Brad Warthen's Blog

Senate Dist. 21: A 'debate' between Wendy Brawley and Sen. Darrell Jackson over his position on school 'choice'

This is one of my better little videos from endorsement interviews lately.

Wendy Brawley of Richland One school board, who is challenging Sen. Darrell Jackson for the Democratic nomination in Dist. 21, is going after the incumbent hard, and has a bill of particulars as to how she believes he's looked after his own business more than the people's. An example: Her accusation that he favors private school vouchers.

Sen. Jackson argues back strongly, point by point. I think it's a video worth watching, especially if you live in that lower-Richland and Calhoun County district.

Low-def license plates

What do y'all think of those flat, fakey, counterfeit-looking S.C. license plates -- not that I'm trying to influence your decision or anything.

The first few times I saw one, I thought, "Wait a minute..." and went out of my way to pass the cars bearing them, so as to look at them from the side and confirm the fact that the things are completely two-dimensional, and do indeed look like something somebody ran off on a $29.95 inkjet printer -- you know, one of those they sell you because the replacement cartridges cost more than the machine itself.

Out of sheer self-respect, a convict might ask the parole board NOT to release him if he thought people out on the street might think he had anything to do with producing anything so sorry-looking.

Or maybe I'm overreacting. What do you think?

How they voted on the cigarette tax

Here's the Senate vote to pass H.3567, which increases cigarette taxes by 50 cents per pack, with half the revenue going to expand Medicaid coverage, and half to give tax credits to low-income workers to help them purchase medical insurance.

Passage of the bill (H.3567):
Ayes 33; Nays 11; Abstain 1

AYES
Alexander          Anderson               Ceips
Cleary               Cromer                  Drummond
Elliott                Fair                       Ford
Gregory             Hayes                    Hutto
Jackson             Knotts                   Land *
Leatherman       Leventis                Lourie
Malloy               Martin                   Matthews
McGill                O'Dell                    Patterson *
Pinckney            Rankin                  Reese
Scott                 Setzler                  Sheheen *
Short                 Thoma                  Williams
Total--33

NAYS
Campsen            Courson                Grooms
Hawkins             Massey                 McConnell
Peeler                Ritchie                  Ryberg
Vaughn               Verdin
Total--11

ABSTAIN
Bryant
Total--1

*These Senators were not present in the Chamber at the time the vote was taken and the votes were recorded by leave of the Senate, with unanimous consent.

Cindi, whom we can thank for looking up the above while I was in yet another candidate interview, says other votes that might interest you would include:
1. Amendment P-1, to raise the cigarette tax by $1; tabled 31-13
2. Amendment P-4a, remove the provision that automatically increases the tax each year by the rate of medical inflation. The Senate refused to table that amendment 24-18, and then passed it on a voice vote. Senators who voted "aye" voted to eliminate the inflation index.
    These votes can be found in the Senate Journals of May 7 (P-1) and May 8 (P-4a). Go to http://www.scstatehouse.net/html-pages/sjournal.htm to find the Journals, and then search for the amendments.)

The Obama Effect: Democrats' chances in the S.C. House

Here's a video I prepared for publication on the Saturday Opinion Extra page for this week. It's from an endorsement interview with Rep. Jimmy Bales, who's being challenged in the Democratic primary for District 80 by Stanley Robinson.

Mr. Bales mentioned in passing in the first minute or so of the interview that he hoped Democrats would pick up a few seats in the S.C. House this year. Not quite hearing him, I asked a little later whether he had said he thought Dems might regain a majority.

Actually, he did think there was an outside possibility of that, but mainly he was hoping his party would find itself in a better tactical position with a few more seats. He mentions some districts in particular where he thought Democrats might prevail.

Here's the kicker -- he's pinning his hopes on Barack Obama. This is a theme I've been running into, in various forms, in these interviews so far. The Obama Effect ranges from motivating folks who were previously uninterested in politics to run. And it prompts Mr. Bales to hope to get closer to 58 Democrats in the House, from the present 51. This depends, of course, on Mr. Obama being the nominee -- as does so much else.

The Democratic Presidential Primary back in January created a lot of excitement, and we're still seeing the effects.

A little bit of inside baseball: On the video, you'll hear Cindi jumping in to make sure I have it right, and won't go hog-wild on the "Democratic Majority" theme. She has nothing to worry about; I'm a professional.

Free Thomas Ravenel

Did I get your attention? I expect I did. Well, calm down. I'm not here to praise Thomas Ravenel, or defend him.

But I am here to raise the question: Why do we want to pay to feed, clothe and house him for the next 10 months?

This brings me to the larger question -- one of the biggest facing the state of South Carolina, in fact: Why do we want to imprison nonviolent offenders? Sure, we may do it cheaper than any other state in the union, but even then it's a huge waste of resources that could be better spent. And our cheapskate, insecure way of running prisons is going to bite us in the long run (actually, it already does, in terms of recidivism rates).

This is a recurring theme. Today, we raised the question on the local level -- Columbia is finally having to own up to the fact that its penchant for locking people up for more offenses than the county does actually costs money.

Of course, T-Rav is neither state nor local, but we pay federal taxes, too. And it's hard to imagine a better example of someone who could have paid another way. If you have a multi-millionaire partying on cocaine, why not give him a multi-million-dollar fine? As the sage Billy Ray Valentine said, "You know, it occurs to me that the best way you hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people." In other words, why isn't he paying us, instead of the other way around?

That would make a lot more sense than sending him off to commune with Kevin Geddings in Georgia.

Here's a free psych eval: It you're planning to whack Jesus, you've got problems

Yes, I know that's an insensitive headline on a number of levels, but sometimes I lose patience with quiet, sober discussions of whether someone has psychological problems when the naked fact is staring us in the face. Take this kid who wanted to blow up his high school. An investigator says he has owned up to planning to kill Jesus. Specifically:

    Townsend testified Schallenberger told a Chesterfield County sheriff’s detective that "once he got to heaven, he was gonna kill Jesus or something like that."

We're going to be paying money to determine whether this kid's got mental problems?

Killing Jesus in heaven? That's less likely than Sollozzo getting to Don Corleone when he's in his bedroom inside the family mall on Long Island -- not gonna happen.

Yeah, I know that we're talking legal definitions of insanity, and that involves all sorts of "how-many-angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin" distinctions. But my point is that we know this kid is messed up, deeply and profoundly and tragically. And thank God his parents were alert enough to stop him. The problem, the thing that causes us to call in the experts, is that society still has trouble making up its mind about whether an insane person is culpable. In a sense, almost anybody who commits murder or plans to do so is in a psychologically abnormal state -- either temporarily, through anger or fear, or permanently, such as in the case of a psychopathic personality. So we come up with all these rules and tripwires and technicalities, whereby it takes dueling experts and something akin to a coin toss to decide whether the person in question is legally insane according to the ultimately arbitrary rules that we've come up with.

The fact is, only God knows to what extent another human being is culpable -- no matter how many tests or guidelines or whatever we set up. If we really think we know, we're crazy. In the end, about all we can do is act to prevent crimes. Which, in this case, seems to have happened. Not that anybody is likely to pat himself on the back over it.

His poor parents...

Payday lenders reduced to quoting McGovern

This release came in today from the Community Financial Services Association (Tommy Moore's employers), which among other things cited the organization's Quote of the Month:

“Why do we think we are helping adult consumers by taking away their options? We don't take away cars because we don't like some people speeding. We allow state lotteries despite knowing some people are betting their grocery money. Everyone is exposed to economic risks of some kind. But we don't operate mindlessly in trying to smooth out every theoretical wrinkle in life.”

George McGovern
Former South Dakota Senator
1972 Democratic Presidential Candidate
Wall Street Journal

... which of course reminds me of something I didn't like about McGovern, and which I had forgotten until I read that piece in the WSJ recently. Actually, it's a problem I had with the Left of those days -- they were way anti-government. We have a letter on tomorrow's edit page from one of those people who considers motorcycle helmet laws to be the first step to totalitarianism (I am not making this up). Such folks would have been at home in the Left in 1972.

And such people are not considered to be liberals any more -- in fact, some of the most fiercely anti-government types now actually claim to be "conservatives" -- which of course is one of the many reasons why I insist that the "liberal" and "conservative" labels haven't made sense for some time.

That aside, I find myself wondering -- whom is this quotation intended to persuade? Certainly not the GOP majority over at the State House. Maybe Tommy and the gang thought sending this out to the "liberal" media might have a salutary (from CFSA's point of view) effect.

If so, it didn't work in my case. But maybe I'm not typical.

The latest COLA outrage

Recalling that many readers were understandably appalled at the recent move by lawmakers to sweeten their own pension deal, which was already sweeter than Aunt Joy's Cakes, I thought you might want to discuss today's editorial.

It's about something that is, if anything, even more outrageous than what Cindi brought to your attention several weeks back. Last week, after the embarrassing glare of publicity had caused them to drop their own pension cost-of-living increase, they killed the underlying legislation to give a COLA to state retirees just because it didn't have their sweetener in it anymore.

Or, as we described it in today's editorial:

IT WAS NO BIG surprise when legislative leaders tried to sneak through a generous perk for themselves on the back of an important bill to stabilize the State Retirement System and protect tens of thousands of state retirees. Sweetening up their own pension system is something lawmakers try to do periodically, and they always do it quietly.
    But what happened last week, after the House had reversed course and rejected the new legislative perk, reached a new low, at least in terms of what lawmakers have done out in the open: The Ways and Means Committee voted 13-11 to kill the underlying proposal, which guarantees 2 percent annual cost of living adjustments for state retirees. Representatives didn’t kill the bill because they thought it was a bad idea. They killed it because they weren’t going to get their perk.

Anyway, I thought I'd provide this space for y'all to discuss this...

Preview: Cindi's column Sunday explaining restructuring

Something John Rust -- a candidate for the Republican nomination in S.C. House Dist. 77 -- said during his endorsement interview earlier this week was very familiar. It's something we hear all the time as to why some people oppose restructuring South Carolina government to put the elected chief executive in charge of the executive branch.

Cindi Scoppe explores this common misconception in her column coming up on Sunday. An excerpt:

    When I finally managed to claw my way through my over-stuffed in-box, a reprise of the Rust message was waiting for me:
    “I saw, again, in your column, a push for enhanced gubernatorial power in South Carolina. You made reference to a leader with bold ideas that don’t get watered down by the timid legislature. Were you implying that this would protect education from unwise budget cuts? If our present governor’s bold ideas were unchecked, a good portion of our education dollar would be paying private school tuition, even bright kids who read at age five would be getting systematic phonics instruction until they were nine, and Barbara Nielson (sic) would likely be State Superintendent. At least 25% of the income tax burden would have been shifted from upper-incomes to middle and lower incomes.”
    Wow.
    When you put it that way, no one in his right mind would want to “restructure” government...

You may be able to see where she's going with that. If you can't, you need to read the column on Sunday.

And before that, I'll be putting video of the relevant part of the Rust interview on our new Saturday Opinion Extra...

In fact, you know what? Since y'all are like my extra-special friends and all, I'm going to go ahead and give y'all the video right now:

Trying to keep up with candidate interviews

Not that y'all are likely to care, but I thought I'd clarify something. I'm backdating some posts -- specifically, the ones that I'm doing on our state primary endorsement interviews -- just to try to keep them in the order in which we conducted them.

For instance, I just posted this item about Michael Koska, a Republican running in S.C. House Dist. 77. I dated it as Tuesday, because that's when the interview happened. I have one more to do from that day -- Republican Mike Miller, who's running against Kit Spires in District 96.

Since I did those, we've had two more -- Republican John Rust and Democrat Joe McEachern, who are both running in District 77, like both Mr. Koska and Benjamin Byrd, whom we interviewed last week. Messrs. Rust and McEachern were today.

This is a classic illustration of the principle I've often cited about blogs -- you can either have experiences worth blogging about, or you can blog. It's often impossible to get them both done in the same day.

I'm gonna try to get one more of these done before Mamanem send out a posse and drag me home for the night. But I know I'm not going to get done with all these before I have two more interviews tomorrow.

Sigh.

No, but he's got time for THIS

If you read Elizabeth Holmes' recent story in The Wall Street Journal, you know that the reason Mark Sanford couldn't endorse John McCain back before the S.C. primary -- and he was asked not once, but three times -- was that his schedule was just so darned tight:

    Mr. Sanford says the time commitment needed to fully support a presidential campaign was too great, given his responsibilities as governor and as a father. "If you hop in, it's not like you can just sorta hop in halfway," Mr. Sanford said in an interview. "If you gotta do it, you really gotta do it."
    ... "You do not have an unlimited number of hours," he said.
    ...Even though the time commitment to campaign with Sen. McCain would be minimal -- maybe a week -- Mr. Sanford still refused.

I wonder what McCain -- or any of the other GOP candidates who could have used a kind word from the gov back in those days -- would think of this release I just got:

              Contact: Danielle Frangos
              For Immediate Release – April 23, 2008                                             

KATRINA SHEALY ENDORSED BY GOVERNOR MARK SANFORD
LEXINGTON, SC – Governor Mark Sanford today endorsed Katrina Shealy in her campaign for State Senate.
    “I’m supporting Katrina in this race quite simply because I believe she’s committed to the conservative ideals of lower taxes and limited government that people I talk to in Lexington County believe in very strongly,” Gov. Sanford said. “I believe Katrina will be a real leader in terms of working to make South Carolina a better place to do business, work, and raise a family, and to that end I’m pleased to endorse her.”
    Katrina Shealy thanked the Governor for his endorsement, saying, “I am so pleased to receive Governor Sanford’s endorsement.  The Governor’s support is truly a validation of my pro-business and pro-taxpayer message of fiscal responsibility.  I look forward to working with the Governor to improve our state’s business climate and help create new jobs and opportunities for our hard working families. I believe the Governor’s support is a major step towards the Republican nomination for the State Senate.”
    Katrina Shealy is the former Lexington County Republican Party Chair running for State Senate in District 23. Katrina resides with her husband Jimmy in the Red Bank area of Lexington County.
                # # #

Well, I guess that we should all feel glad that the infamous "list" never materialized. If the governor's just going after Jake Knotts, that's way better than trying to remake the whole Legislature in his image.

One thing I will say for Jake, though -- he did manage to find a few minutes in his busy Sanford-baiting schedule to endorse Sen. McCain, well before the primary.

Is Bill Clinton wagging his finger at us AGAIN?

Speaking of The New York Times this morning, did you see how it described Bill Clinton's reaction at being reminded of his attempt to ghetto-ize Obama back here in S.C.?

More Finger Wagging From a Miffed Bill Clinton
By KATE PHILLIPS
Published: April 23, 2008
WASHINGTON — Wagging his finger once again, former President Bill Clinton chided a reporter on Tuesday for what he deemed a misinterpretation of his remarks during a radio interview in which he said the Obama campaign “played the race card on me.”
    Mr. Clinton confronted the issue of race again on Monday when he was asked by an interviewer for WHYY radio in Philadelphia about his remarks earlier this year on the results of the South Carolina Democratic primary. At the time, he likened the victory of Senator Barack Obama to that of the Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1998; Mr. Clinton’s comparison was denounced widely by black officials who believed he was marginalizing Mr. Obama’s victory with a racially tinged allusion to Mr. Jackson’s failed presidential bids...

What I'd like to know is, was he literally wagging his finger -- you know, the way he did before? And if you don't remember, the video is below.

Unfortunately, I have no video on the latest incident, so I'll just have to assume the wagging was figurative this time. But we do have some nice, clear audio. Be sure to turn up your volume at the end so you can hear him say, "I don’t think I can take any s..t from anybody on that, do you?" (Some listeners hear it as "don't think I should take any s..t," but I think it's "can"...)

Now, having listened to that, do you feel chastened? Do you feel guilty for having thought less of our former president, even for a moment? Are you gonna stop giving him s--t now? Are you listening, you Obama supporters? Shame on anyone who would dare question Bill Clinton, as he makes clear in this other video...

Michael Koska, H77, Republican

10:31 a.m. -- Michael Koska, a professional photographer, is an interesting candidate in a number of ways.

First, he's a white Republican running in the district that has been represented by John Scott since 1990. That's often a sign of someone making a purely symbolic, quixotic gesture. But he's quite serious.

More than that, for someone running for office for the first time, he's unusually well-informed and thoughtful about issues. His knowledge is born of experience.

He got interested in serving his community after hearing about a school teacher dying on a road he travels every day -- Hard Scrabble. He found out that local government didn't plan to fix the road for another 20 years. So he started a campaign to do something about it. He collected 10,000 signatures on a petition, and went to Sen. Joel Lourie and Rep. Bill Cotty for help. He got $400,000 to fix a problem right in front of the school, which he calls a "very small victory," as a true fix for Hard Scrabble will run $70 million. And, as he just discovered, that's just the beginning of local road needs that we haven't figured out how to pay for. (He said he almost ran two years ago after he heard Mr. Scott offer light rail as as answer to our transportation woes -- but he discovered the filing deadline had just passed.) He's for borrowing the money now to fix these problems, as it will only be more expensive later.

He's also, as a small business owner, very interested in the state finding a way to provide affordable health coverage. He's had to pay an exorbitant amount for insurance that doesn't meet his needs -- he was charged $20,000 for his wife to go through a perfectly normal, healthy childbirth. But he doesn't dare try to switch policies because it took him so long to get this one.

And he recognizes the issue as one that goes far beyond his own case. He sees how small businesses in general are held back, which is a millstone around the state's neck economically. He speaks of all the people who are trapped in jobs they can't quit, because they can't do without the insurance.

The video below shows the knowledgeable way in which Mr. Koska speaks of these issues.

On other matters:

• He favors a move to a Cabinet system of state government.
• Unlike me he may not love light rail, but he's all for the state doing what it can (since the federal government has failed so miserably) to move us toward energy independence. "We're financing both sides in the War on Terror." He's for going nuclear (in terms of peaceful use, that is), and promoting electric cars.
• In general, as a Ronald Reagan Republican, "I think taxes should stay as low as they can." But he refused to sign Grover's pledge, bless him.

So you're thinking I've gotta love this guy, right? Well, nobody's perfect. He's for private school vouchers. He thinks it would mean we'd have fewer public schools to build, and help with overcrowding.

Like I said, nobody's perfect. Here's the video (sorry about the wiggly picture -- it's the stripes on his shirt):

AP says S.C. House poised to nix lawmakers' pension COLA

The Associated Press is reporting that a majority of the subcommittee in whose lap the legislator-pension increase was dumped are saying they want to kill the measure:

{By JIM DAVENPORT}=
{Associated Press Writer}=
   COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - South Carolina lawmakers are expected to scrap plans to sweeten pension checks for legislators when they meet Tuesday, according to members of the subcommittee debating the increases.
   "This year, we're not doing employees very good in their regular pay. I don't see this as a year to be raising ours," Rep. Herb Kirsh said Monday. Three other lawmakers on the five-member House Ways and Means Panel said they also want the pension boost nixed.
   Two weeks ago, the full House gave initial approval to legislation that would add a 2 percent cost of living adjustment for lawmakers' pensions. The vote came the same day the Senate's budget-writing committee scuttled raises for state workers in its $7 billion spending plan for next year because of slumping tax collections. The seemingly conflicting moves drew a rebuke from Gov. Mark Sanford and, in an unusual move, the pension boost was sent back to the House Ways and Means Committee the following day.
   Kirsh, who is one of 333 current and former legislators already drawing a retirement check from the system, said he estimated the proposed increase would have added about $6 monthly to the nearly $32,000 annually he gets from the system.
   "We've got a pretty good retirement now," said Kirsh, a 78-year-old Democrat from Clover.
   Republican Reps. Jay Lucas, of Hartsville; Chip Limehouse, of Charleston; and Brian White, of Anderson, all said they also opposed the pension boost. Limehouse said he first thought the legislation only offered state employee raises.
   "No matter how woefully underpaid we may be, it's easier just not to have all the controversy," Limehouse said.
   The pension proposal "sends a horrible message in a terrible budget year. I think the retirement the General Assembly gets is fair, to be honest with," Lucas said.
   Kirsh also said Rep. Denny Neilson, the subcommittee's chairwoman, also was backing him. She did not immediately return a message Monday.
   Eliminating the legislative retirement increase still won't address a key concern Sanford raised.
   Sanford said the cost of living adjustment for the rest of the state's retirees ignores serious problems with the retirement system because it is tied to changing assumptions about how much investments will grow in the state's retirement system.
   Sanford two weeks ago said he is "not willing to stake our retirees' benefits and our taxpayers' futures on the hope that this bill's predictions come true, and I'd urge the House not to either."

Here's hoping Dav has it right.

Not everyone at the Journal is clueless about McCain and Sanford

My earlier post reminded me of something -- a couple of weeks back, someone at the Journal was trying to reach me to talk about Sanford and McCain. Elizabeth Holmes and I traded phone messages, but never got in touch. Then I forgot about it.

Remembering that today, I sent Ms. Holmes a link to today's post on the subject. She wrote a quick line back asking whether I had ever read her story, which I had not. I just found it. It ran on Saturday, March 29. I don't know if this link will work for you or not, but essentially the piece drew the sharp contrast between 2000, when Sanford co-chaired McCain's S.C. campaign, and 2008, when he wouldn't give the McCain campaign the time of day:

    Mr. Sanford didn't endorse anyone during the primaries this year, after having co-chaired Sen. McCain's bitter battle in South Carolina during the 2000 race. He brushed off requests for support by the McCain team at least three times, according to people familiar with the matter, including a period last year when the campaign was at a low.
    The snub could cost him his chance at the vice presidency. "Loyalty is a big, big commodity in McCain-land," said a McCain aide familiar with Mr. Sanford's involvement...

As for why there's so much talk out there about Sanford in defiance of all reason... Ms. Holmes is hip to that as well. After the 2000 campaign, Mr. Sanford became governor, and as she notes, "As governor, he began speaking at conservative think tanks -- such as the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute -- and continues to do so."

Add to that the governor's most ardent cheerleaders at the Club for Growth. The Club was pushing Sanford for national office as early as the Republican National Convention in 2004. Here's an excerpt from a piece I wrote at the end of that week in New York:

    Even our own Sen. Lindsey Graham and Gov. Mark Sanford were being mentioned. As I wrote earlier in the week, Sen. Graham spent the convention going between interviews like a bee going from flower to flower.
    For his part, Mr. Sanford calls all the talk "the last thing in the world I'm looking at or thinking about." But that's about all he's got time to say about it because he's too busy participating in things like a "Four for the Future" panel over at the Club for Growth.
    On Wednesday, he invites the delegation to a soiree at a friend's home on the Upper East Side. He urges them to come see "how a real New Yorker lives. They live in small boxes." His host's home may be a little narrow, but if that's a box, it's from Tiffany's -- and it's gift-wrapped.
    At the reception itself, when the governor silences the assembled gathering to thank Howard Bellin for the use of his home, the host says, "I fully expect to be his guest at the White House in another four years."

One nice thing about the Club, though -- maybe nobody else reads my blog, but they certainly do. This appeared on the S.C. chapter's Web site roughly an hour (either 47 minutes or an hour and 47 minutes, depending on how their site treats time zones) after my last post went up.

So, let me close with a big shout-out to my pals at the Club, which believe it or not actually has a blog devoted to pushing Sanford as Veep.

McConnell spends 30 grand on big ol' gun

A colleague calls this story in the Charleston paper to my attention. Golly, maybe Mark Sanford's right; maybe our legislative leaders exercise no spending restraint whatsoever -- with their own money, that is...

    Some middle-aged men blow big bucks on a sports car, a bass boat or a nice set of golf clubs, but the man who some consider the most powerful in South Carolina government had something else in mind.
    Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell recently spent almost $30,000 on a reproduction of a bronze cannon, complete with a Palmetto engraving.
    "Anybody will tell you a bronze gun has just got a different sound to it," he said. "I knew this gun would make noise, and it does. It is a loud, talking gun. ... It really splits the air."...

If you can stand to read more, here's the link.

'Sanford as veep' AGAIN? Geez, would you people give it a rest?

Back when I did the editorial stating fairly succinctly why naming Mark Sanford as running mate would be stupid for John McCain, and disastrous for the country, I got a call from a reader who said I was manufacturing the whole thing, that nobody mentioned it but us, and if I'd just shut up, it would go away.

I wish.

Unfortunately, even though most Republicans see no reason for McCain to choose Sanford, and those Republicans who actually know both men (that would be S.C. Republicans) mostly think such a move would be insane, there is one subfaction in the GOP coalition that continues to push him, against all reason and all odds. That is the economic-libertarian faction represented by the Club for Growth and The Wall Street Journal, among a few others.

The Journal's latest effort along these lines was to devote the big "Weekend Interview" to Mr. Sanford on Saturday, and to promote it from the front page, complete with a front-page, full-color caricature of our gov. It's fascinating the way the Journal -- truly one of the best papers in the country -- continues to sully its reputation by taking Mr. Sanford more seriously than does any paper in South Carolina, with the possible exception of the Post and Courier.

The Journal apparently justifies continuing to float this idea on a basis that simply isn't true, that Mr. Sanford "is on nearly every Republican strategist's shortlist for vice president this year." To back that up, the piece names three people: "Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove and Sen. Lindsey Graham (a stalwart John McCain backer) have all floated Mr. Sanford's name for veep."

Sen. Graham is on that list because of the three, he's the only one that anyone might believe has Sen. McCain's ear. Well, I've shown you what Sen. Graham has to say about his old friend Mark's status as a veep candidate or as a party leader of any kind; you may want to watch the video again.

So I don't know where that's coming from.

Anyway, the "hour-long interview" with the governor is said to have taken place at the State House; one must sincerely doubt that the interviewer bothered to ask anyone else about the governor on the way in or out of the building. That would have been damaging to the Journal's premise that the governor would be an asset to a national ticket. Of course, if you buy into the premise that Mr. Sanford is involved in a lonely, "prolonged fight against the political status quo in South Carolina," then you wouldn't want to talk to any of those people, anyway.

But six years after he was elected, one has to be rather gullible to buy into that myth. The truth is that the State House is dominated by conservative Republicans who are much, much more representative of the national party and rank-and-file Republican voters (much less the independents that McCain must continue to appeal to) than Mr. Sanford ever has been or ever will be.

Yes, you can believe the myth if you don't actually know him, and if you read the quote that starts the piece:

"Our system was put in place in large part based on the fear that a black man would be elected governor. So traditional functions of the executive branch were diffused . . . to mean that if a black man was elected governor, it wouldn't matter anyway because he wouldn't have any responsibility . . . That is an insane operating model."

And if you like that, you can read the much more extended version, written by me in 1991 as part of our "Power Failure" series (you'll also learn that keeping the governor weak was not an innovation of the 1895 constitution, but the continuation of a 300-year South Carolina tradition). The governor read our reprint of that series back in 2002, and based much of his electoral platform on that. That's why we endorsed the guy. But ever since he was elected, he's put far more effort into his more marginal, anti-government libertarian proposals than he has into anything that would reform our system.

Several statements in this piece need to be addressed individually, to set the record straight (to the extent I can do such a thing, my pulpit being decidedly less bully than the Journal's):

• After noting the rather obvious fact that no South Carolinian could help the GOP ticket, the author protests, "But Mr. Sanford is popular on the right because he understands markets." No. The truth is that he is popular among economic libertarians because he agrees with them, right down the line, perfectly. Such people are not the same as "the right," although they overlap with that set. And no one can be said to understand markets when he believes that distributing vouchers to people in a thinly populated, poor community that can't attract a grocery store would lead to the spontaneous generation of an excellent private school.
• "Mr. Sanford's main governing problem is the state's constitution." As someone who has been pushing for 17 years for the same restructuring reforms that Mr. Sanford says he's for, I wish that were true. But Mr. Sanford's main governing problem is that he can't get along with other Republican leaders -- and that doesn't augur well for one who would lead his party nationally.
• "...the state has leaned left on spending..." Oh, Good Lord have mercy. That's so idiotic, so utterly marinated, rolled and deep-fried in fantasy, that it's astounding a bolt of lightning didn't strike the Journal's presses as they pushed that one out.
• "Over the past six years, he has helped shepherd through three big tax reforms: the state's first cut to its income tax; a grand tax swap that slashed property taxes and increased sales taxes; and the virtual elimination of grocery taxes. That last one is not the tax cut Mr. Sanford wanted to spur investment. But he took what he could get..." Our "left-leaning" Legislature loves nothing more than to cut taxes. A session seldom passes without a tax cut; and the only suspense is what kind of cut will tickle lawmakers' fancy that particular year. The governor can pretend that the Legislature keeps doing what comes naturally as some sort of response to him, but it's just not true. (The closest it comes to truth is that some lawmakers pointed to the income tax cut as being kinda, sorta like a cut the governor wanted, and they used that as an excuse to say they don't always ignore him. But even in that case, the cut what they wanted to cut, as they always do. But that's the only instance in which it made sense for him to say he "took what he could get.")

Aw, geez, I can't spend any more time on this, but if you're able to call up the piece, you'll find more absurd assertions than you can shake a stick at. Obviously, the only person this writer -- the Journal's assistant features editor, if you can wrap your head around that -- spoke to in South Carolina (or, perhaps, anywhere) for this piece was Mark Sanford.

And no matter what sort of goals it may have of bending the world to its ideological will, the Journal did its readers a disservice by publishing it.

A black, Jewish Texan walks into a police station...

... and ends up cleaning up the whole town.

A reader sent me a link to this article that reminds us of the accomplishments of Reuben Greenberg, who had such a distinguished career as police chief in Charleston. As we mull over just how big a mess the Columbia police department is in these days, and view the latest Highway Patrol video, we might long for such a top cop:

Reuben Greenberg was undoubtedly the ultimate "man bites dog" story, for what could be more unlikely than a black, observant Jew from Texas transforming a city in the heart of the Confederacy from a crime-ridden center of corruption to a uniquely well-managed place that cracked down on crime at the same time it virtually eliminated police brutality -- and even rudeness? Greenberg told his cops that their job was not to punish (that was up to the courts), but to make arrests, and in order to do that they had to be on good terms with the citizens. Thus, he said early on in his memorable tenure, he would defend a policeman for using "excessive force" to make an arrest, but he would fire anyone who used abusive language with a citizen.

OK, so I jumped to a conclusion

After years of Democratic and Republican seats being made safer and safer for their respective parties by way of increasingly sophisticated partisan (and incumbent-protective) gerrymandering, one forgets sometimes that members of underdog parties DO occasionally take a run at a seat in the opposing column -- particularly when the seat is open.

So it is that, without thinking about it, I made a mistake when I said that Joe McEachern would be the third candidate we'll talk to who is seeking to fill the seat John Scott is vacating. As a colleague corrected me:

Mr. Byrd is indeed the second candidate we've had in for H.77. But Joe McEachern is not the THIRD candidate we will meet with. He is the third DEMOCRAT we will meet with. The THIRD candidate for this seat whom we'll see is Michael Koska -- one of the two or three Republicans in the race. (I say two or three because there's one candidate whose district is listed as 77 on one GOP document and 79 on another -- and I haven't gotten a call back from him yet).

----------------------------------
Cindi Ross Scoppe

So now you know.

Now that I think about it, Republicans have taken a run at that seat before -- just unsuccessfully.

By the way, I was going to tell you HOW unsuccessfully (I was curious to see if the numbers indicated any sort of opening that would make a Republican candidacy anything other than purely quixotic), but the state election commission Web site isn't providing that information today -- which is inexcusable.

Good for Nikki

Still catching up on the e-mail, and just now saw this one from yesterday:

For Immediate Release
Contact: State Rep. Nikki Haley

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

REPRESENTATIVE NIKKI HALEY INTRODUCES THE 2008 SPENDING ACCOUNTABILITY ACT

COLUMBIA, S.C. – State Representative Nikki Haley today announced that she has introduced legislation that requires a roll call vote on any legislation that expends taxpayer dollars. Currently, the Legislature can appropriate funds with a simple voice vote.

“Taxpayers deserve the right to see the spending habits of their legislators,” said Haley. “Over the past three years alone, state government spending has grown by over 40%. I believe the 2008 Spending Accountability Act will encourage legislators, myself included, to take a long, hard look before committing to spending taxpayer dollars.”

Haley said roll call votes on taxpayer spending remove any confusion on where individual legislators stand.

“We should never have another incident like we did last week where something as important as cost of living adjustments for retirees and legislators is not clearly on the record. Voters have the fundamental right to know how their legislators are spending their hard-earned money, and when they do, we can expect to see wasteful spending take a dramatic downturn,” said Haley.

        ###

Good for you, Nikki.

Dan Ross, father of S.C. GOP presidential primary, dies

Earlier in the day, I had received notice from a Republican source telling me that Dan Ross had died. Unfortunately, he was state GOP chairman -- apparently, the very prototype of a GOP chairman -- before I came back to S.C. to work, so I didn't fully realize the role he had played in Palmetto State politics.

A release from Henry McMaster set me straight:

STATEMENT BY SC ATTORNEY GENERAL HENRY MCMASTER ON PASSING OF FORMER SCGOP CHAIRMAN DAN ROSS

COLUMBIA, SC - South Carolina’s preeminent place in presidential politics was guaranteed by Dan Ross, whose leadership and vision resulted in the first GOP presidential primary in state history (1980).  He is the undisputed father of the “First in the South” South Carolina Republican Presidential Primary.
    Over the past fifty years, Dan worked tirelessly to build a two party system of state government, seeking nothing but good government in return. 
    Determined visionaries like Dan come along rarely and we will miss him.

            ###

When you think back on how our state was in the spotlight back in January, that's quite a legacy...

'I know you are but what am I?'

Being the sophisticated sort that I am, I had remained aloof from the "excitement" of having yet another motion picture being shot here in our fair city -- although I admit that perhaps even my pulse would speed up a bit if I were to run into that Jessica Biel person, assuming of course that I were half my current age (ahem). I believe I did see her in something once, and as I recall she was rather symmetrical and pneumatic and so forth.

But that hasn't happened. However, brother blogger Adam Fogle has experienced the next best thing (if you're willing to reach far afield) -- he bumped into 'Pee-Wee Herman' himself.

He wrote about the experience here. From his account, he's still holding out hope of encountering Ms. Biel, so the lad still has his priorities straight.

Benjamin Byrd, S.C. House District 77

9:45 a.m. -- Benjamin Byrd is the second candidate we've spoken to who is seeking the seat being vacated by Rep. John Scott. The first was D.J. Carson; the third Democrat, Richland County councilman Joe McEachern, will come in next week. Mr. Byrd is retired after three decades with the state Department of Transportation, where he helped start the minority business enterprise program, before becoming the freedom of information officers in the agency's legal department.

Mr. Byrd is a soft-spoken man who does not boast -- for instance, when he said he was running on the basis of his "experience" and Cindi asked about those experiences, he did not mention that he had served on the Richland County planning commission. What he did mention was his time at DOT, but also his involvement as a parent when his two children were going through public schools -- both with PTA and the school improvement council.

While recognizing that the Legislature's primary responsibility is to pass laws, he is very interested in providing constituent service, and would want to exercise leadership in the community beyond legislation -- for instance, he would work to encourage district churches to get more involved in education, through after-school activities, mentoring and homework centers.

His response to the private school "choice" movement is that we "need to make sure all of our schools are financed or operated to where there's no need to be talking about school choice," because none of the public schools would be inadequate.

While he didn't use the term, when asked about taxation he asserted the need for considering the system comprehensively, rather than reacting to this or that tax piecemeal. One change he mentioned specifically: "When you buy a car, you enjoy" paying no more than $300 tax, "but that's not realistic."

His planning commission experience came up in connection with the state's relationship to local governments. He spoke of the wisdom of merging city and county planning commissions to be cost-effective and more efficient, and in general observed that "I think we have too many little governments."

Mary Barber Kirkland, S.C. House Dist. 70

4 p.m. -- Mary Barber Kirkland, whose father and grandfather were both school principals and has spent 39 years in public education herself, is challenging Rep. Joe Neal. Originally from Hopkins, she has been involved in a lot of community efforts in lower Richland. She says she's running because she "wanted a leader who is visible and focused." She declined to criticize the incumbent, although those points are common to candidates who have opposed Mr. Neal (unsuccessfully) in the past -- assertions that he is not engaged enough locally between elections.

But Mrs. Kirkland preferred to talk about what she would do, and she would concentrate on education and economic development, the latter being particularly sorely needed in her district.

She believes that parental and community involvement are the main elements needed for children to succeed in school, a