It is disappointing to see, across the state, that after our SC politics has descended into another installment of the freak show to which both parties have contributed, that the media has finally decided to pay attention to the campaign for the Democratic Nomination for US Senate.
Image, right Vic Rawl (red tie) with supporters at campaign kickoff. He's standing with two African American members of the legislture and a candidate for Congress, Robert Burton on the right, who also lost to planted opposition.
There was a time, before the primary, when it would have mattered and been to the benefit of everyone, Republican and Democrat, to explore the issues of this campaign. Rawl sat for extensive interviews with many newspapers prior to the primary. Rawl deployed an extensive, issue oriented website.www.vicrawl.com Press releases were sent out two or more times per week. The campaign made over 80 public appearances. Rawl put over 20 thousand miles on his vehicle in 3 months. Virtually nothing appeared in print.
Only two newspapers, The Columbia Free Times and the Rock Hill paper, devoted any real attention to this race. Only Corey Hutchinson of the Columbia Free Times went to Manning to find out about Greene.
You can read today's detailed report about the Primary and its results in the Columbia Free Times. It's longer and more detailed than any other report, anywhere. http://free-times.com/...
There is also a new report by a group of Lowcountry Democratic Activists which visited green and attempted to work around his limitations and issues. Meeting Alvin Green
On election day, Rawl's website had 10 thousand hits. Clearly the interested public hadn't been informed. I personally spent the weekend before the election going door to door for Rawl and the other legitimate candidates. Many voters didn't even know there was a Demcoratic Primary on Tuesday. All of them wanted to know the if and who of a Republican candidate for governor's sex life, which had filled pages of Newspapers and hours of air time.
The system of voter engagement in South Carolina, which involves the political parties, the candidates, the activists base, the media and (over the long term) the education system, has not been working.
What was really important prior to the primary was Candidate for Governor Nikki Haley's sex life and all the other bizarre acts in the serial freak show, most of which was provided by Republicans: Argentina, starving children, Michelle Obama as an escaped zoo animal, "ragheads" and several other acts. Reporting on who had how much money and who won the last poll rounded out most of the work of the press. The issues and the future of our state was largely unexplored. Maybe no one cares and the surviving media is just trying to keep the lights on.
Today, South Carolina's newspapers should be asking the Republican candidates in next week's runoff for Governor hard, head to head questions about the budget, school vouchers and jobs. Not fluff, but what would you pay for this and how would you pay for it? How would you tax? What would you cut? That isn't happening.
We do, however, have State Senator Knotts telling the world, with the cooperation of the press, that South Carolina is a state of rednecks. Economic development officers in other states are making sure they save that for future use against us.
A meaningful exchange of ideas between DeMint and Rawl might have produced a Republican victory, but it wouldn't have humiliated the state and Rawl would have put DeMint to his proof. That was something the entire nation needed. Greene will humiliate the Democrats with the help of the press and the Republican party. There is plenty of blame to spread around and almost no hard information to support its just distribution.
I worked with hundreds of people who volunteered for Vic Rawl. Voting for or against him would have been a meaningful decision based on his biography and stands on the issues.
It's nice to see Vic on MSNBC, but it would have made for vastly better politics if that had happened a month ago.
South Carolina is stepping off a cliff. A press and voting public which can do no better than this will have problems the shrinking number of people working in both parties to sustain positive, issue oriented politics can't fix. I have said goodbye to dozens of my friends over the last 25 years who were leaving the state. The good people left, Democrats and moderate Republicans are exhausted and heart broken. Meanwhile millions of dollars in right wing out of state money pours into our politics to support the most extreme agendas. It finds plenty of takers. http://stophowardrichsc.blogspot.com/
The media assumes that whoever has the money matters. It seldom bothers to read the FEC reports.
South Carolina will be left with statehouse sex, Knott's proud celebration of rednecks and Mr. Greene hanging up the phone. Nobody outside South Carolina needs that and they'll take their jobs and investment elsewhere.
It's important to get to the bottom of what happened in South Carolina. The consequences to the entire state are significant. No sane person would want to see anything like this repeated. Even responsible Republicans should understand that an irrational politics produces bad results.
Plenty of people will suffer and plenty of them will be punished. Unfortunately, they will mostly be the decent people who showed up, worked hard and tried to make a difference.
This is South Carolina now, but we're merely the most extreme expression of what shorting a population on education, cutting budgets for everything and letting the real standard of living of ordinary people drifts downward will do.