Brad Warthen's Blog

DNC takes on Sanford

Thought y'all might be interested in this release, and the video above:

New DNC Ad Calls on Mark Sanford to Stop “Playing Politics” With South Carolina Jobs and Recovery Money

Click Here to See the DNC Ad “Playing Politics” Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqTkk9t4sec

 

Washington, DC – The Democratic National Committee today released a new television ad entitled “Playing Politics” that calls on South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford to stop playing politics with federal job creation and economic recovery funds.  The ad, which will begin airing in Columbia on Monday, outlines the deepening economic challenges facing South Carolina’s working families.  Despite record unemployment and soaring foreclosures, Governor Sanford is kowtowing to the Rush Limbaugh-led obstructionist wing of his political party by rejecting $700 million in money to create jobs, improve our health care system and improve our schools. 

 

As the ad notes, a bipartisan group of South Carolina leaders – including Democratic Congressman James Clyburn, Republican Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer, and Republican State House Speaker Bobby Harrell – have criticized Governor Sanford for putting political posturing ahead of job creation in South Carolina.   The ad can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqTkk9t4sec

 

“Mark Sanford needs to stop playing politics with economic recovery and job creation in South Carolina,” said Democratic National Committee Communications Director Brad Woodhouse.  “At a time when his state is suffering from crippling unemployment and more and more families are losing their homes, South Carolina’s working families cannot afford for their governor to be distracted by empty political posturing.  If Mark Sanford is worried about his political future, all he needs to do is focus on working with leaders from both parties who want to use the economic recovery funds to help create jobs, fix our schools, reform our health care system, make America energy independent, and lay the foundation for long-term growth in the 21st Century.”

Here's a companion release, from the state Democratic Party:

SC Dems Applaud Sanford Ad

Columbia, SC- Governor Mark Sanford will be getting a little more airtime on South Carolina's cable  television networks next week, but the media attention won't necessarily be positive.

The Democratic National Committee announced today it will begin airing an ad criticizing Sanford for not accepting all of the funds allocated for South Carolina under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The 30-second ad will begin airing on Monday on cable television in Columbia.

"South Carolina Democrats are very pleased with the Democratic National Committee's television ad," said South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler.  "It helps us give Mark Sanford the type of media attention he deserves. Over the last few months, our governor has shown us that he is more concerned with being in the national spotlight than with the well-being of South Carolina's working families. They deserve to have their voices heard and this ad will encourage them to tell Mark Sanford to stop playing politics."

Paid for by the South Carolina Democratic Party

Brave new world of political discourse

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
ONCE, NOT so long ago, serious people decried the reduction and trivialization of political ideas to the level of a bumper sticker. Some days, I long for the coherence, the relevance, the completeness of bumper stickers.
    Let’s knit together a few of the unraveled threads that have frayed my mind in the past week, shall we?
    Thread One: A Colorado congressman who takes pride in his technological savvy claimed partial “credit” for the demise of a newspaper, saying, “Who killed the Rocky Mountain News? We’re all part of it, for better or worse, and I argue it’s mostly for the better.... The media is dead and long live the new media.”
    Thread Two: Last week, I started working out again. I can’t read when I’m on the elliptical trainer because I bounce up and down too much, so I turn on the television. This gives me an extended exposure to 24/7 TV “news” and its peculiar obsessions, which I normally avoid like a pox. I hear far more than I want to about Rush Limbaugh, who wants the country’s leadership to fail, just to prove an ideological point. The president’s chief of staff dubs this contemptible entertainer the leader of the president’s opposition. Even more absurdly, the actual chief of the opposition party spends breath denying it — and then apologizes for doing so. See why I avoid this stuff?
    Thread Three: Two of the most partisan Democrats in the S.C. Senate, John Land and Brad Hutto, introduce a mock resolution to apologize to Rush on behalf of South Carolina so that our state doesn’t “miss out on the fad that is sweeping the nation — to openly grovel before the out-spoken radio host.” The Republican majority spends little time dismissing the gag, but any time thus spent by anyone was time not spent figuring out how to keep essential state services going in this fiscal crisis.
    Thread Four: At midday Thursday I post on my blog a few thoughts about the just-announced candidacy of U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett for governor, and invite readers to share what they think of the Upstate Republican. As of mid-afternoon Friday, there were nine comments on the subject, and three of them were from me. By the same time, there were 66 comments about the Rush Limbaugh flap.
    Thread Five: A colleague brings to my attention a new Web site called SCTweets, where you can read spontaneous “Twitter” messages from such S.C. politicians as Anton Gunn, David Thomas, Bob Inglis, Nathan Ballentine and Thad Viers, with a number of S.C. bloggers thrown in. It’s the brainchild of S.C. Rep. Dan Hamilton and self-described GOP “political operative” Wesley Donehue (which would explain why Rep. Gunn is the only Democrat on the list I just cited). They see it as “a creative way to showcase SC’s tech-savvy elected officials.” It sounds like a neat idea, but when you go there and look at it... well, here’s a sample:

bobinglis Want a window into our campaign themes? Check out my recent letter at http://wurl.ws/9coX Join us if you can!

annephutto had a great lunch

AntonJGunn Having lunch with the Mayor of Elgin.

mattheusmei Prepare to have your mind blownaway http://tinyurl.com/b6w8w9 #sctweets, simply amazing!!!

RobGodfrey Beautiful day in Columbia. #sctweets

thadviers just had lunch with little Joe at Jimmy Johns.

    Perhaps this will be useful to someone, and I applaud Messrs. Hamilton and Donehue for the effort. But so far I haven’t figured out what Twitter adds to modern life that we didn’t already have with e-mail and blogs and text-messaging and, well, the 24/7 TV “news.” Remember how I complained in a recent column about how disorienting and unhelpful I find Facebook to be? Well, this was worse. I felt like I was trying to get nutrition from a bowl of Lucky Charms mixed with Cracker Jack topped with Pop Rocks, stirred with a Slim Jim.
    Thread Six: Being reminded of Facebook, I checked my home page, and found that a friend I worked with a quarter-century ago was exhorting me to:

* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions in a note to your wall.

    I followed his instructions. The book nearest to my laptop was the literally dog-eared (chewed by a dog that died three decades ago) paperback Byline: Ernest Hemingway. Here’s the fifth sentence on page 56:
“He smiled like a school girl, shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands to his face in a mock gesture of shame.”
    Not much without context, but you know what? I got more out of that than I got out of that Twitter page. At least I formed a clear, coherent picture of something.
    I just remembered that I said I would knit these threads together. OK, here goes:
    It occurs to me that Twitter and Facebook are the bright new world that the Colorado congressman who claims credit for killing The Rocky Mountain News extolled. In this world, political discourse consists of partisans prattling about talk show hosts and elected officials casting spontaneous sentence fragments into the dusty, arid public square.
    I was going to write a column for today about Congressman Barrett’s candidacy for governor. As I mentioned a couple of weeks back when I wrote about Sen. Vincent Sheheen entering the race, I’m trying to get an early start on writing as much as possible about that critical decision coming up in 2010, in the hope that if we think about it and talk about it enough, we the people can make a better decision than we have the past few elections.
    But I got distracted.
    I’ll get with Rep. Barrett soon; I promise. And I’ll try to write about it in complete sentences, for those of you who have not yet adjusted.

For links and more, please go to thestate.com/bradsblog/.

Rush and his friends the Democrats

Just to complete the process of distracting myself with total trivia, I'll mention the spin cycle rubbish of the last couple of days about Rush Limbaugh.

How pathetic can we be in this country, huh? This contemptible creature (why contemptible? because he wants this country to fail to prove an ideological point) actually gets treated as someone who matters. The chief of staff of the President of the United States elevates him, absurdly, to chief of the president's opposition. Even more absurdly, the actual chief of the opposition party spends breath denying it.

Either yesterday or the day before, as I was working out, Wolf Blitzer started to put James Carville, of all appalling people, on the air with some presumably equally appalling person (I'd never heard of the guy -- name of Tony Blankley) from the "other side" to talk about it, and I just barely found the remote in time to avoid hearing it.

Moments like this confirm me once again in my firm belief that these people -- Limbaugh, Carville and so forth -- are all on the SAME side, and that side is opposed to the one I'm on. They reinforce and affirm each other. They live for each other. They define themselves in terms of each other. They depend absolutely on each other to raise the funds that they use to continue their destructive absurdity. They are as symbiotic as symbiosis gets.

And they deserve each other. The problem is, the rest of us don't deserve them. And yet, time and time again, we see actual, real-world issues that affect real people in this country -- and the world -- defined in terms of choices between these malicious cretins.

We deserve better. We deserve much better.

(What got me to thinking about this, even though it doesn't deserve to be thought about? Well, Kathleen Parker wrote about it in the column I chose for tomorrow's op-ed page.)

Remembering 'Breaking the News'

Back in the first comment on this post, Lee mentioned James Fallows' excellent book, Breaking the News: The News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy -- which, as it happens, I actually reviewed for this newspaper when it came out.

Here's what I wrote, back in 1996:

THE STATE
MEDIA EXAMINES ITSELF<
Published on: 02/25/1996
Section: TEMPO
Edition: FINAL
Page: F6
Reviewed by Brad Warthen
Memo: Brad Warthen is an associate editor of The State's editorial page.


BREAKING THE NEWS: How the Media Undermine American Democracy

By James Fallows
Pantheon, 296 pages, $23

    So you think the news media are dragging the country down with their negativity and their failure to put things in perspective?
    So join the club. A lot of us on the inside of this alleged profession agree. James Fallows, Washington editor of The Atlantic Monthly, is one. Fallows' saving grace is that he's written this book explaining exactly what is wrong and why it matters.
    The problem has to do with perverse cognitive habits that journalists embrace as normal, but which cause them to portray public life in ways that make it hard for readers and viewers to engage it constructively.
    For instance: ``Step by step, mainstream journalism has fallen into the habit of portraying public life as a race to the bottom, in which one group of conniving, insincere politicians ceaselessly tries to outmaneuver another.'' Among journalists, casting a jaded eye upon anything a politician does is seen as being ``professional.'' We tend to think of it as healthy skepticism. But there is nothing healthy about it.
    In fact, ``By choosing to present public life as a contest among scheming political leaders, all of whom the public should view with suspicion, the news media helps bring about that very result.''
    That's exactly what has happened. As a groundbreaking poll discovered last year, the public is now far more cynical about politics and government than are journalists, who are more likely to believe that our political system is sound, and that citizens can make a difference. In other words, the people believe the system is just as bad as we've painted it, and we know better.
    There are excellent examples in this book illustrating the profound disconnect between journalists and sensible people.
    One of the best-documented is the journalists' penchant for reducing everything -- every issue, every speech, every policy initiative, every human gesture by a politician -- to what it means in terms of the next election. If a politician tries to do something about starving children, we immediately wonder aloud what this means in terms of the way he's trying to position himself in New Hampshire.
    If Fallows didn't do anything else in this book, I would praise him to the skies for drawing so clearly the connection between the way we cover politics and the way we cover sports -- which is to say, in virtually the same manner. Journalists tend to see everything as a contest, which one side must win and the other must lose. This, of course, leaves no room for the kind of consensus-building that solves problems in the real world.
    Politics and government matter, but modern journalism has done much to cause the public to despair of it ever meaning anything good.
    The sins that Fallows details in this book are examined in a manner that shows clearly ``how they affect the future prospects of every American by distorting the processes by which we choose our leaders and resolve our public problems.''
    Unlike most modern journalism, this book does not merely wallow in unrelieved despair. The author writes encouragingly of such things as the ``public journalism'' movement, through which a number of far-sighted, community-oriented journalists (you'll note that few of them are in Washington or New York) have started accepting responsibility for fixing the problem, starting with themselves.
    Fallows draws an interesting connection between the way the U.S. military examined and healed itself after Vietnam, and the way journalists can become their own best physicians. It won't be easy, but it can be done -- we just have to unlearn about half of the nonsense that got crammed into our heads in journalism school.
    Fallows has correctly diagnosed what's wrong with American journalism. If you want to know why you ought to be mad at the media, read this book. If everybody would read it (journalists should read it twice), we might find ourselves on the way to a cure.

The awful irony is that this was just when things were starting to get much worse, what with 24/7 shouting heads on cable TV and the blogosphere yet to come. The pointless, yammering, conflict for its own sake is SO much worse now -- and it's one of the things I struggle with constantly here on the blog, along with those of you who still hope for a civil town square in which to discuss issues -- that when I look back on when that review was written, it's almost like a lost age of innocence....

Much ado about photo ID (column version)

    Yep, you already read this here, back on Friday. But I post it not for you blog regulars, but for folks who saw it first in the paper today, and decided to come here for the version with links.

    And if you did that, welcome to the blog...

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

The photo ID bill that caused such a flap in the House Thursday is one of those classic issues that political partisans make a huge deal over, and that seems to me entirely undeserving of the fuss.
    It’s not so much an issue that generates conflict between Democrats and Republicans as it is an issue that is about conflict between the two parties, with little practical impact beyond that.
    The way I see it is this:

• It’s ridiculous for Democrats to act like this is some kind of insupportable burden on voting, even to the point of walking out to dramatize their profound concern. Why shouldn’t you have to make the kind of basic demonstration of your identity that you have to make for pretty much any other kind of transaction?
• It’s ridiculous for Republicans to insist that we have to have this safeguard, absent any sort of widespread abuse here in South Carolina in recent elections. Where’s the problem necessitating this big confrontation with the Democrats? I don’t see it.

    Some of my friends and acquaintances defend parties by telling me that they legitimately reflect different philosophies and value systems. Well, when you scratch the surface and get at the values that inform these two overwrought, pointedly partisan reactions, it doesn’t make me feel any better either way. In fact, it reminds me why I can’t subscribe to either party’s world view.
    Democrats believe at their core that it should be easier to vote. I look around me at the kinds of decisions that are sometimes made by voters, and it seems to me sometimes that far too many people who are already voting take the responsibility too lightly. Look at exit polls — or just go up to a few people on the street and ask them a few pointed questions about public affairs. Look at what people actually know about candidates and their positions and the issues, and look at the reasons they say they vote certain ways, and it can be alarming. Hey, I love this American self-government thing, but it’s not perfect, and one of the biggest imperfections is that some folks don’t take their electoral responsibility seriously enough. Why would I want to see the people who are so apathetic that they don’t vote now coming out and voting? Yet that seems to be what many Democrats are advocating, and it disturbs me.
    And beneath all that sanctimony from Republicans about the integrity of the voting process is, I’m sorry to say, something that looks very much like what Democrats are describing, although Democrats do so in overly cartoonish terms. There’s a bit of bourgeois disdain, a tendency among Republicans to think of themselves as the solid, hard-working citizens who play by the rules, and to be disdainful of those who don’t have their advantages — which they don’t see as advantages at all, but merely their due as a result of being so righteous and hard-working. There’s a tendency to see the disadvantaged as being to blame for their plight, as being too lazy or immoral or whatever to participate fully. The idea is that they wouldn’t have these problems if they would just try. What I’m trying to describe here is the thing that is making sincere Republicans’ blood pressure rise even as they’re reading these words. It’s a tendency to attach moral weight to middle-class status. Republicans seem to believe as an article of faith that there are all these shiftless, marginal people out there — relatives of Cadillac-driving welfare queens of the Reagan era, no doubt — wanting to commit voter fraud, and they’ve got to stop it, and if you don’t want to stop it as much as they do, then you don’t believe in having integrity in the process.
    Basically, I’m unimpressed by the holier-than-thou posturing from either side. And I get very tired at all the fuss over something that neither side can demonstrate is all that big a deal. Democrats can’t demonstrate that this is a great injustice, and Republicans can’t demonstrate that it’s needed.
    And yet, all this drama.
    While I’m at it, I might as well abuse a related idea: early voting.
    We’ve had a number of debates about that here on the editorial board, and I’ve been told that my reasons for opposing early voting are vague and sentimental. Perhaps they are, but I cling to them nonetheless.
    While Democrats and Republicans have their ideological reasons to fight over this idea, too, it’s a communitarian thing for me. I actually get all warm and fuzzy, a la Frank Capra, about the fact that on Election Day, my neighbors and I — sometimes folks I haven’t seen in years — take time out from our daily routine and get together and stand in line (actually allowing ourselves to be, gasp, inconvenienced) and act as citizens in a community to make important decisions.
    I’ve written columns celebrating that very experience, such as one in 1998 that quoted a recent naturalized citizen proudly standing in line at my polling place, who said, “On my way here this morning, I felt the solemnity of the occasion.”
    I believe in relating to my country, my state, my community as a citizen, not as a consumer. That calls for an entirely different sort of interaction. If you relate to public life as a consumer, well then by all means do it at your precious convenience. Mail or phone or text it in — what’s the difference? It’s all about you and your prerogatives, right? You as a consumer.
    Something different is required of a citizen, and that requirement is best satisfied by everyone getting out and voting on Election Day.
    With or without photo IDs.

This column is adapted from a post on my blog, which includes a lot of other commentary that did not make it into the paper. For the full experience, please go to thestate.com/bradsblog/.

Much ado about photo ID

The photo ID bill that caused such a flap in the House yesterday is one of those classic issues that partisans make a HUGE deal over, and which seems to me entirely undeserving of the fuss.

The way I see it is this:

• It's ridiculous for Democrats to act like this is some kind of insupportable burden on voting, even to the point of walking out to dramatize their profound concern. Why shouldn't you have to make the kind of basic demonstration of your identity that you have to make for pretty much any other kind of transaction?
• It's ridiculous for Republicans to insist that we have to have this safeguard, absent any sort of widespread abuse here in South Carolina in recent elections. Where's the problem necessitating this big confrontation with the Democrats? I don't see it.

Some of you defend parties by telling me that they legitimately reflect different philosophies and value systems. Well, when you scratch the surface and get at the values that inform these two overwrought partisan reactions, it doesn't make me feel any better either way. In fact, it reminds me why I can't subscribe to either party's world view.

Democrats believe at their core that it should be EASIER to vote. I look around me at the kinds of decisions that are sometimes made by voters in this country, and it seems to me sometimes that far too many people who are ALREADY voting take the responsibility too lightly. Look at exit polls. (Or forget the exit polls, just try going up to people on the street and asking them a few pointed questions about public affairs.) Look at what people actually know about candidates and their positions and the issues, and look at the reasons why they say they vote certain ways, and it can sometimes be alarming. Hey, I love this self-government thing, but it's not perfect, and one of the imperfections is that some folks don't take their electoral responsibility seriously enough. So why would I want to see the people who are so apathetic that they don't vote NOW coming out and voting? Yet that seems to be what many Democrats are advocating, and it disturbs me.

And beneath all that sanctimony from Republicans about the integrity of the voting process is, I'm sorry to say, something that looks very much like what Democrats are describing, although Democrats do so imperfectly and in overly cartoonish terms. There's a bit of bourgeois disdain in the GOP position on these things. There is a tendency among Republicans to think of themselves as the solid, hard-working citizens who play by the rules, and to be disdainful of those who don't have their advantages -- which Republicans don't SEE as advantages at all, but merely their due as a result of being so righteous and hard-working and all. There's a tendency to see the disadvantaged as being to blame for their plight, as being too lazy or immoral or whatever to participate fully. The idea is that they wouldn't have these problems if they would just TRY. What I'm trying to describe here is the thing that is making sincere Republicans' blood pressure rise even as they're reading these words. It's a tendency to attach moral weight to middle-class status. Republicans seem to believe as an article of faith that there are all these shiftless, marginal people out there -- relatives of Cadillac-driving welfare queens of the Reagan era, no doubt -- wanting to commit voter fraud, and they've got to stop it, and if you don't want to stop it too then you don't believe in having integrity in the process.

So basically, I'm unimpressed by the holier-than-thou posturing from either side. And I get very tired at all the drama over something that NEITHER side can demonstrate is all that big a deal. Democrats can't demonstrate that this is a great injustice, and Republicans can't demonstrate that it's needed. And yet we have to put up with all this drama.

GOP dark horse steps forward

This just came to my attention, and in keeping with my efforts to begin chronicling the 2010 gubernatorial election (because the sooner we can get a new governor, the better), I share it with you:

{BC-SC-Governor-Nelsen, 2nd Ld-Writethru,0320}
{Furman professor plans GOP bid for SC governor}
{Eds: UPDATES with quotes, details from Nelsen, Bauer. ADDS byline.}
{By JIM DAVENPORT}=
{Associated Press Writer}=
   COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - A Furman University political science professor announced plans Thursday to be the first GOP candidate to formally enter the 2010 race for South Carolina governor.
   Brent Nelsen says he'll file paperwork Friday to set up his Nelsen for Governor Committee and launch a series of economic summits around the state that aim to come up with plans to increase employment and spur economic development.
   Nelsen has never run for political office and said he wants to put into practice some of the things he has taught. He wouldn't say how much he expects to raise in the next six months to wage a credible campaign in a primary that most expect will cost millions to win.
   "I'm going to have enough money in the next six months to make a run for this," Nelsen said. "I'm not going to put a dollar figure on it."
   Republican Gov. Mark Sanford is limited to two terms and leaves office in 2011. His tenure has been marked by high jobless rates - at 9.5 percent in December, South Carolina had the nation's third worst unemployment rate.
   Other GOP candidates flush with campaign cash and with better-recognized names in state politics have said they're interested but not yet ready to announce plans. Attorney General Henry McMaster is interested but isn't expected to enter the race before spring. Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer said Thursday he's probably running, but is too busy for now to announce his intentions. U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett has begun lining up advisers for a possible bid.
   Democrat state Sen. Vincent Sheheen of Camden already has filed 2010 campaign forms so he can begin raising money, making him the only other candidate formally in the race for governor. Other Democrats considering bids include House Minority Leader Harry Ott of St. Matthews and state Sen. Robert Ford of Charleston.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Prof. Nelson isn't quite as viable a candidate as the subject of my Sunday column, Vincent Sheheen. Nor, and this is more to the point, as viable as the most active GOP candidate-to-be, Attorney General Henry McMaster. But I pass on this report nonetheless, so that you might make of it what you will.

For more on Dr. Nelson, I refer you to this piece he wrote for us recently, which appeared on our Saturday Online Extra on Jan. 17:

S.C. GOP must reform itself
By BRENT F. NELSON
GUEST COLUMNIST
The S.C. Republican Party is in trouble. If the party fails to seek new ideas and reach out to new voters, its dominance of state politics will end. It’s time to start a new debate within the party.
    Ironically, Republicans still look strong. The party holds eight of the nine elected state offices. Republicans control the state House and Senate by comfortable margins and have both U.S. senators and four of six U.S. representatives. Just as important, South Carolina remained “McCain red” in a presidential election that saw big gains for Democrats almost everywhere.
    But scratch the surface, and significant cracks appear in the GOP’s foundation. The most obvious problem is the dysfunctional relationship between the Republican governor and the Republican Legislature. To be fair, Columbia’s broken politics stems from a state constitution that hamstrings the governor, denying him the power to implement a coherent policy. But Gov. Mark Sanford has been unable — or unwilling — to employ the customary gubernatorial tools to shepherd his proposals through the Legislature. That Legislature is indeed overly protective of its anachronistic privileges, but he often uses that resistance as a pretext for political posturing of his own, rather than engaging opponents in a search for common ground. The party has gotten away with this petty bickering, but the state now faces the third-highest unemployment rate in the country, declining competitiveness and poor educational performance. Someday voters will notice.
    And Republicans face a cascade of worrying electoral trends. Only 54 percent of South Carolinians picked John McCain for president, down 10 points from Ronald Reagan’s vote in 1984. McCain’s showing is no anomaly but another point marking a rather steady decline for Republican candidates (not counting the three-way elections of 1992 and 1996). In the 2008 contest, the Republican vote dropped in 43 of 46 counties. Declines averaged 3.6 percent but were even greater (4.4 percent) in the 11 largest counties.
    The worst news comes from important demographic categories. In 2004 George Bush won every age group in South Carolina, including 18-29 year olds; John McCain managed to win only those 45 and older. Fifteen percent of African-American voters voted for Bush in 2004; only 4 percent chose McCain. Hispanic voters are too few in South Carolina to analyze, but Hispanics increased their share of the electorate from 1 percent in 2004 to 3 percent in 2008. Nationally Obama won 61 percent of the Hispanic vote, and South Carolina was probably no different.
    Is all lost for S.C. Republicans? Absolutely not — but the party must adjust to the new realities. Republicans must reach beyond white, married, religious voters — a shrinking base. To avoid becoming the next red state gone blue, Republicans must attract more young people, minorities and not-so-religious whites. Accomplishing this without losing the GOP’s conservative base will be tricky, but not impossible.
    Here are three suggestions.

-- First, the party must stress what it is for rather than what it is against. It is no longer enough to be against government, taxes, gun control, abortion, gay marriage and immigration. Uncommitted voters want to know the alternative. Republicans should focus on establishing the conditions necessary to “human flourishing.”
Strong government should establish clear boundaries for behavior and then stand back and allow responsible citizens to act freely. Public officials must identify the social causes of poverty and low educational achievement and work with churches and neighborhood organizations to strengthen families and their communities.
We need politicians who can find compassionate ways to balance the need for employers to gain access to hard-working labor, citizens to feel comfortable in their neighborhoods and immigrants to realize the American dream. Governments cannot make humans flourish, but they can make the necessary room for this to happen. That is a conservative vision.
-- Second, Republicans must reconnect with young adults, Hispanics and African-Americans. Many in these groups are social conservatives who fail to see in Republicans a concern for the economic and cultural issues important to minorities. Republicans must convince these voters that the party is committed to the flourishing of all South Carolinians.
-- Finally, the party must stop fighting and start solving problems. Education, enterprise and environment might be three places to start. The state must dramatically narrow the education gap between the richest and the poorest; it must regain its globally competitive position; and it must manage responsibly the natural beauty of this state.

    If S.C. Republicans focus on human flourishing and government that works, new supporters will help reverse the party’s decline.

Dr. Nelson chairs the political science department at Furman University. He is a lifelong Republican.

Well, that's a big releef

At 11:02 a.m. today, I received a release from Jim Clyburn's office with the following headline on it:

CLYBURN CALLS JINDAL’S BLUFF, HIGHLIGHTS HYPOCRACY

Then, at 11:33, I got the corrected version, which makes me feel so much better:

CLYBURN CALLS JINDAL’S BLUFF, HIGHLIGHTS HYPOCRICY

Still awaiting the next correction; I'll let you know when I see it...

Not that 'Morning in America' hubris again...

Just got this e-mail a little while ago from a reader (I guess it was a reader, anyway):

The headlines today said that McCain claims Obama "must" consult with the GOP on stimulus talks. That's not true, any more than saying that Ronald Reagan was required to allow Dems much input in his 1981 plans. On election eve 1980, even old democrats like me realized that the public had said no to government spending, said no to government meddling and no to more regulations. I believed the public was wrong, but also understood that Reagan's mandate was to proceed as he'd promised.
 
Thirty years later, Americans' have decided that we need government, government to stop us from dying from eating peanut butter, government to stop bankers from stealing from us, and government to provide jobs until the economy picks up. That's Obama's mandate, and to do anything else would be to back off from his promises. McCain is wrong. He and his party lost. Obama wants to be nice and extend an olive branch to the losers, but it is not necessary that he does so. What's necessary is he goes forward with his plans.

To which I felt compelled to answer as follows (slightly edited, as I read back over it):

Interesting you should mention 1981. I'm still ticked off that Democrats back then took just the attitude that you're calling for. Tip O'Neill and the rest said, well, Reagan won the election, so let's give him anything that he wants. This, after four years of that same Democratic Congress not giving Jimmy Carter ANYthing he wanted.

I'm still mad about it. I'm still mad about how the whole world just rolled over for Reagan. Much of the media was full of that "Morning in America" hoopla, and I felt like .... well, have you ever been the only person in the room who was not drunk or stoned, and everybody around you thought everything was just SO funny, and you just thought they were all very irritating? Not much fun, huh? Well, that was me in the Reagan era.

I don't feel that way this time. I sort of thought Reagan's win in 1980 was the end of the world -- not because I was anti-Republican, but because I had liked Jimmy Carter so much (I don't like him as much as I did then, but I really liked him then). I don't feel that way at all about Obama. Out of all the people running for president last year, McCain and Obama were my first and second choices. So while I'm sorry McCain didn't win, I'm glad Obama didn't lose. I'm highly ambivalent on that score.

But one reason I DO like Obama so much -- and liked him so much more than Hillary -- is that he IS about post-partisanship. (That's one of the main things I liked about McCain, too.) He's nothing like Reagan; he's far less the ideological warrior. And if he doesn't work with McCain (something which, to his credit, he's already demonstrated a willingness to do), then he's not the guy that a LOT of people voted for. I would expect exactly the same from McCain -- a willingness to work across the aisle -- had he been elected.

And I have little patience for Democrats who act the way the Reaganites did in the early 80s -- We won, so we'll do what we damn' well please. Unfortunately, I do hear that from some. Like "Morning in America" revisited. And I didn't like that triumphalist bull the first time, not one bit.

And if you don't care about bipartisanship, think about this: There's a good chance this stimulus will fail. There's a good chance ANY stimulus would fail. So how would you feel about it if, once the stimulus fails, the GOP recaptures Congress, and then goes around telling Obama and the world that "We won, so we don't have to listen to you?"

Far better that we have a stimulus plan that both parties buy into. It's a little late for that, but it WOULD have been far better. It's never good to have one of the two major parties politically invested in the nation failing...

(I'll add one more thought: I would not say that Obama "must" work with McCain et al. I'm just saying that to the extent that he can, he should. This is not to say that if you've tried to bring the GOP along and they've just refused and you truly believe your plan is the right one, you don't go ahead -- just as I thought it was right for us to go ahead into Iraq without France, Germany and Russia on board. But I am saying that if you can possibly swing it, bipartisan is WAY better for the country.)

Joe sez it's all that dope we're doing

The Sanford administration keeps looking for explanations for the fact that we have too much unemployment in South Carolina. First, when the Employment Security Commission ran out of money for jobless benefits (the function of the tax being cut awhile back, combined with -- duh -- dramatically rising unemployment), he said it's gotta be the ESC's fault; they must be inefficient or something.

Now, his Commerce Secretary's come up with an alternative explanation: It's all that dope. From the AP:

South Carolina Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor has added a new wrinkle to the nation's third-highest unemployment rate by saying drug use is keeping people from getting jobs.

Taylor briefed Gov. Mark Sanford and his Cabinet on today about why he pushed the Employment Security Commission to document why people are out of work and how frequently they claim jobless benefits.

Taylor says the state needs to teach people that failed drug tests will keep them out of work for months. He says recruiting businesses to places with high drug test failure rates doesn't help.

The commission's three members face a Monday deadline to turn over information to Sanford or risk being fired. Sanford says his office will review the data before he decides their fate.

South Carolina's jobless rate was 9.5 percent in December.

Call it the Michael Phelps theory...

Of course, this has the state spin cycle up at full throttle. I first heard of the Taylor comment when I got this response from the S.C. Democrats:

Fowler Calls for Apology from Sanford for Commerce Secretary Slurs

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler on Monday called upon Gov. Mark Sanford to apologize for Secretary of Commerce Joe Taylor's slurs against South Carolina’s unemployed workers.

According to The Associated Press, Taylor who Sanford appointed as Secretary of Commerce in 2006, told the governor and others attending his cabinet meeting Monday that South Carolina workers are having trouble finding jobs because of their drug use.

“Instead of looking for real solutions to our state’s unemployment crisis, the governor and his cabinet are flailing around desperately, looking for any excuse that will divert blame during this time of crisis. The Secretary of Commerce is supposed to be the state’s ambassador for recruiting new businesses, but Sanford’s pick has been a failure.  Taylor’s comments reflect Gov. Sanford’s desperation to distract attention from South Carolina’s deep unemployment problems, and demonstrate his own poor management skills in supervising the Department of Commerce, which is part of his cabinet,” said Fowler.

“Sanford would rather slur the reputation of South Carolina workers than own up to his own failings and risk his ambition to be president. He and Taylor seem to have no evidence backing up the accusations of drug abuse, they just throw it out there in hopes it will stick.”

South Carolina’s unemployment rate was lower than the nation’s almost every year from 1975 through 2000. But the state’s average yearly jobless rate has been significantly higher than the nation’s since Sanford took office. In December it stood at 9.5 percent – the nation’s third highest, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

I can't wait to hear the rest of this story...

(And no, that's not a photo of Joe demonstrating, a la Ross Perot, how drug use and unemployment converge on a chart. It just looks like it. That's a file photo.)