The Democrats have found someone to run against Sen. Jim DeMint in South Carolina. He’s against the health care bill, against the bailouts, against the stimulus, he considers himself a gun person, he used to be a registered Republican, and he voted for Lindsey Graham in 2008. So, if I’m living in South Carolina, why wouldn’t I just vote for the guy who has more seniority? Where are the contrasts? Chad McGowan doesn’t have a traditional issues page. Instead, he’s doing this gimmick where he will introduce one new idea each week for the year leading up to the election. For example, one of his ideas is to let Medicare Part D negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. Unfortunately, that idea got dropped in return for PhRMA’s support for the health care overhaul. My question is this: is South Carolina really so conservative that we have to run candidates who don’t support the president’s agenda? I know I don’t want to donate money if it’s going to go to a guy who doesn’t support health care reform.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Sure looks like the SC Democratic Party cleared the decks for Chad McGowan. There were three others testing the waters.
Right now there is only one alternative (long shot) candidate:
Mike Ruckes
That’s sad, because two of the other three candidates looked like good choices and had strong resumes.
Who were the other three? And why did they back out? Is the chosen one (inside joke) financing his own campaign?
Woops. My mistake. The candidates that I was thinking of were running for governor.
They are:
Dwight Drake, a lawyer from Spartanburg with a resume that indicates that he is the type of progressive candidate represented by his mentor John West, by Richard Riley, and in Georgia by Jimmy Carter.
Mullins McLeod, a progressive Democrat from Walterboro.
Jim Rex, the current State Superintendent of Education
Vincent Sheheen, a state senator from Camden and more traditional Democratic candidate.
Apparently, I was wrong. Instead of clearing the decks, they had trouble finding a candidate and came up with a candidate just enough to the left of DeMint to possibly win independents who have become uncomfortable with DeMint shrillness and loopiness.
My guess is that supporting Obama in SC would be the kiss of death re: obtaining white votes. Because he’s a socialist, doncha know.
Still, I doubt any Democrat, conservative or not would have much of a chance in SC. Not after 20 years of Fox News propaganda.
The only advantage I can see to having him elected would be if he always voted with the other Dems against GOP filibusters. Assuming he would do that, it would be a plus I suppose.
I would guess that you have stereotypes about the folks in South Carolina. The vote for Obama in South Carolina was 44.9%. Blacks make up 28.6% of the population. Obama got more white votes than you would imagine.
so whites make up 71.4% of the population and some 28.3% of the vote was black votes for Obama, Obama typically pulling 99% instead of the usual 90% of the black vote.
So that leaves 16.5% of the vote being white voters for Obama. So Obama drew 16.5/71.4 = 23% of the white vote, while 77% of whites voted against him. More than 3:1 against. We call that a wipeout in Illinois.
Actually it’s fewer white votes than I imagined.
Didn’t Edwards succeed here running as a populist? Can’t the party find another Edwards instead of a DINO?
Sexual shenanigans won’t matter if South Carolinians are anything like Virginians or Arkansans. It just reassures them that their Senator isn’t toe-tapping in airport restrooms.
So now you are changing course from before? He’s basically the Bobby Bright or Walt Minnick of the Senate. Is the Democratic Party in SC that weak? But you are right Boo. I’ll bet this guy doesn’t even pull 30% of the vote next year. This isn’t the way to build the party brand in SC.
I think he will be successful to the extent that DeMint gets crazy in the Bachman/Foxx sense. Even in SC, the GOP is going over the edge.
The SC Democratic Party is rebuilding from being written off during the Clinton and early Bush (the Terry McAuliffe) years. I guess it was a reaction to the failure of Don Fowler as a DNC leader.
Fortunately, the party brand is being built on the governors race and legislative races, not on this Senate race.
Sanford might have given SC Democrats a gift if they can take advantage of the disorder in the GOP.