront in the battle against gangs and engages citizens through his innovative community advisory board and community policing programs.
-- Lexington County Sheriff James Metts, a Republican, is an accomplished, experienced law enforcement officer who has implemented groundbreaking programs.
-- Democratic incumbent Damon Jeter has the experience and broader focus to make him the better choice in Richland County Council District 3.
-- Democrat Johnny Bland has been active in the community and area schools and outshines his opponents in Richland Council District 7.
-- Republican Val Hutchinson, running for re-election in Richland District 9, is an effective leader who has promoted good growth, called on developers to help provide infrastructure, opposed the proliferation of billboards and objected to an unneeded baseball park.
-- In Richland District 10, Democrat Kelvin Washington has a firm grasp of issues, understands how county government works and would hit the ground running.
    There’s no good reason to elect ministerial positions with no policy-making duties. With competence as the only relevant question, we see no reason to fire any of these incumbents on the ballot today: Richland County Democratic Clerk of Court Barbara Scott and Coroner Gary Watts, and Lexington County Republican Auditor Chris Harmon and Clerk of Court Beth Carrigg.

Modest hoopla

This is a subtle thing, but I'll share it anyway.

I couldn't help noticing something that this release from Buddy Witherspoon...

Buddy Witherspoon for U.S. Senate
www.BuddyWitherspoon.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  -  June 9th, 2008

The Buddy Witherspoon for U.S. Senate campaign will be hosting an Election Night gathering on June 10th at 7pm.  The event will be held at Sticky Fingers, which is located at 380 Columbiana Blvd., (near Columbiana Mall) Columbia, SC.  Buddy's supporters and the media are welcome to attend.
            ###

... and this one from Rob Miller...

June 9, 2008
Media Advisory

Rob Miller to Address Supporters Tuesday Night
Rob Miller, Democratic candidate for Congress in the Second Congressional District of South Carolina, will address supporters Tuesday night in Columbia at his campaign's Primary night celebration.

Miller for Congress Primary Night Celebration
June 10, 2008 - 7:00 PM
The Inn at USC - 1619 Pendleton Street, Columbia (Palmetto Room)
            ###

... had in common. Namely, neither is claiming that this will be a victory celebration, as so many campaigns tend to do.

In Mr. Witherspoon's case, the lack of hubris is well advised. In the other case, I've had the impression that Rob Miller had a pretty good shot at his party's nomination in the 2nd congressional district. His opponent might have rank on him, but I don't think that gives him the advantage. We'll see, though.

Our last interview: Phil Black, who's challenging Joe Wilson

OK, technically this wasn't our last interview, but it is that last one from which I have video. As we neared the end (I lost count somewhere around 45 interviews, but there weren't more than a handful after that), we had to do some of them (Buddy Witherspoon, Joe Wilson and Bob Conley) by phone.

You may not have heard much about Phil Black, who's running against Joe Wilson in the 2nd congressional district. He's not one of your big-budget candidates, and by his own account he's pretty much been treated like "a red-headed stepchild" at party functions.

But I think you'll like him. I did, when I met him Tuesday. I particularly liked his willingness to think outside his party's box. He's a single-payer health care guy, like me, and he actually has an intriguingly creative idea on how to deal with illegal immigration.

So, Doug Ross will say, why didn't you endorse him? Why did you go with the incumbent, yet again? Doug won't like my answer, which is this: Yep, I really liked Mr. Black. But I've never seen him hold public office (he's serve on two school boards, but I wasn't aware of it at the time), so I've had no opportunity to observe from experience whether he would really be the smart, down-to-earth regular guy he seems to be, or whether he just makes a good first impression.

With Joe Wilson, you know what you're going to get. And there's great truth in what Mr. Black says about him: "Joe Wilson is a fine individual, (but) Joe Wilson is a career politician."

But I'm just not prepared to send a guy as far away as Washington when I've never had a chance to observe him on the job.

See, Doug? I told you you wouldn't like it. Anyway, watch the video. Get to know Phil. Joe you know already. Make up your own mind.

SCRG's arch-nemesis

Have you heard about the group that Bill Cotty is heading up to take on Howard Rich, SCRG et al.?  Somehow, I had not focused on it until I saw this piece in the Spartanburg paper.

It's called "South Carolinians for Truth and Disclosure." The Spartanburg story left off the "disclosure" part, and yet that seems to be the main point of the exercise. Here's the group's raison d'être:

South Carolinians for Truth [hey, they left it off, too!] is a grassroots organization whose purpose is to advocate for the reform of South Carolina’s current campaign finance laws. We demand new laws requiring issue advocacy groups that mention an elected official or candidate by name to follow the same laws of disclosure that candidates and party organizations are required to follow.

We are a watchdog group working to set the record straight when organizations misrepresent the truth.

What does that mean? Well, what I think it means is that organizations spending money to influence your vote should tell us where their money comes from. What is the organization most associated with not wanting to tell us where their money comes from? SCRG.

SCRG likes to holler that we're trying to take away its First Amendment rights when we say it should disclose. This, of course, is a load of horse manure. We think SCRG should disclose, and we also agree with SCRG when it says the S.C. School Boards Association should disclose. Goose, meet gander.

S.C. TAD (I see that our friend Tim wrote about them and referred to them merely as "TAD" on second reference) seems like some good folks, with a good purpose. But I'm not endorsing them, on general principles. I have too much of a sense of irony. When I see a clickable tab on the TAD home page that says "The Truth About Third-Party Groups," I can't help thinking, Aren't you a third-party group?

But I don't mean to play moral relativity games here. Is there a difference? Sure. The "third-party groups" being criticized here are financed by sneaky, out-of-state residents of the ideological fringe who are offended by the very idea of public schools. This newer group consists (as near as I can tell) of South Carolinians who want to maintain and improve public schools (that's certainly what Bill Cotty has always tried to do), and don't want them done in by misleading campaigns by outsiders.

So there are third-party groups and third-party groups. I just didn't want you to think I missed the irony.

Oh, and speaking of our blog friends, several are involved with the items I linked to above. You'll see Earl Capps is working with Mr. Cotty. And in the Spartanburg story, you'll see a less-than-complimentary reference to our friend Joshua Gross.

And of course, let's not forget Ross Shealy, author of the recently-revived (just in time for the primaries) "BBQ and Politics." More about that in a separate post, if I can get to it today...

Supreme Court justice calls Sanford groups 'the new face of the Klan'

First we had the Knotts endorsement -- which was about, as much as anything, whether we would stand by while the governor and the outside groups that support him would be able to take out a guy at the top of their hit list.

Then, we had the governor's response to the endorsement -- which, in case you missed it, made our point for us. Here you have the governor of our state stopping everything on the day before the end of the legislative session to write an attack on a single lawmaker. Extraordinary piece, really.

Now, I see that S.C. Supreme Court Justice Don Beatty saying some way harsh things about the groups that are the governor's main cheering section:

Beatty: Third-party groups are 'new face of the Klan'
    State Supreme Court Justice Don Beatty said Wednesday that third-party groups using him as the "poster boy" to attack candidates across South Carolina are the "new face of the Klan."
    Beatty accused organizations such as the S.C. Club for Growth, South Carolinians for Responsible Government and Conservatives in Action of distorting his record as a legislator in the 1990s to scare voters away from candidates they oppose. He said they've never cited any of the decisions he's handed down in more than 12 years on the bench that would support their claims that he's a liberal judge.
    "It makes me wonder what their real reason is for attacking me," Beatty said. "It's because I'm an easy target, and they can use code words and my black face to appeal to voters that they might be able to enrage against legislators that supported me…These people give conservatives a bad name. I've heard them referred to on more than one occasion as the new face of the (Ku Klux) Klan. I'm almost about to believe that."

The piece goes on in that vein. I thought y'all might be interested.

More of what I've really been doing

Just so you know that I've been doing some actual work on these days that I've been tossing out pretty lightweight posts in a desperate effort to keep y'all interested, I'll point first to our endorsements page, and then give you another quick gallery of pictures from the endless interview...

The pictures that follow are, respectively:

• Rob Miller, Democrat, candidate for the 2nd Congressional District (Tuesday, May 27, 1 p.m.)
• Blaine Lotz, also a Democrat, also a candidate for the 2nd Congressional District (Wednesday, May 28, 11 a.m.)
• Jeanette McBride, candidate for Richland County clerk of court (Wednesday, May 28, 1 p.m.)
• Lexington County Sheriff James Metts (Friday, May 30, 10:30 a.m.)
• Phil Black, Republican candidate for the 2nd Congressional District (Tuesday, June 3, 3:30 p.m.)

And we have a couple or three or four more coming...

Here are the pics...

Super Gilda

You probably read in The State today about Gilda Cobb-Hunter being increasingly lonesome as an uncommitted superdelegate, now that Jim Clyburn and others have finally declared for Obama.

Here's some more about Gilda from The Washington Post. The story elaborates upon the miseries of the situation:

    The novelty of famous suitors and media interviews long ago eroded into exhaustion, and now state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter of South Carolina is just plain sick of all this. An undecided superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention in August, she opens her e-mail inbox each morning and deletes a handful of threatening notes sent by strangers. Campaign followers call her incessantly. She struggles to find time to run her own campaign for reelection...

Gilda could have spared herself a lot of aggravation if she had just declared back in October for the "Democrat" with whom she is pictured above (the one who gets all his South Carolina news from Brad Warthen's Blog). By the way, I was supposed to send Gilda a copy of the above photo and forgot. Sorry, Gilda -- I've been busy. Would you still like me to e-mail it?

And oops, here's another one...

'Dear SCRG:' Herndon explains himself on vouchers

Now I have received a copy of a response that David Herndon has sent to SCRG's response to his complaint. If you had trouble following what I just said, go back and read this, then come back here and read the following:

Dear SCRG:

Thank you for you response. Please mark me as "oppose both" on question six.

We do not remember my campaign putting the "x" where we apparently did, but if we did do so it was a mistake.

Truthfully, a campaign assistant answered your questionnaire... and I do not know if it was our mistake or the awkward wording on your part that led us to "x" the wrong box.

Hopefully, I have been very clear about my support for public education, and my opposition to vouchers, from the very beginning. In fact, my strong support for education and my opposition to vouchers was a centerpiece of my campaign long before you sent your questionnaire. (It is also worth noting that part of the reason I am running is to give voters a pro-education alternative to your voucher candidate.)

David Herndon

Interesting exchange in District 79

Randy Page of SCRG shared with me his response to an e-mail from David Herndon, whom we recently endorsed over Sheri Few for the GOP nomination in House Dist. 79.

First, the letter he says he got from Mr. Herndon:

To: SCRG
From: David Herndon, Republican for House District 79

Dear sirs,

As you are aware, I am a Republican candidate for the S.C. House of Representatives. I am writing because I am concerned about your involvement in not just this race, but many others across the state as well.

It has been brought to my attention that your special-interest organization has sent out many mailings in many Legislative races in South Carolina. Some of these postcards simply promote candidates, but others are “attack pieces” which aim to discredit Republican office-holders who support public education.

While state law certainly allows special interest groups to endorse whomever you wish, these mailings leave many unanswered questions. First, and most importantly, nowhere in any of these mailings -- at least the ones I am aware of -- do you disclose the true motives of your group.

It is my understanding the purpose of your organization is to advocate private school vouchers. Strangely, neither your advocacy of vouchers nor your preferred candidates’ support for vouchers is mentioned in any of your mailings.

As a public school parent, I strongly support public education, and I believe your private-school voucher scheme would only drain needed funding away from public school classrooms. However, I view this as an honest difference of opinion, and I certainly believe it is important for elected Representatives to find a common ground with those of other viewpoints. What I do have a problem with is that your organization is not disclosing your true motives. I feel this amounts to misleading voters.

Last month, I wrote to my opponent, Mrs. Few, to express my concern about your involvement in this race. My concerns were based on your previous track record of running negative, deceptive campaigns against Republican office-holders who support education; your attempts to disguise your true motives; and published reports that say much, if not a majority, of your funding comes from out-of-state. (In my opinion, your negative campaign against Bill Cotty in 2006 was perhaps the most negative our community has ever been subjected to.)

My letter still has received no response, so I decided to contact your organization directly.

I am writing you with this public challenge: In the rest of your mailings this election cycle, please level with the voters about your true motive -- the privatization of education. The voters deserve honesty. And after all, your group calls itself “South Carolinians for Responsible Government.” I would think the hallmark of anyone claiming to advocate “responsible government” would see the value in being as honest and up front as possible with the voters.

So what do you say, SCRG? Do the voters not deserve to be told the truth about your group’s purpose as you fill up their mailboxes with attack pieces, pictures of pigs and postcards about conservative judges?

I look forward to your response, and I hope you will answer this challenge. The voters deserve as much.

Thank you,

David Herndon

Then, Randy's response:

Dear Mr. Herndon,

Thank you for your email.  I appreciate you taking the time to contact South Carolinians for Responsible Government. 

Through mail, radio and Internet, we have been very clear about our objectives.  In fact, you can read about it on our website at http://www.scrgov.org/content.asp?name=Site&catID=8110&parentID=8088      We have long advocated the need for lower taxes, government restructuring, conservative judges and for tuition tax credits.

In my view, citizens don’t need to be wary of a conservative organization that advocates for better schools, lower taxes and streamlining government, but rather someone, like yourself, who one day professes a particular set of beliefs, but then decides – perhaps on the advice of a slick political consultant – that he’s changed his position.  What else could describe your sudden about face on the issue of school choice? 

In the survey that you signed and submitted to us on April 18^th, you clearly checked that you supported both a scholarship granting organization and a voucher system.  I’m sure this will come as a complete surprise to the editors of The State. If you don’t remember, I’ve included a copy of it for you – as well as the members of the media that were copied on this message.

Sincerely,

Randy Page, President

South Carolinians for Responsible Government

I guess it's a good thing that, as I said in my Sunday column, it was her position on the cigarette tax that made me decide against endorsing Sheri Few.

The ‘tyranny’ of having to choose

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
OVER THE last 10 days, we’ve started running our endorsements of candidates for state and local offices in the June 10 primaries.
    Our choices are the end result of a process based in years, even decades, of observation of the issues and institutions involved — and in some case, long exposure to the candidates. The most visible and obvious part of the process is the candidate interview (we’ve done 41 so far). But the process doesn’t start, and usually doesn’t end, with that ritual.
    Sometimes, our editorial board will produce a ringing, enthusiastic endorsement of one candidate over his or her competition. Examples of that are the ones favoring John McCain and Barack Obama in their respective primaries back in January.
    Such clear, unequivocal choices are rare. Far more often, we’ll pick our way through a thicket of pros and cons.
    But we always try to choose in the end. That’s because one of these candidates is going to occupy the office, and that matters. It affects your life. It determines the laws you will live under, how those laws are enforced, and the taxes you will pay. On rare occasion in years past we have thrown up our hands and said “We can’t in good conscience endorse either of these candidates.” But that is a cop-out and a disservice to readers, and I regard each time it has happened as a failure.
    In fact, I suspect that the most difficult and uncomfortable endorsements are sometimes the most valuable, because you can see us wrestling more strenuously than usual with the very issues you must consider as the voter, whether you agree with where we end up or not.
    Consider this excerpt from our endorsement of Rep. John Scott last week for the Senate seat being vacated by Kay Patterson (his opponent is Vince Ford, longtime Richland 1 school board member):

    Mr. Scott is the fighter, the man with a chip on his shoulder who, although he understands the big picture, often gravitates to smaller matters. Mr. Ford is the consensus-builder, smooth and polished and focused on the big picture.
    Normally, with such similar positions on policy, the better choice for the gentleman’s club that is the state Senate would be the candidate with Mr. Ford’s profile....

    But in the end, there is probably no greater unresolved challenge in the Midlands than the failure of our largest school district to overcome its problems. If we endorsed Mr. Ford for higher office, at what point would we hold anyone accountable for the turmoil, confusion and failures of the district?
    We wouldn’t have been comfortable either way. But we made a choice, and we stated why; make of it what you will.
    To contradict a widely held assumption, endorsements aren’t about whom we like personally. If that were the case, we’d have endorsed Sheri Few for the Republican nomination to replace Rep. Bill Cotty in House District 79. She’s smart, energetic, personable, and understands how the Legislature works.
    She came in with a deficit on our scorecard — her vehement advocacy for vouchers and/or tax credits for private school tuition. That made the choice easy two years ago, when she ran against Mr. Cotty — one of the most dedicated and effective supporters of public education in the Republican caucus.
    But as important as that issue is, it doesn’t automatically trump everything. And during our interview this time, I found myself mentally building a case for endorsing Ms. Few. But then, she brought up the cigarette tax, in order to make sure we knew she would never increase it, even in order to lower another tax. The good that a higher cigarette tax would do, in terms of fewer teens hooked on tobacco, did not move her. Her dedication to the ideology of never, ever raising a tax under any circumstances reminded me of how shockingly rigid she is. I was reminded of something I had written on my blog after we met her in 2006, that “she clings firmly to ideology, even when it doesn’t seem to fit her own experience....”
    She has many traits that would make her an effective lawmaker. But effectiveness in the service of an ideology more extreme than that held by Gov. Mark Sanford would not be a good thing. So we endorsed the less experienced, less savvy David Herndon, who was motivated to run by his wish to stand against some of the worst things Ms. Few stands for.
    Other difficult choices lie ahead. We haven’t decided yet what to do in Senate District 23. There, the leading candidates are Jake Knotts, a populist with quite a few, shall we say, rough edges, and the much smoother, more conventional Republican Katrina Shealy, whom powerful interests are backing in an effort to take out Mr. Knotts for the sin of having made an enemy of our governor.
    That one won’t be easy. It’s the kind of choice that causes me to have to remind myself that we are blessed to have choices. As tough as some of them are for us — and more to the point, for you as the voter — the “tyranny” of having to choose is far better than the real tyranny of not having a choice.
    And please, don’t you cop out. Read our endorsements — and read the rest of the paper, and the mailings you get from the candidates. Go to candidate forums; debate the options with your neighbors. And then, whatever your decision, go out and apply it on June 10. Because in each and every case, one of these folks is going to win that office, and will be calling the shots for all of us until the next election.

Where to find our endorsements

At the start of this year, when we were about to do our endorsements in the S.C. presidential primaries, I asked the folks downstairs at thestate.com to set us up a page where our current endorsements would reside. As long as we remember to do the right coding on the editorials as we run them, they go to this page, and stay.

It just occurred to me tonight, now that we've run a few endorsements in the June 10 primary, to check to see if it's working. And it is. Here's the link.

That is, it's mostly working. For some reason a couple of months back, the pictures that were set up to run with the McCain and Obama endorsements disappeared from the files. I went in and, using my limited understanding of the inner workings of thestate.com, managed to restore the McCain one, but the Obama picture defied my efforts to remove the recently passed expiration date.

I think I might go in and try again on that...