Friday, The State reported that Sen. Vince Sheheen’s gubernatorial campaign made a few erroneous endorsements in a list sent out last week. It’s an easy enough mistake to make, which is why we wonder why campaigns put out lengthy endorsement lists. There always seems to be a cock-up one way or another.
In the story, Rep. Anton Gunn, who was included as one of the endorsers, said, “I haven’t endorsed anybody. I’ve got my own [re-election] race to concentrate on. I’m not mad [at Sheheen's campaign staff]. I know it was an honest mistake.”
The best part of the story was reporter Gina Smith ironically making a mistake of her own. Several times, she called Sheheen campaign manager Trav Robterson “Trav Roberts.”
Trav Roberts, Sheheen’s campaign manager, is taking the blame.
“This was an oversight on my part,” Roberts said Thursday. “We got very excited that nearly 60 percent of Democrats in the House and Senate were endorsing Vincent. Blame it on an overzealous campaign manager.”
Roberts would not discuss how the list was put together. He noted, even with the six Democrats removed from the list, a majority of Democrats at the State House are backing Sheheen.
But hey, it’s the Friday before St. Pat’s. Everybody gets a mulligan, right?
Oh, this is fun. MoveOn.org, Brave New Films and the Service Employees International Union went live with a Web site to have some fun with Fox News’ “crying man,” Glenn Beck. Turns out, he has it out for us. Oh noes!
You would think that Democratic candidate for SC-02, Rob Miller, would have taken some good lessons from his 2008 campaign against incumbent U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson. When he announced again, it looked a lot to us like it would be similar to Beaufort architect Jane Frederick’s second run against the late U.S. Rep. Floyd Spence. He’d pull some votes, but wouldn’t significantly challenge Wilson.
Last fall’s fun and games infused both campaigns with an insane amount of money for a South Carolina race for Congress. Miller now has more money than Democratic Sen. Vince Sheheen, who actually has to run a statewide campaign for governor instead of just one of six districts. Capitalizing on his buzz, Miller has been traveling the country to raise money and making the best of his Internet fundraising.
But other than that, his campaign has largely been a low-key affair. So, it came as an interesting revelation to see the report and fallout from Miller’s appearance at a meeting of the Greater Irmo Democratic Club. From what we’ve been able to gather, the Club invited WIS to the meeting, then there was a brouhaha about who ordered the WIS cameras be kept out.
After a couple days of thinking about this, we consider it Miller’s, or his campaign’s, fault. The woman who spoke for the GIDC, Joanne Hafter, said in a story by WIS, “I just want to set the record straight, neither I or anyone from GIDC made the decision to exclude the media, especially after we invited the media in the first place. It was Rob’s campaign manager who was adamant about not having press coverage.”
We actually met Ms. Hafter years ago, when we went to school with her daughters. Between the person we knew (however briefly) and the person we don’t, we’re siding with the GIDC on this incident. After all, we’ve been alerted to other screw-ups with the media committed by the Miller campaign.
When you’re the underdog in a district that skews against your party, you have to be very careful about what your campaign does, who it courts for support and how you manage your media exposure. Common sense would say that Miller would have known this already. Doesn’t seem like his campaign figured that part out.
Several months ago, news came out that the Major League Baseball team that has a lifetime contract with Satan, the New York Yankees, reached a deal to play host to a bowl game in the new Yankee Stadium. Already, the Yanks had been brokering deals to bring in regular season games with teams like Notre Dame and Army, in a desperate attempt to get Beano Cook to return their phone calls (they love you Beano — they didn’t mean what they said about 1950s Syracuse).
ESPN, the main generator of the out-of-control growth of bowl games in the past 20 years, has signed on to broadcast this massive mistake. Dec. 30, outdoors, a bowl game in New York City. Between the No. 3 Big East team and the No. 6 Big XII team, after BCS selections. RATINGS BONANZA!
And, oh, did you know what the official name of this steaming pile? It’s the..
Future generations will look back at such an abomination and rightly call us all idiots.
To keep up with everything going on around South Carolina (and Alabama, Alabama football and Alabama softball), we rely on Google Reader. It’s a great tool to use to find out what’s on blogs and in newspapers on a regular basis.
But, one thing we’ve complained about al.com’s feed is that it’s all child molestation, murder, fights, electronic bingo and other wretched topics. This evening, the following one-two punch landed and we’re beginning to wonder if the human race just, very honestly, sucks at life.
It’s almost like an old-school rap feud — you hear something once in a while, and you have to go to niche places to learn about it. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and ESPN writer/podcaster/”voice of the fan” Bill Simmons do not like each other. At all. And before you say anything — no, no, it has nothing to do with politics. They’re both liberals. It has to do with competence and being an asshole. Which one is the better representation of a rectum is open to interpretation.
We like Olbermann, except when he gets on those pious kicks that are better left to blubbering doughboy Glenn Beck. Also, his verbal tick of referring to people he’s ripping (e.g. Mr. Simmons) with a perfunctory Mr. or Ms. or whatever is clearly sarcastic, overdone and not cool. We like Simmons except when he goes on and on about the NBA (he wrote “The Book of Basketball” for chrissakes) and his dumbass contemplations on betting lines for the NFL. Why, yes, Bill, I do want to listen to you and Cousin Sal go over this week’s picks, and which one of you can predict the line, for a fucking hour. That shit is disrespectful to the Subway Fresh Take Hotline. On a related note, we also like Tony Kornheiser, who completes the trifecta of current and former ESPN personalities other than Chris Berman that people seem to love to hate.
So, Olbermann’s reflecting on Simmons and his rise within the Mothership, said regarding the Sports Guy and his column comparing Tiger Woods to Muhammad Ali, “In the interim I am again left to marvel how somebody can rise to a fairly prominent media position with no discernible insight or talent, save for an apparent ability to mix up a vast bowl of word salad very quickly.”
Simmons hit back with Tweets, one of which read, “KO, please know the feeling is mutual. You’re my worst case scenario for my career in 12 yrs: a pious, unlikable blowhard who lives alone.” He later mentions cats. As we’ve lived alone with a cat, twice, we’d have to say it’s not bad. Being an unlikable blowhard is a part of being a commentator, especially about politics. Getting high-and-mighty about Dick Cheney is pretty irritating. Of course, Olbermann responds that Simmons doesn’t have room to talk about blowhardedness. The man from Boston yaks about a few topics for a few hours every week in his podcast, but his trespass is his writing. He generated more than 700 pages on pro basketball.
Of course, he wanted to call the massive tome, “Tuesdays with Horry,” which we could get behind, if only for the title.
Olbermann did put the hammer down on the career comparison, however:
I am surprised, however, to be able to shed some light on something that has been a prominent topic of late around the internet: the prospect that Mr. Simmons is leaving ESPN. Admittedly I am something of an authority on this process. Nonetheless, I was stunned to receive several emails from some of Mr. Simmons’ bosses there, thanking me for pointing out the absurdity of, and the embarrassment to ESPN provided by, the Woods/Ali comparison.
About five years ago, I guess, somebody said Tony Kornheiser was the most uncontrollable, unmanageable talent in the history of ESPN. I was, of course, crushed (although I believe I got honorable mention). When ESPN bosses are writing me for helping them about somebody they claim has now lapped Tony and myself, I am left to conclude only that if Mr. Simmons does leave ESPN, it may not be entirely of his own choosing.
BURNED!
Now the eyes of a nation turn back to Simmons to see him compare Olbermann to the person he most dislikes in the most recent Real World/Road Rules Challenge.
As many people are well aware, Virginia Sen. and former gubernatorial candidate for the Commonwealth, Creigh Deeds, has a special place in his heart for the Drive-By Truckers.
And while it’s great to hear that Deeds is such a big fan of groups like the Drive-By Truckers and The Band, having your candidate for governor tweet about how he’s listening to the bands while on the road, as opposed to thoughts on topical issues, is not a good idea, either. According to the study, over a three-month period, Deeds tweeted about music 39 times, and talked about his transportation plan – a major issue in Virginia — once.
Turns out, Nick Hornby — writer of High Fidelity, About a Boy and Fever Pitch loves DBT as well.
Drive-By Truckers are intelligent in a way that I really appreciate as a writer. They’re just guys being smart in their own space: guitars and drums and big choruses. It’s been done before, but they do it well. I’ve been playing Brighter Than Creation’s Dark a lot.
The second edition of “Happy Hour” occurred this week, sponsored by Ragley Public Affairs (thanks for the drinks, J-Dub). The guest for the evening was former The State vice president and editorial page editor Brad Warthen. Then we decided to show up, doing our best to string along a rum and Diet Coke for about 15 minutes.
Well, how about that. The new Wink hit the virtual newsstands this week, containing inside it all sorts of Spring fashions. For women. But, hey, all is not lost fellas. Like we did in the first issue, we went calling on Carolina athletics again for a good story.
This one is about Jack Easterby, head of the USC Fellowship of Christian Athletes and an advisor to the Gamecock men’s basketball team. It, eh, it ain’t bad. Check in on Page 22.
We don’t know if it ran statewide, but this morning there was an interesting ad running on Fox News in Columbia. While we were generally ignoring the television — background noise is a necessity for the Information Generation — suddenly the talk on the flickering screen commanded our attention.
It was an advertisement for U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett, one of the “big three” candidates for governor. It was responding to a statewide ad buy by the rather secretive “independent” group, Americans for Job Security. The ad talks about Barrett’s conservative leadership in the House, among other things.
Here’s the kicker, though — the ad was paid for by Barrett’s Congressional campaign. Or, that is, funds from that campaign account. Seems a little strange, but the AJS toady that was interviewed by the press said their ad was about his time in Congress, not his gubernatorial campaign, so hitting back with money from the Congressional account makes some sense.
