Ending political debates: A modest proposal

Back during the Republican gubernatorial primary campaign, after one of the many debates someone asked us if we watched. Internal response was, “Why the fuck would we?” External response was, “No.” It might have had a little bit to do with the candidates, but a whole lot to do with the office and level of political polishing. For most debates for higher office, they’re totally stone-cold boring and contain no new information. Just a competition to see who could most artfully chop up their stump speeches into timed segments. So let’s kill the debates.

Most of the presidential debates, and they began in the summer of 2007 for chrissakes, were just exercises in waiting for the freak candidate to say something weird or drinking games for people who find it hard to get obliterated without rules and points. In races with a lot of people, many candidates say very little and even less of actual import. They would be better served with covering themselves with bumper stickers and turning about for the cameras.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Vince Sheheen decided to a new twist on an exceptionally old trick — did the staff get high and approve this? — by challenging GOP nominee Nikki Haley to fucking Lincoln-Douglas debates. A whole mess of ‘em! And stories were written far and wide. This comprises the vast majority of all action regarding debates. Candidate A proposes something a little out of the ordinary. Candidate B says bah to that. Then so many news stories. It’s just a method to generate news coverage. As a result, most of the people who actually give a damn are those who are directly involved, and nobody else cares.

In that way, more than 90 percent of all political debates between candidates are little different than the presidential nominating conventions. No, they’re actually very much worse. Conventions have political memorabilia to buy, the occasional famous person sighting, entertainment by famous people (this applies mostly to Democrats, or to your definition of “famous”) and those wonderful hospitality parties thrown by big corporations and special interests that have the open bars and free food. Debates, even high-level debates, don’t come close. The best swag you’ll bring home is a press pass bought off some writer at the hotel bar. And about 90 minutes of sheer boredom.

Lower ballot race debates could be worthwhile, but if you’ve had to sit through multiple city council debates or watched State House candidates go at it in some back room in BFE with 11 people attending, you’d agree that the news value is negligible. Columbia would be better served by having the city candidates debate in front of the Metro desk reporters and save everyone else the trouble.

But here’s the connection between the debates and the conventions: as former DNC chairman Don Fowler taught us at Carolina, conventions never help a campaign and if they have effect, it’s bad. Fowler pointed to RNC ’92 in Houston and his own DNC ’88 in Atlanta as examples. The same goes for the debates. They’re only particularly newsworthy and have an effect on the campaign if somebody seriously fucks up, as in George H.W. Bush in ’92 in Richmond (looking at his watch) or Al Gore in 2000 (le sigh).

Discussions, like among the Pub Politics crew or the fabulous C-SPAN broadcast of William F. Buckley and George McGovern from several years ago are different matters altogether. People sitting down with different points of view and talking about them can elicit interesting commentary and analysis. And jokes that aren’t pre-scripted. Operatives, former pols, reporters who are allowed an opinion — Lee Bandy at the Dan Rather thing in ’08 was great — these are people close enough to the action to really know what’s going down, but removed enough to actually say something worth listening to.

But these candidate debates, they’re moribund, they’re out cold. It’s toe-tag time.

Posted by Wes Wolfe on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 3:59 pm
Filed under 2010 Constitutional Officers Races, 2010 Governor's Race, 2012 S.C. Republican Presidential Primary Race, Featured, Front Page, S.C. Democratic Party, S.C. Government, S.C. Republican Party, SC House, SC Senate, U.S. House, U.S. Senate · Tagged with Debates, Election '10, Elections, Nikki Haley, Vince Sheheen

Dems try to put on a good face for elections

The approved one-sided story. It’s not an everyday occurrence, but not unusual for your average daily newspaper. Like, say, The State‘s story today on the elections. Put that one through your noggin: you have to write a story about Democratic prospects in November from the perspective of the Democrats (and one Republican), while trying not to make it sound like a news release. Pain in the ass. However, stepping away can give you some insights.

For instance, how state Democrats are putting the best face possible on an election cycle that could end up as a spectacular failure. The first thing the average person would look at is the Alvin Greene debacle, added to the inability to run a full slate of statewide candidates who are properly funded and have a puncher’s chance. Independent gubernatorial candidate Morgan Bruce Reeves has received more press than several statewide Dems. So what do you do? Play up the four with a chance and hope for the best.

Democrats have put up a field of candidates for statewide office this year the party thinks is as strong as it has had since the days the party dominated South Carolina.

Robert Barber, Ashley Cooper, Frank Holleman and Matthew Richardson represent a long-sought mix of fresh faces and new ideas the party has been longing for, say political observers.

Add to that combination a good dose of political competency, youth and experience, and the party thinks it is onto something in the fall.

Sometimes you just have to put on your best face and keep on trucking. Certainly those four are good candidates. They might even have had a chance in a state that is trending a tad more purple, like North Carolina or Virginia. In 2006 or 2008. But this is 2010, a Republican year in a Republican state. So many members of the GOP want to run for office, the primaries were jumping.

Competitive primaries, far enough out from the general to allow a closure of ranks, get your candidates’ names out there and gets the party voters energized. It says a lot about the political climate of South Carolina that so many Democratic nominees were uncontested and that known quantities decided not to get close to many of the races.

Posted by Wes Wolfe on Monday, August 23, 2010 at 6:11 am
Filed under 2010 Constitutional Officers Races, 2010 Governor's Race, Featured, Front Page, S.C. Democratic Party · Tagged with Democrats, Election '10

Haley email release pointless

Rep. Nikki Haley‘s release of her legislative emails on Friday was disappointing on several different fronts. From what we know about legislators and their emailing habits, most, if not all, are extremely careful about doing nothing but official business through their legislative accounts. Despite the special exception the General Assembly has given itself in regard to releasing said emails, there can be a strong case made in the court of public opinion to have such emails released if it’s deemed to be in the public interest. Across the country, most other communication media owned by the government and used by government officials and staff are up for public examination. Just ask Houston Nutt about the incident coming from extensive text messaging from a University of Arkansas-owned cell phone.

And with Haley, the intersection of her transparency crusade and two very believable allegations of sexual indiscretions obviously led to a request for emails from her legislative account, exceptions be damned. But Haley bollixed it up from Day One, especially with Democratic nominee Vince Sheheen releasing so much information that about the only thing he didn’t do was invite the public to view a live colonoscopy. When you’re marketing yourself as Ms. Transparency, getting positively owned by your opponent on exactly that issue doesn’t look so good (not that it’ll matter in the long run to voters, who are giving her a break on everything). So, after relentless pounding on the issue, she finally gives in. Sort of.

Reporters could view the emails, but — NO COPIES! NO CAMERAS! Lordy. For an account that one wouldn’t expect to have much, anyway, the campaign’s straight-up paranoia is telling. It also gives a feel of the amateur. In effect, the campaign was saying, “Here, we’re going to do the least possible to get you off our ass and quit looking into this.” Not exactly what you’d expect from the transparency candidate.

We know that if you’re going to do something as an official, you do it from your personal account. This is something even the general public realized after the brouhaha surrounding Gov. Mark Sanford last year. If someone really wants to know what’s been going down, they need to get into Haley’s Yahoo! account. Otherwise, this is all academic.

Posted by Wes Wolfe on Saturday, August 21, 2010 at 10:11 pm
Filed under 2010 Governor's Race, Featured, Front Page · Tagged with Affairs, Emails, Larry Marchant, Nikki Haley, transparency, Vince Sheheen, Will Folks

The slippery, sliding South Carolinians

In light of what Sen. Hugh Leatherman wants to do with capping tuition increases, it’s funny to think about the sort of world that would happen if the S.C. Policy Council would get its way. After all, the SCPC has seen little of any government – public sector – spending that it likes. And it seems to have a hard-on for defunding all public education in South Carolina, whether it’s K-12 or higher ed.

Now, we’re pretty sure of our audience. We’re pretty sure y’all trade in argumentative fallacies, logical fallacies, the sort of ways about speaking of one’s position that are easily broken apart by level-headed thinking and basic common sense. But those arguments are the bread-and-butter of politics. They’re what you’ll see in handouts, mail pieces, advertisements, stump speeches and stand-up comedy routines.

So let’s have some fun with the Policy Council.

One big player this year, and probably in the GOP presidential primary race, is former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Newt’s a big fan of alternate history, along with writing partner and author William R. Forstchen. Let’s do a bit of alternate future, aye?

Beginning, the SCPC gets what it wants. Government in South Carolina, as we knew it, is gone. No statewide law enforcement, regulation, everything. The Palmetto State falls into “failed state” status as much as we all learned in early-level political science classes. The federal government, fed up with our antics and devoid of S.C. federal officials who will cooperate with the federal government, gives up on us. We devolve into a weird combination of post-1992 Somalia, 18th century Russia and plutocratic rule and a theocracy.

South Carolina does have a government, at its basic form, but it’s really strange. Ceding to people who have been involved, we have multiple capitals. Amalgamated Industry & Agriculture, the corporate group that handles everything dealing with money and commerce, buys the State House complex and handles disputes in Columbia. The rest of the United States and the world consider this the “Commerce Capital.”

A strong band of armed social conservatives claim part of the power vacuum for itself, establishing a ruling order in the Upstate to handle every vice and everything you do with your naughty, naughty genitals. Originally located in Greenville, a breakaway, fundamentalist group establishes a new religious government in Spartanburg. So now you have two groups of statewide religious police checking up on you. Be careful, brother.

The Grand Strand is ceded to North Carolina, and Hilton Head is ceded to Georgia. Too many people were having trouble figuring how to work Yankee-heavy areas into our new combination of free markets and religious fundamentalism. Yankees who feel like they belong apply, and are given permanent resident status, as long as they absolve all fealty to the Big Ten, the NBA and anything regarding to sports north of Baltimore or west of Austin. Being a hockey fan is considered a capital crime.

Congress, working slowly but worked into a frenzy because of the developments, sends Georgia and North Carolina national guard units to run border patrol. Initially, powered by Twitter and Facebook, many moderates, liberals, intellectuals, artists and other sorts took off for Charlotte and Savannah before the borders close. Rural residents and sportsmen who know the border regions and are friendly to criminals who become known as “RINOs,” “Democrats,” “educators,” “reporters,” “musicians,” “good-time Johnnys” and “those who are too big for their britches” are under special scrutiny from the Upstate moralist squads.

As the situation unfolds from the mountains to the river, Charleston figures out what’s up, organizes a government unto itself and rejoins the United States, a historical irony by itself. A city-state of a fashion, the Commonwealth of Charleston maintains its connection to America, but with an independence that befits the Holy City and its denizens. CC takes within its bounds all of Charleston County, and parts of neighboring cities and counties. The Jasper County port situation, to put it mildly, becomes a little more complicated. And by complicated, we mean issues with all-powerful corporations, multiple governmental entities and firearms. Wait – nevermind. That’s exactly how it is now.

Oh, the more things change….

Posted by Wes Wolfe on Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at 4:48 am
Filed under 2010 Constitutional Officers Races, 2010 Governor's Race, 2012 S.C. Republican Presidential Primary Race, Featured, Front Page, Governor Mark Sanford, Media, New media, Now for something completely different, Other news, S.C. Democratic Party, S.C. Government, S.C. Republican Party, SC House, SC Senate · Tagged with

Ariail, Haley and the S.C. Policy Council

When former The State editorial cartoonist Robert Ariail took a new job with The Herald-Journal, we thought it was a good thing for an accomplished guy and a nice move by a newspaper that is perhaps not going down the path of running a mid-size daily paper with the staff of a 7,000-circulation weekly. But what of the recent past? Ariail had joined up with the S.C. Policy Council for a little while, working with the half-baked but excessively well-funded The Nerve.

And that’s the rub. On July 18, Ariail went live with the cartoon above, which got more that a little bit of play for showing Rep. Nikki Haley in a burqa. After discussing the piece with friends, we decided that was perhaps not the best way to go. At the very least, it might be considered more than a little insensitive considering Sen. Jake Knotts‘ publicized ill-timed remarks.

But the Policy Council and Haley are tight, as she is with all of the little satellites of the disintegrating Sanford cabal. When the cartoon came out, though, we don’t remember hearing a peep out of the SCPC or anything from the Haley campaign drawing attention to the Policy Council’s association with Ariail. And yet, the following passage went out from a Nerve email on Wednesday.

The Nerve wishes cartoonist Robert Ariail the best as he begins his new venture with the Herald-Journal in Spartanburg. Ariail, who was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, has been a great asset to The Nerve over the past several months. We’ve all enjoyed hearing his clever ideas and seeing him turn his thoughts into brilliant sketches. We are looking forward to seeing this gifted artist’s continued success.

Interesting.

Posted by Wes Wolfe on Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 5:49 am
Filed under 2010 Governor's Race, Featured, Front Page, SC House · Tagged with Election ’10, Nikki Haley, Robert Ariail, S.C. Policy Council, The Nerve

Sheheen brings on Shock for general election

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Vince Sheheen brought on a new member to his campaign, hiring former Jim Hodges campaign manager Tim Shock. According to Sheheen head man Trav Robertson, the campaign has been staffing up since the end of the primary campaign. It never hurts to bring on someone who got a Democrat elected statewide not named Tenenbaum or Rex.

State and national Democrats are increasingly confident about Sheheen’s chances. The state Senator has courted the business community while also working to exploit a rift between Haley and establishment Republicans anxious about her fiscally conservative agenda.

A national Democratic official told CNN that Shock will bring an air of seriousness to the campaign.

“He’s an old horse but really knows his way around campaigns,” the official said. “He isn’t too flashy but will ensure Sheheen has a professional and structurally solid campaign.”

Democrats familiar with the race insisted that the hiring was not a campaign shake-up, but simply an effort to staff up ahead of a competitive race.

We’re a little disappointed with the reaction from Rep. Nikki Haley‘s campaign, saying a career politician hired a career political insider. Would it then be preferred to have a candidate with no experience hiring a high-level staffer with no experience? Would that work in any other sector in the world? “Yes, certainly — this main over here has never dealt with running a major steel company, but he did do well as a low-level manager. Kick that gentleman upstairs, and make this intern his vice president of operations.”

Guys, you can do a little better in your PR operation. The stock responses have to come out well-formulated and better organized. Can’t keep throwing that cheese as we get closer to November.

Posted by Wes Wolfe on Friday, July 23, 2010 at 8:24 pm
Filed under 2010 Governor's Race, Featured, Front Page · Tagged with Campaign staffers, Election '10, Jim Hodges, Nikki Haley, Tim Shock, Vince Sheheen

Howard Rich returns, Pt. Three: The Democrats

Perhaps seeing where the power lines are drawn, or simply making a few selections, Howard Rich’s support of Democrats was a little anemic, but still interesting. We enjoyed the obvious support of Sen. Robert Ford’s gubernatorial bid, and the only dollars to a senate account we could find — Darrell Jackson.

ROBERT FORD
Democrat, governor, lost primary
Contributions: $23,542.15
(In-kind: $3,491.15)
Expenditures: $67,836.28
Cash on hand: $33,972.28

Significant contributions
123 Lasalle Associates, $3,500
Howard Rich shell company
123 Lasalle Inc., $3,500
Howard Rich shell company
Rich Lending Corporation, $3,500
Howard Rich shell company
Leon Howard, $200
State representative
Clementa Pinckney, $250
State senator
Kent Williams, $250
State senator
SCRG PAC, $3,492.15
School choice organization
188 Claremont LLC, $3,500
Howard Rich shell company
Terry Alexander, $350
State representative
Gerald Malloy, $500
State senator
Darrell Jackson, $500
State senator